A challenge was waiting in Mr R's garden, a petrol mower. It had "Easy Start" emblazoned on it, which may or may not have been true. Mr R claimed it was better than his previous model

"Let's see how good you are at starting" - Mr R

There was only one way to find out. A minute later, partly burned exhaust fumes were wafting around the garden. Nice work Honda (and Kash)!

Kash began mowing the lawn and Mr R had a surprise for Sevan, a well stocked shed containing plenty of tools including a battery powered strimmer. Mr R wanted everything in the flower bed nearest the house to go, which would be Sevan's job. Grass, bushes, bluebells... everything was to be strimmed to the ground. Looking carefully, there were hidden dangers. Statuettes were lurking amongst the plants and needed to be removed before chopping started.

The strimmer was good with grass, so-so with thick bluebell leaves and no good with bushes, so Sevan went back to the tool shed to get some shears and secateurs. In this case, the manual tools worked better. Sevan chopped everything down to size while chatting away to Mr R about his sporting past, the history of the area and Laurel and Hardy, who Mr R was a big fan of. To Kash, they looked identical to characters called Flip and Flap. Mr R said that Kash and Sevan reminded him of the slapstick duo, but who was Laurel and who was Hardy? 🤷

With the main jobs complete, Kash went bramble hunting to clear them from flower beds at the back and sides of the garden, with Sevan joining at the end to complete the task. They were good at starting and good at finishing, leaving Mr R happy with his garden. Success!

Ms J had moved into her new flat without lifting a finger. She had been in hospital recently and her best friend had found a team of movers to pack Ms J's belongings, label them and dot them around her new flat. Most of Ms J's belongings were still in boxes, but her priority was getting her TV working as it was lonely being at home with only her cat Coco to keep her company as she was still waiting to have her broadband connected.

Ms J's friend said that the TV was working right before Sevan arrived, then started showing a black screen with no channels available. As this was the most important thing to do, Sevan took a look and it was confusing. After 20 minutes, he figured out that someone had switched it away from the Freeview channels to another TV mode that looked almost identical 💡📺. With that mystery solved, it was onto the unpacking.

Ms J had some essentials that were top of the list to find. Firstly, her electric blanket as her illness left her feeling cold all the time and next up was her razor. It wasn't mentioned at the start, but Sevan found that Ms J was interested in any cosmetics that he found in boxes, so they probably completed the top 3.

When Sevan started to open the large boxes to find Ms J's hit list, he found that there was nowhere to empty the contents to. The flat didn't have much storage, so he rummaged through each box trying to find useful things then put everything else back in the box. Some adhoc storage was created by stacking a couple of empty boxes on their sides to make temporary cubby holes and they became quickly filled with shoes, so it was back to repacking.

The electric blanket was found quickly as it was big and furry. The razor on the other hand was elusive. The boxes in the bedroom were mainly clothes and linens and after exhausting those, it was time to root through what was left in the living room. Eventually, after being foxued on finding it for most of the task, Sevan found a razor shaped thing which, it turned out was missing its head and its charger. It was the old one apparently, so the hunt went on until Sevan ran out of time.

Always a fun mission helping out the TRAID crew.

Thanks to everyone for your help!

I cycled over on a beautiful sunny Saturday and met Mr W's son who was very welcoming and explained the tasks. The council had recently been to clear the debris and contents from a broken down shed but the area still needed clearing of leaves, weeds, rubbish, rocks and bricks. The second task was levelling around the edge of the garden with soil as there was a trench. With a shovel and some core strength I managed to fill in the trench and get it all leveled. Mr W's son was very grateful and explained the plans to build a new shed soon. Oh and bonus - cute cats!

Mr R had two jobs for me today: trimming three rose bushes and chopping down two trees. I started with the easy win, cutting back the largest of the rose bushes, and emerged victorious from the battle with that thorny subject.

Hungry for a greater challenge, I had a rummage in Mr R's superb, even if a bit worn, shed. I wanted to cut down that tree! I tried three different saws (out of six that were in sight) that looked like they were designed to cut through wood. All of them were equally rusty, and I went as far as a quarter of the way into the tree's trunk. While I was in denial that I got stuck, Mr R came to the garden and asked how I was doing.

I admitted that the saws could have been a tad sharper. Mr R pointed me to the shed and showed me that there were more saws on the cupboard, which was taller than me, so I hadn't noticed those tools before. Bluntly speaking (pun intended), none of the three other saws would cut it (pun intended again). Mr R then reached for his ultimate weapon, which he had used for carpentry back when he was younger. Finally, that little saw did the job. Amid the intense sawing, the blade came out just when the tree was going down. Luckily it was not broken and I asked Mr R for a screwdriver to attach it back to the handle so that I could take down the second tree.

"So you're a jack of all trades!" - Mr R.

I guess I am. Before leaving I spoke with Mr R about him looking after his shed, sitting in the greenhouse in the summer and about his work at British Home Store. The chat was so enjoyable that I forgot to take an "after" photo of the trimmed rose bushes. I left wishing Mr R a nice dinner, which I knew he had planned for later in the day.

Steph arrived in Hammersmith after a morning community mission. Rang ahead to tell Mr W son that would be there in 30 minutes as his son doesn't live there and would meet to open the door and garden. Mr W son welcomed Steph and both went to the garden through the kitchen where we stopped as it was cat feeding time. We went outside to feed the cat..no sorry the cats - 3 cats were waiting outside to get their lunch. Steph in the meantime started wedding the garden, but then Mr W son asked if could tidy the garden up as a lot of items all over the place. Steph moved and sorted items that could be binned like wet cardboard, empty bags full of water, broken plastic items etc.. Put aside the items that would need to be sorted and either keep or recycle etc with Mr W's son on another occasion. In the meantime. Steph was under neighbourhood watch : the 3 cats had finished their lunch, but then were intrigued with what was happening in the garden. Weed, grass, moss, wild mushrooms and leaves removed and more space in the garden as tidy up near the cat territory. The cats were keeping an eye on Steph and started adventuring in places they havent been before in the garden as tidy and easier for then to adventure. The cats approved the works and went to their occupations of eating leftover food and watching birds coming into the garden.