On Fridays, Magdalena Gomez gets up early.
By 7am, she is stepping out of her flat in Tower Hamlets, quickening her pace to grab a coffee before her day begins. From Monday to Thursday she works as a project manager at a lighting design consultancy in bustling Holborn but, on Fridays, Gomez’s office walls are replaced with lush trees bearing hazelnuts, junipers, ivies and irises. ‘Most weeks I’ll get there early and water the medicine garden in the nature reserve with a friend, before getting breakfast together on the site,’ she tells me. Gomez, 41, has been volunteering at Phytology, Bethnal Green’s nature reserve, for more than 14 months since her employer implemented a four-day week across the company. ‘Since then I’ve gained a new community of people around me,’ she says. ‘And I’m learning. I’ve found a new home there.’
