Bushchucker Trials

A duo of tireless, sweaty GoodGymers with plenty of kilometres in their legs and a junior parkrun for breakfast showed up at Mrs and Mr J's garden on late Sunday morning. Many could be intimidated by the sight of very tall thick grass burned by the August sun, but not Sevan and Kash.

When they announced their arrival by pressing the doorbell, Mr J emerged unexpectedly from the door at the back of the house. "Did you bring scissors?", he asked. What we thought was an innocent joke turned out to be an omen. When Kash inspected the strimmer, she discovered that the nylon string line is missing. Mr J was somewhat prepared for that and produced a fresh strimmer line pack. In the meantime Kash dissembled the bottom of the strimmer and removed the remaining old line and got stuck there.

In the meantime, Sevan was making good progress with cutting a large bush in the front garden when he was interrupted by Kash. She was looking for an advice on the strimmer line but Sevan knew roughly as much as her. After fishing out some instructions and scissors from Mr J and a few attempts by Kash to find a hidden hook to attach the strimmer line to, level-headed Sevan did a silent risk assessment. "If we don't manage to get the strimmer working, what can we do?", he asked. "Cut the grass", Mr J replied. "How?", Kash said, giving him a puzzled look. "With the lawnmower", Mr J responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. For all the time Kash was put into the time-boxed test to solve the strimmer puzzle, there was another option in the back garden!

Without hesitation, Kash took the mower. Sevan was already back on the bush cutting job, trying different angles to take down the most of the trunk until he realised he needed to break the problem into smaller pieces. The bush was quickly stripped just in time for Mr J to show up to give Sevan instructions on how to dispose of the branches. "Just chuck it into the bushes!", he suggested, pointing at the council-owned land behind the fence. "We cannot do that", Sevan responded, "We don't break rules at GoodGym". "Just chuck it into the bushes", Mr J appeared not to notice Sevan's objection, "The council will take it". Sevan remained adamant. "This is the council's land and we are not allowed to drop anything there.", he said.

Kash heard bits of the conversation over the whirr of her lawnmower and was wondering whether the debate will take longer than her unsuccessful attempts on replacing the strimmer string line. Meanwhile, Mrs J showed up and offered the GoodGymers conciliatory water in glasses with exciting designs: dolphins and Father Christmas. Both brought the sensations of something cool and refreshing like an ocean or the North Pole, so much welcomed on a hot summer day.

After the drink and brief small talk with Mrs and Mr J, Sevan busied himself with removing the tall weeds and grasses to make space for Kash to use the lawnmower.

It didn't take long time for Mr J to come back to the front garden and take a look at the cut bush left on the path. "Just chuck it into the bushes", he said. Sevan objected politely but firmly and Kash, whose lawnmower got stuck a that moment, seconded him. Mr J remained oblivious to Sevan's argumentation for quite a while but decided to negotiate. He suggested to cut the bush into even smaller pieces and fit it into the garden waste bin. Sevan and Kash could no longer use their work ethos as an argument but the green bin capacity seemed to be quite limited after they have already squeezed so much grass and weeds inside. The GoodGymers used their tested and tried technique of using Kash's weight to compress the green bin contents while Sevan assured the health and safety of the operation. When Kash emerged out of the bin, having reduced the contents by a half, Mr J gave her a puzzled look. "Are you a lady?", he asked Kash who looked even more puzzled. "Well, I am a woman", she announced eventually after some thought, "Not sure if a lady". She found it hard to assess whether the true ladies jump into the green bins. "These days you never know", Mr J said meditatively.

Sevan remained practical and evaluated that the bush, which he moved away from the path, still wouldn't fully fit with the rest of the green waste, so he threw into the bin only as many branches as he could.

Mr J had a solution for that: "Just chuck it into the bushes!". Sevan gave Mr J the final explanation why he and Kash are not allowed to fulfil the request while on GoodGym duty. After a small talk not related to bushes, the GoodGymers said their goodbyes and left Mr and Mrs J with their bush not reconciled with the bushes on the other side of the fence.