Lucy, Jim and Samia rocked up to the mission on a very warm and sunny Sunday morning. We were greeted by Ms J, who showed us to her garden; she explained that she had been recently been in hospital and hadn't been able to care for her much-loved garden as she had previously, which had led it to become quite overgrown. Looking at it at the start of the mission, it seemed like quite the project and we weren't sure how much we could get done, but we agreed to prioritise weeding the gravel area so that Ms J could enjoy sitting out in the glorious weather.

We looked at each other with "where on earth do we start" faces, but as soon as we started trying to pull up the weeds, we were extremely pleasantly surprised by how weed-able they were. It soon turned from being a daunting task to being highly satisfied as we were able to clear the gravel to it's former weed-free glory in much less time than we'd anticipated (or, for those pun fans, "in much less thyme than weed anticipated"...). This meant that we could then get to work on the beds - and we soon started to discover all the fruit, veg and herbs that Ms J had been growing: a potato bed, raspberry bushes, strawberries, thyme, mint, rosemary. Jim gave the nettles a run for their money whilst Lucy and Samia freed the potatoes of their weedy in-mates and weeded the flower beds.

Thyme was ticking but we were able to achieve far more than we'd originally expected. Ms J said how much it had made a difference when she came out at the end of the mission and said that the neighbours will be pleased to see the garden looking much tidier too. A highly satisfying mission, we all agreed!

And well done Lucy on your first mission!