We had the power and took the lead but the brambles got the better of us all

Rob’s first mission! And what an eventful one it was!

First things first, we all had to check with each other: did we really cycle past somebody walking a giant pig on a lead?!! "Yes?!!! You saw it too?!!!" How random!

A little flummoxed after the pig incident, we greeted Ms B and caught up on how she had a new boiler since our last mission to set the time, checked out what she was watching on TV and then cast eye on our mission: a massively overgrown garden, overflowing with brambles, grasses and thistles and the path no longer visible.

Thistle be tricky without any tools!

Samia had brought her secateurs but the only other tool available was a strimmer and the brambles seemed to giant to risk that. Oh, and a rake we borrowed from next door.

After starting out by trying to yank the growth out with our hands and Samia snipping at brambles, we decided to investigate the strimmer and found it to be a much sturdier, hedge trimmer. Kate got to work on trimming through the forest of brambles and grasses, with Rob picking up the damage and attacking the thistles.

Getting into the swing of it on our mission - we had the power 💪 pic.twitter.com/jh8E8q6ty0

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) July 13, 2019

Then it was Rob’s turn and, after his warm-up with just brute force, he completely destroyed the most ridiculously prickly and huge thistles with the trimmer.

We had a slight issue in that the brambles were so thorny and the bags too thin for anything to be bagged up, so decided to create one gigantic mound of cuttings for a repeat bagging-up mission once Ms B has arranged for some stronger and bigger bags.

And then Samia’s turn and more brambles defeated. We were almost back to Kate’s trimming turn when..... OH NO! Samia turned around and cut through the lead which had become buried under the overgrowth. And it had blown the fuse, interrupting Ms B’s TV watching and stopping her fan. We found the fuse box and set up the TV so that she could resume watching it, but unfortunately the fuse in the extension lead had blown so the fan had to be rehomed to the wall socket. And unfortunately the lead couldn’t be salvaged mid-mission and will need a trip to a repair shop. We apologised profusely and explained that we’d let the office know and they’d be in touch, and were relieved to see that Ms B was at least pleased with the transformed view into her garden.

Three runners from @GoodGymKingston went on a mission to help an older adult with their gardening - check out the before and after shots pic.twitter.com/HYhGo2Fx1c

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) July 13, 2019

Sorry again to Ms B, it was a very unfortunate accident - but we hope that you can at least enjoy some more space in your garden and hope that the trimmer can be fixed and the mission completed.

Massive well done Rob on your first mission!