On a surprisingly bright and mild October morning, Andrew and the newly christened Discount Miranda (née Maddy) rocked up to St Lawrence Park to help out with pruning shrubs and cutting trees. Unfortunately The Real Miranda was unwell - hope you get better soon TRM! - which unfortuna-tree left Andrew alone with, to quote him, "a worse version of Miranda". As they say, many a true word is oak-en in jest! (Or at least I hope so as I took to the comparison to be the highest form of flat-tree!)

This was my first task at St Lawrence Park so I got a brief introduction to using loppers from the legendary Mike. I then joined seasoned veteran of loppering (?) Andrew in clearing the overgrown shrubbery to make the park a more open and safe space.

We had a short break for coffee and dark chocolate digestives (a biscuit we deemed to be "So Evan" last weekend in Kielder #memories) before getting back to work. This time we were trimming the overhead branches, which necessitated me using Andrew as a ruler for the measure of Tall People Everywhere.

In a bid to take our minds and conversation off the Brexit parliamen-tree ongoings and other heavy shrubjects we discussed all manner of equally depressing things like ageing and maths. However by the end of the task Andrew had managed to lift the spirits somewhat with his solution to life's problems: Just Be Nice.