I think the only way to get rid of the brambles is work at digging them out and constantly keep on top of them! The clearing is the hard part - lucky youre nighbour's let you borrow tools. I'm sure you'll get a stock of tool supplies as you go.
My advice is to stick to your big plan - sommetimes we get caught up in the small things. I know when we started ours we had a heap of small sections rather than looking at big picture, which makes us laugh now!
Yeah, I think we'll follow the digging way hehe :) Some other people also told me about salt but I will first try by hand.
We're definitely lucky, all of our new neighbors are super gentle and this is really good thing !
I completely agree on your last advice, for me, a garden must follow a global plan and the first thing is to do the tracks, everything will come by after all :) I would be curious to see more of your garden, maybe you can eventually send me some on Discorde hehe
I wish you a lovely day dear 😘