Everybody needs good neighbours!

The week's mission report should start with a big shout out to all the great neighbours out there. On arrival at our mission, "Lovely Neighbour" was waiting for us outside her house to tell us that unfortunately Mrs M had had another visit, this time by two men claiming to be from the water board who forced their way into her house. Mrs M was a little nervous about opening the door to people so Lovely Neighbour wanted to ring the bell to introduce us and help Mrs M to be more comfortable.

Not only that, after watching last week's mission team make such a huge difference, Lovely Neighbour had her own mid-week "mission"! She managed to get rid of all the weeds from one side of the garden and took all the debris (6 bags from the mission plus all the ones she filled) to the tip. Now that is a lovely neighbour!

This week's mission team decided to prioritise the side of the garden that hadn't yet been touched. We had loads of tools from both Mrs M and Lovely Neighbour which meant the Kim-high weeds and seriously overgrown grass was going to be no problem at all. The weeds needed a good yank to get the whole root to come out but Suze made light work of those and prepared the roses for the winter by chopping back the ones that had finished flowering. Kim got her hands on the strimmer and started hacking through the grass.

Mrs M came to check on us part way through the mission and pointed to a strip of weeds and grass leading to a back gate. Under those weeds, she said, there was once a path. So we set about trying to find that. After about 90 minutes the patch that we prioritised was under control and, lo and behold, there was in fact a path just where Mrs M had said there would be one.

Whilst we got heaps done, the stand out moment of this mission was not the work we did but the chat we had with Mrs M and Lovely Neighbour. Neither could believe a group like Good Gym existed and that making a referral for help could be so easy. They both offered their most sincere thanks and praise for the team which was got us right in the feels. Lovely Neighbour was quite emotional about the whole process.

Hopefully we'll return to have a look at Mrs M's back garden as that's equally overgrown. Until then, we can leave knowing we made a bit of a difference. Two weeks ago Mrs M's living room was in darkness because of the overgrown garden but now the sun streams in and she can read in daylight. She can wave to her neighbours when they walk past for the first time in years. We also uncovered a ruby red rose that was planted for her and her late-husband's 40th wedding anniversary. Right in the feels :)