It was a beaut of a day, as the Welsh say. But little did we know that a Beast was awaiting us.

Samia had um-ed and ah-ed this morning about whether to take the nice tame weeding gloves or the hardcore pair (every bit of added weight makes a difference on a run...) but opted for extra weight training and took the hardcore pair. Blimming good job, as light weeding this task was not.

The garden was very overgrown and we’d been asked to cut back the bushes and remove the weeds. Karen took a keen liking to the strimmer and transformed the lawn into an actual lawn - actual upper body workout for her with the strimming and taking action.

Got to love a bit of strimming action on a @GGWandsworth mission pic.twitter.com/skAqEVHrA9

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) October 20, 2018

Meanwhile, Samia was cutting back brambles that had grown everywhere, through bricks, walls, you name it. But chatting away about the world of tennis, upcoming runs and being very sensible people in not pushing through when a sign of injury appears means that the time flew by.

But the biggest task came in the form of bagging it all up. We hadn’t realised just how prickly the prickles were (after consulting her GoodGym Weedipedia, Samia can confirm the key spikey culprits were hawthorns).

Debrambled, hawthorn hacked and lawn thistles strimmed: before and after @GGWandsworth thornado pic.twitter.com/6Tax7rU0Vk

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) October 20, 2018

Lots of yelps and “ouch”-es later, we seemed to have bagged up the beasts, took an after photo and headed off in the October (yes, October!) sunshine. Oh how confusing the British weather can be...