Early on a Friday evening, Beth and JP met outside Mr K's basement flat in preparation for another gardening task. With JP's bike securely stowed away, Mr K showed us through to the back garden. On the way through the flat he grabbed some newly-acquired hand tools for us to use, and warned us that it was "rather wild out there". Upon opening the back door we could see what he meant - the garden needed quite a bit of attention. It was immediately clear that this task would not be possible to complete in just one session, but nevertheless we got to it. JP set to work with Mr K's shears, which turned out to be vital in the battle against the spiky nettles and triffids that had overtaken the garden. The hand tools just weren't cutting it!

Beth concentrated on tackling the nettles and roots that were left behind by JP's shears, cutting them up into smaller chunks and putting them in bin bags. As the pair worked away, they uncovered lots of unusual items buried amongst the weeds: a toothbrush, a softball, old scaffolding fixtures... and then JP stumbled across the most surprising find - a whole bike!! He quickly wheeled it out of the way and carried on chopping.

There were a few larger gardening tools propped up against Mr K's wall which we recruited. A rake made light work of collecting JP's cuttings together, and Beth set to work with an old garden fork (despite it's lack of a handle!) to lift the more stubborn roots. As time rolled on, the clouds rolled in - it wasn't long before the rain descended upon us. What a rubbish start to the bank holiday weekend! Not to be defeated, we continued in the drizzle for a full hour, collecting 4 full bin bags of waste and clearing half of Mr K's garden.

And with that we were done - the rain had started to get heavier, and so we called it a day. Mr K was pleased with our progress, and we encouraged him to talk to his referrer to arrange a suitable time for us (or some other lovely goodgymers) to come back and finish cutting back the weeds as well as clear the moss off his patio area. We said our goodbyes and parted ways - with all parties hoping for a little more sunshine in the coming days! ☀️