Mrs P is a lovely lady struggling with health issues, who has clearly put a lot of love and work into her beautiful large garden over the years. The garden is stunning with a variety of beautiful plants and trees, and it was a lovely place to be on a bright warm Friday morning.

First job was mowing the lawn at the front, and after a couple of false starts, trying to identify if the issue switching the lawnmower on was: a) with the lawnmower; b) with the extension cable; c) with the plug socket; or d) user error (i.e. me not doing it right), we gave each other the thumbs up through the window when it finally burst into life (the issue was c, the plug socket, and I was just relieved it wasn't d!).

That turned out to be a much smaller job than the main event, which was the beautiful big garden out the back. I quickly cleared some things off the lawn, and got to work. Turns out, mowing a large lawn is more strenuous than it looks! This task definitely utilised the 'gym' part of 'Goodgym', especially manoeuvring the lawnmower around the lovely trees, plants and furniture, and it was a relief to turn the lawnmower off for a final time. I packed away the lawnmower - and both extension leads which had been needed! - and locked up the garage and back door.

Mrs P made every effort to give me something for my time but fortunately I'm quicker on my feet than she and was able to gracefully decline and stay out of reach. She was absolutely adamant I wouldn't leave completely empty handed though, so I gratefully accepted a can of coke to take with me after that thirsty work in the sun.

Best wishes to Mrs P, I hope she's now better able to continue to enjoy her lovely garden.

With the warmer weather comes an influx of requests for gardening missions. Not a competent gardener, I carefully chose one I was confident I could do – cutting back brambles. Give me some secateurs and I can happily hack away for an hour or so, so I packed my gloves and confidently set off to Mr M’s. It turns out I’ve been to Mr M’s before, he had a couple of visits from Goodgym for his garden last year - his wife sadly has cancer and he himself suffers with health issues, and strenuous tasks put him at risk of being unable to take care of his wife.

I arrived ready and raring to tackle a mass of brambles, when Mr M corrected me that it wasn’t brambles he needed help with, but general gardening. Uh oh. We had a quick discussion about my capabilities – and limitations! – and agreed on some basic tasks. I mowed 3 grassy areas, 2 in the front garden, and the lovely large lawn in the back, then hacked down some trees which were getting unmanageably tall. I was glad to get to hack something (I even used a saw!) and Mr M was delighted with the difference, telling me this meant his wife could now use the garden and his grandchildren would be able to play on the lawn. We were both pleased to put his green bin to good use, it had sat empty for several months and I left it over 2/3rds full. Mr M clearly enjoys taking care of his home and was frustrated not to be able to do these tasks himself, but we agreed it wasn’t worth the risk of worsening his health issues and not being able to care for his wife.

Despite the miscommunication I was able to help Mr M & his wife. Next time we’ll assign this one to a more competent gardener!

Well a lovely big group of us turned up to Urban green-up, some cycling, some running and others walking in sunny weather.

Elaine from Urban green-up explained our previous favourite nettle pulling tasks had now made enough space to plant some robusty plants to hopefully take over the space instead of the stingy aggressive growers!

So we proceeded to layout 140 plants in a natural pattern explained to us 3 same plants together evenly spaced out and one off on its own as the black-sheep making its own new territory. Elaine then expertly checked our layouts and we started to plant away. Some of us still loved the satisfaction of getting hopefully the last of those nettles from their roots! Others also expertly litter picked the garden space to ensure the plants were the centre of attention.

With one of the first tasks where no lights were needed and several thank youse from passers-by, we pow-wowed through the session to: -pick a big pile of nettles to their roots -exterior designer layout 140 plants -proceed to plant said 140 plants -collect 2 bags of litter tightly packed

A perfectly powered up team!