The wind from yesterday’s Royal wedding was definitely sticking around this morning when I met the lovely Steph for a mission, but in combination with the sun, it made for lovely weather for spending outside for a mission.

After a late change to our originally assigned mission, today’s task was primarily to weed Mrs D’s garden, with an option to also lop some branches from a tree if there was time. This mission was needed as Mrs D has limited mobility and isn’t able to tend to her garden in the way she used to. As a result, it’s become a bit overgrown and is difficult for her to enjoy safely.

As we introduced ourselves, Mrs D exclaimed that we could see for ourselves how bad the weeds were and to get rid of whatever we needed to. This is exactly the type of carte blanche I dream of for gardening tasks!

The garden certainly was full of weeds, but nothing Steph and I hadn’t tackled before. We naturally fell into our preferred roles in which Steph went high (trimming overhanging leaves, branches and an infinite amount of brambles) while I went low (weeding, rooting, and scraping moss). We were very happy that Mrs D not only had a gardening bag well-stocked with handy tools, but also had both regular bin bags and heavy duty bin bags that Steph used for the brambles. The amount of joy I derived from the presence of these two types of bin bags was incalculable.

Half way through the task, Mrs D popped out to offer us some well received refreshments. I particularly liked that she made the tea using a whistling kettle as it reminded me of childhood holidays. As we rested for a minute, Steph and Mrs D chatted and we found out that Mrs D has lived in her house since the 1930’s! She has lots of good memories of being in her house and garden and chatting with her neighbours.

Before finishing off the task (in total filling around seven large bags in two hours), as we hadn’t been able to lop any branches in the time available, Steph took the time to check that the long manual lopper was functional for the next GoodGymmers to go (it was). Job done for the morning, we made our GoodGym goodbyes to Mrs D, leaving her to sit outside and enjoy her newly de-weeded garden 😄