It was a pretty grey start to the day, but a lovely 40 minute cycle... albeit against the wind. I arrived at the home of Mrs I to find Miriam already hard at work.

Mrs I's nurse had just arrived, so her good neighbour and friend, Ann, welcomed us and explained what the task entailed... and it was to be a challenge!

Several tools and a cup of tea were supplied and I joined Miriam in cutting back and pulling out years of weeds.

Nettles, brambles, buttercups, grass and dandelions had taken over the garden and pathways.

With the sun breaking through the clouds ⛅️ we made good headway, but after two hours hard graft, there was still over half of the garden untouched.

We tidied up and explained to Mrs I that we would be back, just as soon as the task is relisted.

It is difficult to leave a job unfinished, but this one is clearly going to require a few sessions, and perhaps a small army of GoodGymers... watch this space!

Citizen’s Advice Liverpool had asked Goodgym to help Mr M with his garden. His wife is sadly unwell and Mr M has health problems of his own, whilst he tries to tackle the garden he quickly finds it’s too much for him and struggles to maintain it. No problem Mr M, that’s exactly what us Goodgymmers are here for!

Miriam and Bekah met outside and headed in together. This was Bekah’s first time with Mr M, but Miriam had been twice before and was already on very friendly terms with Mr M. Miriam was planning on finishing cutting back a large bush which she’d started during the last session, but much to her surprise Mr M had beaten her to it! The garden was in great condition due to Miriam’s hard work on the previous two sessions and Mr M’s determination to keep it nice, so it today it was just a case of tidying up the bits Mr M had struggled with.

There was ivy overgrowing the fence which Mr M showed us how to scrape off (very satisfying, we might add) and some weeding to be done. Mr M gave us our favourite kind of instructions – clear ones! – which was everything was to be gone. Perfect. So we cracked on without fear we’d accidentally ‘weed’ a beloved plant.

It was a sunny day, we got chatting as we worked, and before we knew it over an hour had passed. With 20 minutes left to go, we confirmed some final tasks with Mr M and made sure the bulk of what he was after was completed. He was delighted with the work done – although his and Miriam’s previous work meant the ‘before’ picture looked more like an ‘after’ picture - we were able to get to the bits he’d been unable to.

A quick tidy and Miriam made sure all the green waste was disposed of neatly in the green bin, and we left Mr M to his lovely garden. It was nice chatting to Mr M and we were pleased we were able to finish up that final bit of help, and left with best wishes to Mr M and his wife.

I arrived at Mrs L’s and someone answered the door so I said ‘Hi, Mrs L’, I got an abrupt response, ‘I’m not Mrs L, you’ll find her in the kitchen’. I said, ‘I’ve come to tidy the garden, to which I got a ‘not this garden your not! It’s too overgrown’. This was Mrs L’s daughter, she led me through the house to see her mum. There was a little discussion about whether the battery powered lawn mower worked, the daughter seemed defeated, insisting that it was always cutting out. Hmmm, so this wasn’t a great start but I tried to stay positive and got a grip on the lawnmower. Mrs L’s daughter was right, it did keep cutting out about every 10 seconds so I kept stopping, emptying it out, clearing the blades and then trying again. Mrs L’s daughter shouted ‘Lady!’ I looked up and said ‘er yes?’… ‘I’m talking to the dog’. Ha ha, I was relieved. I started making some progress with the lawnmower and then Mrs L’s daughter offered me an ice lolly. It was a real ice breaker. Her demeanour softened and she told me about her mum’s health problems and how looking after the garden had been very difficult. Heetu arrived, I was so glad to see her as the garden really needed two pairs of hands but she missed out on the ice lolly! By this point the lawnmower was giving nothing, couldn’t even get it started. We felt the batteries and they were boiling hot so we had a brainwave. We put them in the freezer and did some weeding at the front of the house while they cooled down. Once they were cooled we charged them and got about 20mins more mowing out of the charge but it was really frustrating that the charge took so long and we were running out of time. We managed to mow the middle of the lawn and weed the front. We were a bit frustrated that we hadn’t been able to finish but we garnered that two more battery charges would do the trick so we hope Mrs L gets booked in for a revisit. On a positive note, Mrs L’s daughter reassured us that at least they could now see the dog (Lady) when she ran to the bottom of the garden.