A-lie-in

A mission at 9 am far away from home is exactly what you need on Sunday after a late night. Two Ealing GoodGymers were assigned to run in the morning to Hounslow to investigate a potential distress signal. After jogging roughly 7 miles each, Science Officer Sevan and Navigator Kash landed in front of Mr R's house. A quiet, warm-hearted older gentleman emerged from the door and invited the arrivals into his home. Before entering, the Ealing officers put on protective face wear to fend off any creature springing out of nowhere and attaching itself to their faces.

Mr R, supporting himself with a cane, slowly led Sevan and Kash through the corridor and kitchen to the back of his house, where they encountered an outdoor surface paved with slabs. There was a large shed at the end of the area and a small overgrown flowerbed to the right. The GoodGymers inspected the shed and didn't find anything threatening inside. They picked up a few tools that would help them in further investigations. Mr R returned to the safety of his house, trusting that the Ealing team will do their job.

The Science Officer started by examining the plant pots in search of unusual specimens. All the little plants that should not occupy the soil appeared alien to him, so he collected all the samples and left only the lifeless big plants in the pots. Feeling sleepy after his previous day full of botanical projects, he started thinking about returning to bed. The only one available was the flower bed which didn't seem comfortable at all. Sevan pondered for a while on the issue of removing the invasive vegetation from the flower bed. "You know what solves this problem?", he said finally, "A saw". He went to the shed and returned with the right tool to cut off the thick branches coming from the neighbour's garden.

Meanwhile, the Navigator, not possessing any skills to help her identify any dangerous flora, was scraping a layer of moss off the concrete slabs, hoping to discover ancient script underneath that would solve the mystery of Mr R's back garden.

After cutting off some of the neighbouring tree branches and giving up on others, Sevan decided he will make a real difference by ripping the weeds and dried grass off the flowerbed. During the process, he uncovered a large colony of round objects he identified as garden snails which he scooped with a spade. He didn't know that another creature was concealed behind the vegetation until it jumped out of the grass. Sevan was quick enough to dodge its attack on his face. He tried to come closer to the critter but it quickly ran away. The Science Officer told Kash, who was supposed to write the mission report, that it was a frog, but the truth about the incident would remain uncertain.

After 90 minutes of investigation, the team decided to wrap up and collected the samples into two green waste bags and one rubbish bag which Sevan moved to the front garden. Mr R mentioned that the council is not going to remove the bags anyway, so the Science Officer suggested him some options. The beneficiary remained very quiet but he seemed satisfied with the results of the GoodGymers work. The Navigator, thinking that another crew could be assigned to help Mr R with the rest of the plants wanting to move from neighbours' to his garden, mentioned that he could contact his referrer about it. Having said their goodbyes, Mr R likely returned to his TV screen, while Sevan and Kash headed up North to encounter more GoodGymers and more missions.