A classic urban hedge-end

After yesterday's oppressive heat, it was good to feel a breeze in the air as I met up with Laura and Jody for a mission in Barnet for Mrs M. Laura gained a shiny new badge on her profile from running 10km for the first time to get to this mission! Epic stuff!! 🎉🎉🎉

Mrs M has a large front garden, but she's found that it's become a little overgrown as her mobility has decreased. In particular, she'd become distressed at the idea that her overgrown hedge was leading to an increase in the number of bogus callers. GoodGym were asked if we could help out with this.

After giving us a warm welcome, Mrs M passed us her gardening tools and we got to work! In addition to the hedge, we asked if we should also clear some of the weeds in the garden and trim back some of the foliage: although, like most people, Mrs M was anti-weed, she was definitely pro-foliage, and so we promised only to cut back the bits that were immediately overhanging the path 😊

Our remit clear, we spent a satisfying 80 minutes or so trimming/weeding. Laura, in particular, looked very natural wielding the loppers at the hedge, and yielded a straight-line finish that would have shamed a spirit level. As always, the conversation was as on-point as my deweeder, covering podcasts with unsearchable titles (which are presumably also unmentionable in run reports), and the reading matter I spotted in a Surbiton charity shop yesterday following a community mission ("Open marriages" and a "Peanuts" guide to the Bible were located right next to each other. Amusingly, and perhaps appropriately, Jody misheard "peanuts" while I was telling this story... 🤣)

Mrs M was very happy with our work, and commended us all on Laura's handiwork with the loppers. We accepted Laura's praise as our due, and made our adieus to both Mrs M and each other.

Jody, Laura, hopefully see you on at the social next Thursday, or on another GoodGym thing soon! 😊