The ongoing weather saga continued, and over the past week we’d had just about every weather condition possible each day, and Monday was no different. Brilliant sunshine on the way to work in the morning, a torrential downpour by lunch, who knew what the evening had in store for us?

Well, we did know. It had a mission at St Michael and St George’s church in White City! Eight of Hammersmith & Fulham’s finest, along with Harvey visiting from Ealing (hey Harvey!) came to tackle the garden and the church grounds, after we took a rain check last week (and toy-deed up instead).

Ben (now referred to as GoodGym Ben), Jess and I met with Ben the Vicar outside the church and he went through the tasks at ask for the evening. It was slightly strange that only three of us had turned up, surely the impending threat of rain hadn’t put that many people off? More work for the three of us then, and we got to it. Then, Bethan came round the corner, shortly followed by an army in red... The rest of the gang had turned up! We could really get to it now.

• Jess had elected for the rubbish job, and went around with her litter picker collecting all the little bits of rubbish. From face masks to crisp wrappers... and a pair of star patterned pants.
• GoodGym Ben was weeding in the back corner, and clearing the pathways of brambles and green bits from where they shouldn’t be.
• Klara was back for her second task, and got to work on a patch of weeds, getting down to the root of the bramble problems, which Vicar Ben was mightily impressed with.
• Analiese heard there were choppers about, and having demonstrated her best bush trimming skills the other week, chopped away at the overgrown hedge and the ivy poking through the fence.
• Bethan and Harvey were getting the paths cleared so there was broom to get through again; pulling up things that shouldn’t be there. How sweep is your glove? Bethan and Harvey would know the answer.
• And I, well, I was being useful, a little bit of weeding, a little bit of chopping, a little bit of sweeping, plus the important job of photographer (making sure I got everyone’s best angles).

We were all getting on with things, and filling up the big sacks of garden waste, when Cookie turned up! We saw him briefly, and then we didn’t. Assuming he was doing something useful, we carried on, and then Katie ‘Meet-you-at-the-task’ Hodges came wheeling up. She joined Beth and Analiese on the path outside the church. Chop chop, get to it!

On my photography mission, I went to find where Cookie had snuck off to. After a loop around the whole block (and a litter-al run in with Jess), I found him. He had been given his own special task of ‘hacking away at as much of this bush as you can’. He had taken the task very seriously, with his big chopper at full swing.

Things were looking good, we’d already made a big difference and filled the huge sack up with weeds and brambles and all sorts. We were doing a final sweep, tidying up, (or in Analiese’s case, ‘project managing’) when Vicar Ben asked if we could help Cookie finish up. Having almost forgotten about him on his solo quest to beat the bush, we went round and found him knee deep in twigs and leaves. ‘He did say hack away as much as you can’ Jonathan shrugged.

We were now on for a race against the rain to get all of what was once a bush into the waste bag. The sky was looking ominous, and soon the boys had the bag loaded up. A quick group picture, an easy peeler from Vicar Ben and then the heavens opened. Just as we finished.

The timing was path-ect.

Apart from we were all now loitering in the shelter of the church, watching the rain teem down. Cookie was first to go, ‘I’m already wet’, he said, set his strava and sprinted off into the distance. The rain seemed to be dying down, and the rest of us took that as the opportunity to get onto our bikes and cycle off home.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d managed to get about 3 minutes away from home when the rain started to pour again. And despite everything, I got home very very soggy. Chop work though tonight, everyone. Weed did good.