On Monday night GoodGym Islington regulars Graham and Steve and Haringey wanderer Julie met with the rest of the Islington group run crew before quickly parting ways and heading to the task.

Mr. R has had his allotment, just around the corner of his house, since 1980. This is longer than any of the three of us have been alive. He needed a little help with it as it’s proving a lot of work these days. Sometimes missions are about hacking back jungles of weeds, but Mr R is pretty on top of things and he really appreciated the help with a little weeding, tidying, turning over some soil and giving the veg a very, very good watering to counteract the sizzling dry summer.

Mr. R has had a tough week and really appreciated the chat and connecting with the three of us. That’s another part of what makes missions special. He told us about the different harvests he’s had from the plot over the years, what delicious things were attached beneath the different kinds of leaves we could see, and dished out some delicious gooseberries and horseradish.

In no time at all it was time to tidy what we’d done, carry the tools back to his house and finish up a lovely chat on a thankfully slightly cooler evening. By chance we ran into the Islington team on our way back and shared a warm-down and stretch outside the Arsenal stadium.