On a scorcher of a Sunday afternoon Samia and Beth visited Mr L to help give his front garden a trim and tidy up. After introducing ourselves at the front door Mr L warmly welcomed us in and kindly offered us some refreshments before we got to work.

We got given the mow-down on the cutting (h)edge technology

Mr L led us both back outside to the front garden armed (quite literally) with an extension lead for the hedge trimmer and lawnmower. He asked us if we could give the front hedge, and the trees and plants that ran down the side of the garden a good trim back, give the grass a mow and generally tidy up all the flowerbeds as they had become overrun with weeds.

Having been provided with all the necessary tools we needed to accomplish these tasks we quickly set to work, well once we had figured out how to operate the hedge trimmer! Samia started expertly trimming the front hedge and very quickly had it looking nicely trimmed and shaped; while Beth made a start on the overgrown trees and plants with the garden shears before deciding that the hedge trimmer would do a far quicker and more efficient job – which it very much did!

Time to step up

Both of us agreed that using the hedge trimmer was both rather therapeutic and fun, and we made sure to use it at every point possible, unruly branches…hedge trimmer it, overgrown ivy…hedge trimmer it, long grass…hedge trimmer it! With no fingers of limbs accidently trimmed or lost to Mr L’s garden thus far we decided not to push our luck and risk taking the hedge trimmer up the ladder to get the overhanging branches that were ‘just out of our reach’. Following a good laugh about how we were both ‘vertically challenged’ and everyday ‘short people problems’, Beth climbed up the ladder to cut the overgrown branches while Samia ensured it remained steady on the slightly uneven grass.

We didn't hedge our bets on it being quite so hot!

With the hedge and plants trimmed back, Samia made a start on the mowing of the lawn (unlike the lush green grass of Wimbledon the grass was very much dry and brown, and full of weeds) and Beth began de-weeding and tidying the flowerbeds. In the hot afternoon sun our faces had become a lot redder and sweaty than when we had arrived and when Mr L came out to see how we were getting on we very much welcomed the glasses of water he kindly brought out to us.

Served up water

We polished off the water within seconds and went back to tending to the garden. Amongst all our gardening we had some lovely chats between us about marathons, GoodGym, running and our other activities that didn’t focus solely on running, such as our love of Wimbledon! Although we differed in our favourites and opinions on certain players…

Two hours had flown by, we had managed to complete all the tasks in the front garden and had filled Mr L’s garden waste bin up to the brim. We finished removing the last few weeds from one of the flowerbeds and gave the garden one last quick brush and tidy up, before declaring the job done for today. Mr L was very grateful for what we had managed to achieve in a short period of time and thanked us numerous times for all our help, we of course returned the thanks. We had a brief final chat with Mr L about our runs home before we said our goodbyes. A successful few hours, mission accomplished!