Although the weather was a little damp today, Victoria and I did not have dampened spirits when we arrived to clear some leaves from Mrs A's garden (& only leaves! No weeding!!) On my part, that's because it's open house weekend and because some random walking this morning had resulted in the acquisition of a temporary Justice League tattoo from a retro-looking machine outside a newsagents and some fortune cookies. 

After making our hellos to Mrs A, we started our mission by chatting with her about her lovely house and the pictures of her young grandchildren dotted around. Mrs A has reduced mobility and really appreciates her son bringing them over each week to visit her, in addition to everything else he does for her while raising his own family.

Unfortunately, at some point Victoria and I had to stop chatting to Mrs A and crack on with our primary mission of clearing the leaves. 

Stepping into the back garden, we were immediately confronted with a dead rat, complete with maggots!!! Having not previously been in a situation in which we've had to dispose of a dead rat, we decided that the best course of action would be to leave the real decision making until the end. A small part of me wonders if the appearance of this rat is cosmically linked to making my last mission report rat pack themed. Erring on the side of caution, I've elected against making this report title rat themed again (although, for the record, I would have gone for "Remy just say that Rat(s)-are-ooey").

As we cleared the leaves (ultimately totalling 6 bags), Victoria and I talked almost constantly. I would have labelled this talking as being philosopical in nature if there hadn't been quite so many references to bottoms in it! It was great to get along so well with someone who's my opposite in a lot of respects :) Plus she works a mean shovel 😄

Finishing the leaves, we contemplated the rat again. We didn't really want to dispose of it by taking it through Mrs A's house, but we also didn't want to bury it in a plant pot for other GoodGymers to find. We decided to avoid the problem again, this time by putting a box over it. Luckily, we found one that was the right size, in an appropriate colour (biohazard yellow), and that had "danger" written on the side. This all seemed appropriate for laying the rat in state (you could almost call it a mouse-oleum 🥁 🤣). 

We woke up Mrs A as we took the bags of leaves out to the front for collection, and, after telling her about the rat, stayed another 10 minutes or so to discuss another important topic: food. If we hadn't made ourselves hungry from gathering all of those leaves, then we were definitely hungry by the end of that conversation! It's given me some great ideas for my next baking projects though (look out GG Camden!)

As we said our goodbyes, Victoria and I (members of the newly-formed Just-nice League 😎) had a fortune cookie each from my morning's haul. I'm going to "leave" this report with Victoria's fortune because it also nicely ties into the pun this week: "It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice."