Bramble in the Jungle!

Good afternoon goodgymmers! Today 3 intrepid runners (Peter, Leonardo and Mridula (me)) ran to Ms. J to clear some weeds in her very large garden. Ms. J suffers from dementia, so her very kind son was on hand to help us out and show us the ropes around the garden.

I arrived at the flat with Peter, and observed three very shirtless men who appeared to be going in and out of the garden we were supposed to be clearing. Now whilst this I would normally take this opportunity to admire these fine examples of human beings, I felt slightly territorial and didn't want them doing the job we were there to do. I don't really know where being possessive measures on the ethics meter of goodgym. Fortunately for us, they were clearing a different section of the garden and there was plenty of work to go around.

We were presented with a massive pile of brambles to clear up, and we immediately thought we could just yank they using our garden gloves for protection. However this being shorts weather, and the three of us being the delicate flowers that we are, soon realised that yanking was not the way to go. There was a lot of shrieking from being scratched (Leo and Peter) and swearing like a trucker (me). We decided on a different approach and found a surprisingly effective (albeit rusty) pair of hedge clippers to cut through the brambles and preserve our good looks and dignity.

We cleared a large part of the brambles however, we had to turn it into mulch to be able to dispose of it. Peter, being the beefcake that he is, began aggressively mincing the brambles with the hedge clippers to make it easier to load into the bags. We (naturally!) segued our conversation into the art of murder and body disposal. Now normally I'm the one who freaks people out with my murder talk, but as it turns out we had a surprise expert in our midst. Peter began to give us an extended lecture, on how and what should happen and how if you did it right, you don't really need a murder room. As Leo and I gave each other slightly scared eyes and began to back away, Peter told us his knowledge came from watching ten years of CSI. Phew. We also discovered in this time that Leo was a Doctor.

We had cleared a large part of the surface of the weeds, but there was grass to be mown underneath. Peter started mowing the lawn using a kind of wheelie technique with mower in order to get at the longer blades of grass. Whilst we thought he was just attempting to be the boy racer of lawn mowing, it turns out he wasn't just trying to look cool. He was trying to avoid getting the lawn mower clogged up. When it did get clogged up, he threw made health and safety officials everywhere weep, and cleared it out with his bare hands. I suppose if you are going to do that it is handy to have a doctor about in case you accidentally chop off a thumb. But on regular missions without medical assistance on tap, please consider another option.

An hour and a half later we were done! We had cleared away 8 bags between the three of us, but there is definitely more to do! If you have a weekend going spare, perhaps you will return to complete what we started. Till next time folks!