If you ask a GoodGymmer what they like best, they will probably answer with some type of food. But if you ask them what type of task they like best, they will probably say something involving some type of breakage (I still remember the joy of wielding a sledgehammer on this community mission).

And so Laura and I were immeasurably pleased to discover that our task for today's mission was to pull some Virginia creeper off a couple of walls of Mrs S's house.

Mrs S lives in a beautiful house in Islington, but she occasionally needs some help with the upkeep of the garden following an accident she'd had a number of years ago and a recent stroke. She'd had some GoodGymmers over to help last year and was happy to have us return to help out some more.

And so, soon after Laura and I introduced ourselves to Mrs S and her sister, we started the task with gusto. Laura and I (and Mrs S's sister! 😄) pulled, chopped, sawed, brushed and raked Virginia creeper of the house, occasionally balancing (notvery) precariously on a small stepladder. The creeper was surprisingly easy to pull off the wall, and the only really dodgy moment we had was when trying to remove the creeper from over the front porch. Luckily, raking it from a nearby window did enough of a job of loosening it up for the muscle on the ground to finish. A great team effort! Mrs S's sister was particularly pleased, as she'd originally thought that men would be more useful at this sort of task. However, in the end the only extra benefit we could think of for having guys over to do this job would be that they're less likely to get as much creeper stuck in their hair afterwards! 😂

Virginia creeper removed (Virginia creeper should be afraid of us!), we removed ourselves to Mrs S's drawing room, where she'd kindly put out some tea and biscuits for us , and had a natter. We may have also played with Mrs S's sister's dog, who was very happy to be petted but less keen on having his photo taken unless a biscuit was being waggled in front of him. We kindly obliged.

Great working with you Laura! Hopefully catch you at a Camden group run soon! 😄