You wouldn't think that a gardening mission in Lambeth on a semi-sunny Sunday afternoon would be a backdrop to a modern day horror story. However, who knows exactly what lurks in the trowels of the earth? (I mean, aside from gardeners, and geologists and the like.) Certainly Karen, Sophie and I could not have known what (if any) horrors awaited us on today's little chop of horrors.

Our tale takes place at the home of Mr W, a gentleman who has been confined to his bedroom on the uppermost floor of his house for the better part of two years. One of his carers, Ruth, has made it a long term project to bring Mr W downstairs so that he can receive more visitors. As part of this, she asked GoodGym if some hardy runners could assist in fighting back the garden.

Karen and I arrived at the property first, and were promptly beckoned in by Ruth. After being given details of our task, we had a brief interview with Mr W and were shown a collection of tools for wreaking havoc on the garden. We chose our weapons. We attacked.

Not content to sit idle, Ruth joined us in the decimation of the greenery by cutting up the fallen foliage for disposal. Perhaps scaring myself in the face of the pleasure I was deriving from cutting down saplings in their prime, I also switched to clean-up crew. This left Karen and newly-arrived Sophie to continue in the semi-wanton destruction of the garden (we left the rose bushes and a couple of random plants alone).

The garden held plenty of fears for a fertile mind. Aside from a plethora of potentially haunted footballs (one of which was hiding in a tree, ready to pounce/bounce), we also uncovered a large plastic garden box that had previously been obscured from sight by the dense undergrowth. Ruth was initially hesitant to open it (a lifetime of horror movies had led her to the conclusion that such spaces are the most likely place to find a dead body). However, we later opened the box to discover more gardening tools and some solar lights (not quite so scary).

Ruth's love of horror movies themed the mission, with conversations involving the Texas chainsaw massacre (and consequently why we don't use power tools on missions), pet cemeteries (the real-kind, not the Stephen King-kind), and how some sludge from a bin that we'd poured into a corner of the garden looked like something out of a b-horror movie (poor acting/CGI being a crime I can live with if it's horrific enough).

As our mission drew to a close, we considered both the devastating effect we'd had on the garden (yay! 🎉😄) and the lingering effect the garden would have on us (there were a few bramble scratches). We were all thankful to have survived, and hoped that our attack on the garden would minimise any future attacks the garden would have on patrons of the space (maybe Mr W could have a barbecue when he successfully comes downstairs?)

Sophie, Karen; it was fun working with you & I have no doubt that I'll see you guys on another mission relatively soon ☺️