Line of Beauty

'Who's there?' asked a childlike voice when we knocked on Mrs J's door. Her great-granddaughter appeared in the doorway and let us in. Mrs J wanted both of her gardens done today. We started with the backyard where we found a pair of loppers and a strimmer. The length of the strimmer's power cable was no more than 10 cm. Oops. We asked for an extension and, after some explanation, Mrs J sent her great-granddaughter to open the toolshed door for us. We found there a lawnmower with a detachable cable. Bingo! In case you wondered whether we took the mower, the answer is no - we borrowed the power cable. Maybe we should have taken the lawnmower.

Without consulting each other too much, we assumed our default roles: Sevan on the trimming and weeding and Kash on the strimmer job. We both had our moments of trial. If Kash had found Aladdin's lamp in the tall grass she was cutting, Sevan would ask Genie for a pair of thick gloves that could protect him from the thorny brambles. Kash would wish for a strimmer line that doesn't need fixing every 5 minutes. If she could steal the third wish, she'd hope Genie could get them a rake.

After over 90 minutes of intense GoodGymming, with 60% time spent on work and 40% on troubleshooting, we gazed at the garden to look for signs of beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. The back garden was not quite there yet, but its wildness was definitely more tamed, with shorter grass and weed-free paving slabs.

On our way out, Mrs J came up with a new request: could we trim the bush in front of her house? Uh oh. Apparently, it was important. We agreed to have a look at the bush and assess whether it's a quick job. Kash thought it belonged to the easy-peasy category. Sevan was more sceptical - and he was right. Kash underestimated the time needed for packing the trimmings. She still enjoyed the act of cutting the branches and its irreversibility. Mrs J didn't come out to see the bush with its radical new haircut, but she was thankful for the help. Before we took care of the overgrown plant, Mrs J thought it was terrible. We are pretty sure we couldn't go worse than that, so we'll count the bush pruning as a bonus success story today.