On a bright and beautiful Sunday morning Andy, Beth and I visited Ingrid at her home in Hackney. Ingrid told us she has been unwell for a couple of years so needs help to maintain her garden. It had been a few months since her garden was tended to so it had become overgrown and strewn with rubbish, unloved toys and weeds. Sadly this meant it was no longer a place for young children to play which would have been a real shame on a sunny day like this.

We divided and conquered

Equipped with a decent arsenal of tools, and focused on uncovering a safe play area children could again enjoy, we divided and conquered: Andy decimated the tall weeds and sawed down awkward trees down to mere stumps; Beth stayed low to the ground and uprooted all flora in sight while I tested my leather gloves on the prickly and thorny plants then cut and snapped everything in to bag-size pieces.

It was all hands on deck (and thorns!) in terms of clearing up as we went along; we filled a massive nine bags of green waste and a bag of litter and lost toys. We had to say goodbye to Hello Kitty.

We were never alone

Throughout the task we were never alone; we were accompanied by a sprightly spectator who liked to say "hi", urban tunes playing from the house and snails. Lots of snails.

We brought green fingers and we also brought muscle!

Ingrid was really chuffed when she could see her garden again and recruited a couple of young chaps to take out the ten bags to a refuse point.

Andy suggested ways to prevent the weeds from returning and we went on to flex some muscle moving hefty paving slabs (which were home to at least 60 snails!) and lay them down flat to put them out of the way and protect against pesky weeds.

Finally we took a few photos, said our goodbyes to Ingrid then went on our separate ways: Andy went home while Beth and I had more missioning to do in South London.

We saw snails travelling at 20 mph!

While on the Undergound to the second mission of the day we discovered not one but two snails had jumped on my bag for a taste of life in the fast lane! They were re-homed in London Bridge and are hopefully destined for great things in the big city!