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Walking on flower beds

I need to walk on my flower beds to get to weeds and deadhead. I've put bricks down to stand on but they're not ideal. Bit small, get a bit lost when mulching, and get in the way of the hoe.
How do you guys walk on flower beds?
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With great trepidation - the Shady Bank is quite high up - I just look for spaces to put my feet and hope for the best - I only have to do it to get to the climbers at the back - the rest I can just about reach if I stretch - as long as my back's behaving.
My difficulty is getting down from the Shady Bank - I'm sometimes stuck up there until OH comes to rescue me
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It is a bit of a problem Supernoodle. We used to have a leylandii hedge and they were cut to ground level so I use the stumps as stepping stones at the back of the border but have to walk on the soil in other places I don't really like doing it as it is heavy clay soil which never seems to dry out. I have been wondering what other people do too.
In high summer it would not be possible to get access to several of my borders without leaving a scene of complete carnage. This is a great excuse for not weeding until stuff starts to die back.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
How do you guys walk on flower beds?....
.... Very carefully!! Tried working off planks in the spring - did more damage with them to emerging plants than my feet & (not inconsiderable) weight would do to the soil. Right now there is so little space between my plants that there's only odd bits of space for my size 5's!
I just accept that I need to push through if I'm going to keep on top of dead heading & weeding but try not to walk around too much. I then fork it all over as I retreat backwards to the lawn.
Always mange to tread on a treasure though.....
Unfortunately my soil is clay. Sounds like there's no obvious solution. The bricks don't stop the damage- since they are foot sized - but my thinking was that at least I step in the same place each time. Do you think that's helping or am I kidding myself?