Dear Reader,

I'm writing this with a smile as yesterday, in addition to having the opportunity to meet the lovely Mrs L, felt a touch more like normal. For the first time in a while, I was out in red and tasked to be a little green fingered.

Having ventured from sunny Greenwich to sunny Lewisham, I was met by the very lovely Mrs L. An expert social-distancer (like the best of us), Mrs L gave me the garden gate's key and I went around the side of the house and met her in the garden. We didn't agree to race, but I could tell she was laying down a challenge as she threw the keys at me and shouted 'LAST ONE TO THE GARDEN GETS A GOOD DEED DOCKED'. I tried, Dear Reader, I really did. But that gate's lock was troublesome. I suspected sabotage then and I'm confident of it now. However, that's garden-gate-racing for you and I consoled myself with Linford Christie's famous words - 'MRS L IS THE FASTEST PERSON I'VE EVER RACED'.

Bar some pesky weeds and some dead shrubbery, Mrs L's garden was in good shape. A little GoodGym-love and it'd be set to be enjoyed as the summer starts to kick in. Donning my trusty gloves and making use of the tools in Mrs L's cellar, I set to tidying and sprucing. Mrs L popped out intermittently and we shot the breeze under the afternoon sun. And although she never said anything, I was sure she also wanted to gloat at yet another win on her garden-gate-racing roster. As Linford Christie also said, 'THEIR SMILES ALWAYS GIVE THEM AWAY'.

After just over 2 hours, I bagged up the weeds and cuttings and took them to the front. It was a pleasure to spend yesterday afternoon with Mrs L, and I hope that my sprucing took her garden from good shape to something a little lovelier. And gardening and laughing did make things seem a little more normal again, a hint towards everything that we have to look forward to.

Nice one.