Brent

Mission

The Wembley Chain Saw Massacre

2 GoodGymers made their way to help an isolated older person in Brent.

  • Sevan
  • Kash
 
Saturday, 8th of October 2022

It was a sunny October afternoon when Sevan and Kash realised that the days got visibly shorter and that wearing shorts for the missions became less practical. To shake off the feeling of autumn coldness on their legs, they jogged from Ealing to Wembley to help Mr A with his garden. Mr A was a mystery. It was his wife who opened the door and led the team to the sunless, wet back garden, filled with stone statues and an atmosphere of volatile tranquillity. It didn't look like a trap, full of stuff that would try to kill a pair of senseless GoodGymers. Not yet.

Mrs A's wife pointed to the shed where Sevan and Kash found several more or less promising tools, including a battery-powered lawnmower, a collection of saws, two wobbly ladders and two hedge trimmers - one deadly, the other not charged. Mrs A wanted the GoodGymers to cut the grass, the tall hedges and the rose bushes. The tools wouldn't cut it though.

While Mrs A and her grandson hurried to find the extension for the hedge trimmer, Kash decided to give the lawnmower a go. The mowing quickly became frustrating. The engine kept switching off and Kash kept checking whether the wet grass was the culprit. After liaising with Sevan, they discovered that the lawnmower was losing power as it was almost out of battery, just like the cordless hedge trimmer.

With the lawnmower out of the game, the GoodGymers set their sights on the second hedge trimmer. The tool didn't get good reviews from Mrs A's grandson. Sevan put an RDC plug between the power socket and the extension cable for protection, and Kash switched on the trimmer. It didn't produce any sparks, which was encouraging. Trimming too thick holly branches with a tool that may or may not switch off when required, while standing on a not-too-stable ladder did not seem like a good idea even for adventurers like Kash. She and Sevan decided to let the dodgy hedge trimmer go and use the shears instead. This report could have better references to the chainsaw massacre should they have chosen differently but they preferred to keep their heads and hand attached to their bodies to write more fun reports for you.

While Kash filled the garden with the scent of the bay leaf she was cutting, Sevan stepped onto the second ladder to prune the exceptionally tall rose bush that started to resemble a rose tree. He followed Mrs A's instructions very carefully and did everything to trim the unruly stems to the right height. Where the secateurs didn't work, he tried out multiple saws, some making more spooky noises than others. His effort to cut off one of the thick branches which was clearly too tall was not welcomed with enthusiasm by Mrs A. Sensing her disappointment, Sevan almost had his "falling down" moment (Michael Douglas style rather than dropping from the shaky ladder). He stepped down from the ladder and started stuffing the bin bags with garden waste to calm himself down, so Wembley got away today without its madman terrorising the town. Afterwards, Sevan returned to the task and followed the updated version of the instructions from Mrs A.

The last request from Mr A's wife was trimming the wild branches of a tall hedge in a narrow area on the other side of the garden. Kash picked up that task to add some new scratches to her battle scars collection from the day. In the middle of that job, the neighbour asked her to come to the other side of the fence to exterminate the wayward branches coming from Mrs A's garden. Having only 10 minutes of the mission left and unsure about her qualifications, Kash refused the request with utmost politeness.

Despite the rose trunk incident and almost 30 minutes in total spent finding cables, trying out not charged cordless devices and risk assessment of the dangerous tools, Mrs A appeared very grateful for everything the GoodGymers did during their mission. With their body parts still intact, Sevan and Kash set out on a journey to find more adventures and challenges that afternoon.

Report written by Kash


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