It was raining cats and dogs, but Kate and Samia braved the deluge and arrived at Mr L’s looking somewhat like drowned rats. Mr L opened the door hesitantly, as if he weren’t sure what had washed up on his doorstep. But he greeted us warmly, albeit a little surprised that we were still happy to garden, and he brightened up our afternoon telling us all about the lovely artwork in his house.

We had the mow-tivation but grass cutting would be a for-lawn task.

Although it was too rainy to mow the lawn, we didn’t mown and accepted mission plan B of cutting back some of the overgrown shrubs and foliage.

We shed our normal gloves in exchange for gardening gloves and located the tools in the shed. We then got cracking on hacking the greenery, giving it a good wet hair cut.

Samia stopped momentarily to remark that the rain had eased. Kate begged to differ. Samia then realised that she was stood under a tree and it was, in fact, still raining.

For goodness rake!

Realising that we had made quite a mess of cuttings, Kate came up with a rake idea and Samia fetched said rake. It turned out to be quite a useful aid, with its dual function as a foliage comb. Sadly, weather conditions were not going to allow for a stylish blow dry.

It was really wet but we got the hack of it in the end and then took shelter under Richmond Bridge for a spot of drying off, joint run report writing and hot beverage drinking - thank you Kate for celebrating my 100th with a cuppa (you know me too well...)