The Garden of Earthly Decays

"Ah, professionals!" said Mr J seeing us coming to his house.

"I'm afraid we're just volunteers", Sevan tried to be humble.

"I'm only joking! Anyway, you look strong, like mountain heroes!", replied Mr J.

Hearing that kind of encouragement we were ready to tackle Mr J's garden which needed trimming the grass and digging out decayed plants and weeds.

Sevan stuck to the tiny spade and deep squat throughout the most of task, digging out the roots of the weeds - even strawberries and mint which Mr J didn't feel like keeping. Sevan didn't even stretch his legs after he tidied the concrete path to sweep it. His hamstrings and ankles are made of steel! Kash wouldn't be able to squat for a fraction of the time Sevan did it. Besides, she was after the big wins.

I want it all, I want it all,
I want it all, and I want it now

She turned over the soil on one of the beds with a fork and cut the grass with the strimmer. In between those tasks she found some old rose trimmings that needed snapping and bagging.

"Ouch!"

"Take my bramble gloves" offered Sevan.

"I have my bramble gloves. I'll use them."

"That's a good idea."

"But wait, that's your idea!"

When it came to packing away the cuttings, we discovered that the black bags Mr J gave us weren't as heavy-duty as the label promised. Quite the opposite - it took much less time to rip them than to open them!

"That's the first time I'm triple-bagging!" - Sevan.

The rescue came in no time. First, Mr J found an enormous, strong bag that lasted us till the end of the task and was very heavy when Sevan was carrying it outside to throw it into the bin. But that was not the end. Suddenly, Kash saw something that looked like a bin bag climbing the fence from the outside and thought she was hallucinating. Then she saw the face of a neighbour who gave them two heavy-duty bags. In the end, they were not needed but no one knew that, so Mr J soon came with something that looked like a dozen various bin and carrier bags.

When the mission time ran out, Mr J was pleased with how much work we had done. He said that the previous group of people tending to his garden needed a whole week to get it into shape. We stopped with half of the garden covered and Mr J asked if we could come tomorrow to finish it. We explained that GoodGym doesn't work like that but assured him that if he could book a follow-up, we or other GoodGymers would come to finish the job.

Mr J wanted to reward us for the work with a little tip but we refused, reminding him that we are volunteers. When he insisted, saying that we cannot live off the fresh air and do the work for nothing, we referred to what Mr J had said before - in his words:

"You're very strong. You don't need to go to the gym when you do this. This is your gym!"

Mr J grasped the idea of a GoodGym workout very well, so Kash convinced him that he was letting the GoodGymers use his gym and equipment in exchange for the garden makeover. That argumentation seemed to work!

"There is one casualty. The little spade." admitted Sevan at the end.

Mr J was not too worried about it, saying that nothing is made to last forever. Kash was strangely relieved knowing that for once it was not her breaking the tools.