Our arrival at today's mission we were greeted by Mr B and his wife and introduced to what I can only describe as a veritable armoury of garden tools. This was easily the best supplied mission I have ever attended with loppers, shears, secateurs, forks, spades, trowels a pruning saw and even an special extendible lopper with a telescopic handle.

Mr B and his wife were also excellent organisers and we were quickly assigned a variety of tasks.

Sarah was on pruning duty. Beginning with front garden she demonstrated some excellent topiary skills with a long handled lopper and a ladder before taking on a lovely arch in the back garden. A veteran of several missions, her gardening skills really showed through today.

Reka was tasked with weeding. She showed commensurate skill in identifying what should stay and what should go. Apparently this was only her second mission, but on this performance they will no doubt be followed by many more!

I was tasked with emptying the compost bin, pruning an overhanging tree, clearing some brambles and tidying up a pampas grass which seemed to be growing well beyond the size that might be expected for a dwarf variety.

Luckily pruning the tree gave me the opportunity to try out virtually all the tools, including the telescopic lopper thingy but I was enjoying myself so much that I failed to get onto the brambles or pampas grass.

So all in all, we made excellent progress, but a return visit may well be on the cards.

(On a personal note I was extremely excited to see pink wafers in amongst the biscuits we were so kindly offered. Mr and Mrs B clearly have exceptionally good taste).