Shifting mulch is a staple activity in the summer at most GoodGym runs, but this mission saw us complete the full circle of mulch as we turned (part of) a Buddleia tree into three bags of the stuff.

Two weeks of 'pruning' at Mrs Turnbull's house really is an understatement! Andy and I arrived last week after doing the Mile End Park run to find an out of control Buddleia tree which was taking up the whole garden, to the point where we couldn't even get out of the back door until we had cut some of the branches to make room.

Andy, Dave from the council and I got to work and cleared a surprising amount in 1.5hrs, Dave used the electric hedge cutter like a light sabre and tackled the brambles on one side of the garden, whilst Andy and I got sawing, cutting and snapping branches to free the house from the tree that was attacking the second floor windows.

This week a second visit was necessary and this time Lucy, Lauren and Dan joined Dave and I for round two. This time Lucy and Lauren focused on filling endless bags with all of the branches that had been cut by Dave's light sabre, Dan went straight for sawing the root of the tree (he got a bit too carried away at one point and we nearly ended up getting crushed by a large amount of falling branches) and I fed branch after branch through a wood chipping machine which turned the wood into mulch.

Unfortunately there was so many branches, twigs and brambles that no matter how many got turned into mulch and put in bags, half the garden was still piles of wood! However the difference we had made in the garden over the two missions was literally the difference between night and day. The whole house, garden and both neighbours gardens had been in the dark because of the dense canopy created by the Buddleia which hadn't been pruned for about 10 years. Once we had hacked our way through it and brought it all down to the ground, it was like the light had been turned on!

A big pat on the back to Dan and Lucy who both ran about 8-10 miles as well as completing the mission!

Kathryn