By their own admission our next door neighbours are not the practical types. I regularly run the mower over their lawn in return for a beer (or two). Meena has been asking me for a while if I could trim the Ivy that had gone a little wild on her boundary fence so with a little more time on my hands at the moment I set about it.

Very soon into the job it became clear that much of the fence was rotten and the ivy had completely overwhelmed it. I made the suggestion that if they bought all the material I would do the work as a lockdown activity.

Well, it's been about 4 weeks work! First there was the challenge of actually ordering the stuff and getting it delivered. Then there was site clearance. Digging out some of those roots was a workout in itself. Then of course with all the tips closed we have had to have a few controlled fires to incinerate some of the waste. On the other side of their fence is a bit of common land that has been a haven for garden fly tipping over the last 40 odd years. Mel and I have made acstart on that too and hope that at some point it will be tidy again. Still a bit to go on the job as the scope crept. The initial 4 panels looked so good that we decided to do a couple more. I would estimate that a paid job would have cost at least £500 in labour alone so I reckon a very valuable and satisfying good deed.