An elite wet weather volunteer squad met on a day marked by sideways rain and grey skies. We huddled and discussed home hacks, as you do, here's the takeaway points: crystal salts are a thing, use them for mugs and wooden chopping boards with lemon. Baking soda, whack it in your pots and pans and let it melt away the residue that defeats elbow grease. Cutlery goes handle down in the washing machine, although watch out for sharp knives. Mangoes, cut them in half, remove stone, score them to create a lattice, slide off the sweet cubes. Dying plant? Chop off a stem to salvage it, plonk the base in water and let it propagate. Voila.

After our domestic brain storming we shuffled down to Abbey Gardens with a punchy tail wind. Barbara showed us what needed doing and we set to it. First on the agenda was moving a tonne bag of mud, although some plant had grown roots in it, the audacity. We chopped them off, then a team effort managed to drag and topple the stubborn vessel. We cleared some wood, tidied up the hose reel and finally moved onto the big job; shifting a large number of marble stones. With a train like formation we passed them over to our right and moved them to a new destination. Very satisfying, completed all the jobs just before 8pm, great team ethic out there.

Sign up for next week's team fun here

Enjoy the gorgeous weather - contrast to yesterday eh? Makes it even sweeter.

Till next week,

B