I really enjoyed helping weed around some hedging plants by Hogsmill and then removing some bramble from Kingston Cemetery to help improve and protect habitat for yellow meadow ants. Beautiful weather, good company and worthwhile tasks.

From Alison of Kingston Biodiversity University Group 'Thanks to Good Gym and a great task along the Hogsmill yesterday. This included: painting the benches; removing flytipped rubbish; cutting up discarded debris; and weeding around the hedge that was planted last year. When finished we went into the cemetery to take the young bramble growth off the yellow meadow ant mounds. There are two pairs of grey wagtails nesting along this stretch of the Hogsmill, its a good place for house sparrows and we had a good view of a great spotted woodpecker in a young ash tree.'

The clue was in the name: Kingston HILL campus. My word, what a hill - and with some bonus hills thrown in for good measure whilst finding the task, we were well and truly cream-crackered by the time we arrived. Luckily, the KUBAG (Kingston University Biodiversity Action Group) had laid out a plethora of goodies for us to refuel on, including some Ritz’s to un-cream-cracker us and mince pies to add a touch of festive spirit.

Sivi from KUBAG gave us a health and safety briefing, which happened to include a lesson on “correct digging with a fork” technique, made all the more relevant to us by linking it to possible running injuries. For once, we were a captive audience in a health and safety briefing! We were happy to see our Berrylands Nature Reserve friends and the geocaching team that had also been lending a hand, and were keen to hear all about the new Berrylands orchard project - I feel a new community mission may be getting lined up 😉

And so to the task: we were using the correct fork technique to dig up the roots of brambles and then yank them out of the ground. The aim is to then make way for new saplings to be planted on KUBAG’s next volunteering day on the 1st December, when they will be planting...drum roll please... 260 saplings!!! Each with their own tree guard!

The soil was the good soil that lets you dig easily, but the brambles had other ideas. We’d think we’d set one free for yanking out but would be led on a trail to find the end of it. We ended up tying ourselves in knots of brambles, being attached to brambles (thanks Kate for setting me free!), and going on never ending root-yanking walks in circles. You may be noticing a certain theme of food featuring in our community missions, and this was no exception: we found the technique of serving up giant forkfuls of bramble-ghetti, followed by making its accompaniment of twig-and-bramble-balls.

We toiled into the sunset, with Sivi making sure that she snapped us in front of the moon to prove this. After we’d carried the giant bags of brambles to the compost heap and tidied away tools, we relished some mince pies and gratefully took away some offerings of fruit and biscuits - thanks Sivi!

Then there was only one thing left to do: back to THAT hill (although much less traumatic as only a little bit uphill and mostly all downhill on the return leg - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!)