Blisteringly Good!

Mrs P's place was not the easiest to find but luckily I bumped into the local postie who knew her and pointed me in the right direction. He said he was on his way there shortly so if I was still lost he would rescue me - no need as he gave good directions! The manager let me in and my bike was parked in the communal living room - some of the other residents were surprised to find it there when I returned to collect it!

Mrs P has not long moved in and she has a pretty patch of garden just outside her flat that needed digging over so she can pop in some plants and grow some new grass. The ground was super hard being a mixture of soil, clay and lots of stones. Mrs P had garden tools as well as a rubber mallet - I wasn't sure how that was going to be of use :) I got stuck straight in to the big dig but was immediately worried - how much progress could I make with a garden fork and my dodgy knees!?

Mrs P was fab company and stayed with me the whole time which I loved. She was so lovely and chatty! Mr A who was equally chatty and who lives next door soon arrived and, apparently feeling guilty for watching me working, started to help with some other garden jobs. His own patch of garden is looking rather splendid. Before long I had the telltale sign of stingy hands and hadn't noticed I'd been making a bumper blister after forgetting to put on my garden gloves. I'd been so distracted with chat of Led Zeplin, bike packing and hedgehogs!

Much more digging and much more chatting later, I'd dug over the full patch. Mr A then helped put in some wooden edging - now the mallet made sense! A GoodGym mission isn't a GoodGym mission without finding some treasure - lots of little plastic bugs that had come from some old garden lighting which we saved and hopefully will have a home somewhere in the garden. I forgot to take a 'before' picture but as it was digging soil it didn't look much different in the 'after' picture but Mrs P was very pleased with the results.

After checking I had enough water and waving me off, the lovely Mrs P went back inside and I set off on my cycle home. It's hard to steer a bike and brake without using blistered palms (now with added blue fluff from my gloves), as well as needing the loo from all the tea!

Apart from my uncomfortable journey home, it was such a nice way to spend a sunny afternoon.