On a sunny Saturday, Aimee and I visited the home of Mrs P in Barry, a lovely septuagenarian who welcomed us warmly and explained what help she needed: weeding and general tidying up of her front garden. On the face of it, her garden seemed pretty neat and tidy already (see the pics). But once she explained that it was to cut back certain plants for the winter, and to dig/week out other plants from the gravel section, we could see what she meant. Even with a liner under the gravel, those pesky plants grew through and would soon end up being a new patch of garden in itself.

So armed with clippers, trowels and forks, we got stuck in. It was a bit hard at first to commit to cutting some plants back - they were still in flower! But we ploughed on and worked our gardening magic, cultivated over the MANY gardening missions we've now down over the last year (hee hee). Aimee cut back a large geranium plant with cute little purple flowers as well as some grape hyacinths, while Ellen trimmed up the ivy and other border shrubs. Finally, we both got stuck into digging out plants which had spread into the gravel section - which was a surprisingly fiddly and time consuming task! But we managed to fill 2 large green waste backs to the top, so it was well worth it.

Afterwards, Mrs P told us about her life working as a special education teacher, while we had a cup of coffee. She seemed such a caring, attentive person that no doubt she enriched the lives of so many young people in her care over the years. It was an absolute pleasure to get to know her, and to be able to help her out in return.

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