Jammin': Blackberry Jam

Kash and Sevan started the day at Mr S' house, where they had been once before, last month. They headed into the back garden for the mission briefing and were glad to find the swing seat that they'd relocated last time was still standing and hadn't sunken into the ground.

Mr S' daughter asked us to weed the back garden and remove some invasive brambles - both tasks we'd done during our last visit - plus to collect and move some rubbish into the front garden for collection.

We tackled the rubbish first, sorting through bitumen roofing panels to find which could not be saved and then we moved on to gathering pieces of wood from around the garden. Getting rolled up bitumen panels through the house needed military precision, which we lacked, but instead we had plenty of good luck and made it through without damaging anything.

We then bagged up all of the small pieces of wood, then found 2 long planks. Without a saw, we weren't sure how to break them into smaller pieces, then we had a genius idea. Raising one end of the plank, then stamping in the middle. As the team's pocket rocket, Kash jumped at the chance. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, the usually quiet Mr S piped up with some sage advice. We took it and a few minutes later, we had 7 smaller planks and a super pumped Kash after her hero moment.

After the highs of chopping wood, we moved onto the more day to day tasks of removing weeds and cutting back the brambles. Kash got stuck into the weeding, while I tackled the spiky stuff with some very protective gloves that a fox had been nibbling at, making my right hand a bit less protected. Mr S' daughter told me to be careful as their blackberry bush was giving fruit and it looked quite similar. We both got sped through our tasks and soon had a pile of garden waste.

At this point, Mr S' daughter realised that she didn't have any rubble bags as the brambles would rip the regular garden waste bags to shreds, so went out to find some, coming back empty handed a bit later. We ended up double bagging and trying our best to protect our legs on the way out of the house.

As we were about to leave, we were offered some blackberries and rosemary from the garden to take away with us, which we turned down. What we did accept however was the offer to donate, so we directed them to the GoodGym website. Something that Lil' Kash and 7 Pence would be proud of.

No blackberries were harmed in the production of this report.