Mr R led Kash and Sevan into his garden, a little ashamed. It used to be beautiful he told the pair, until builders put scaffolding over his basement flat preventing him from maintaining the garden for many months. A tree had also fallen down and bits of the trunk were still visible. It was a real jungle. There was a veil of plants growing over everything. It was hard to tell what was underneath, only that there were areas of weeds that looked lumpier than others.

Find the Path

Mr R set the pair a series of challenges to prove their worthiness as GoodGymers. Firstly they had to find a path to Mr R's shed. It's roof was poking up over the weeds at the back of his garden. Kash first thought about climbing over the lumps, which looked dangerous. A potential trap! After looking around, Kash found a secret passage that led to the shed. She ducked under some branches, then front flipped over some low lying vines, arriving safely at the shed 🤸

Find the Tools

Mr R was slightly impressed. He set the next challenge, to access the shed and find the tools. Kash opened the shed and found a pair of shears with a big gap between the blades. That seemed far too simple and also not that useful.

Kash rooted around and found another cabinet with a combination lock. How to solve the puzzle? 🔒 The dials were stuck in place. Eventually she gave the body a shake and a pull. The lock released! The combination had been a trick, but the cabinet was empty.

Finally Kash found a hidden chest that not even Mr R knew about that had a spade and fork inside. Well, that was the sum total of the tools. A wonky pair of shears, a spade and a fork 🙁

Find the Floor

Mr R's final challenge was the toughest. To banish the wholly veil of weeds from his garden. He was realistic enough to know that it wouldn't happen in one day, thankfully. The GoodGymers could see bind weed and brambles. Mr R also told them that there was Japanese knotweed in the garden. After a quick online search, Sevan agreed and decided to give it a wide berth so that it wasn't transferred elsewhere on his or Kash's clothes.

Kash did what she could with the shears, while Sevan put on some heavy duty gloves and started pulling brambles, with some success. Between them, they managed to clear the weeds nearest to the building and uncovered dirt, stairs, plant pots and a lot of worms that a friendly robin was very happy to discover too.

Find the Door

At the end of the mission, 9 bags had been filled with difficult to pack vines and branches. Mr R was pleased with the GoodGymers abilities. They'd passed the trials and were allowed to leave rather than being sentenced to clearing the Japanese knotweed. Best leave that to the experts.