You'll never walk alawn
2 GoodGymers made their way to help an isolated older person in Camden.
- Saturday, 26th of May 2018
On a glorious Bank Holiday Saturday morning, I met Ben near the heart of Camden to brighten "Lee" and his wife's day, giving them much better access to their sunny garden by clearing three massive bagfuls of overgrown lawn and flora.
On this day of a Finsbury Park dance music festival, the Championship playoffs and Champions League final we met "Lee" who has lived in Camden for decades and in London for nearly sixty years! Though spritely for his age, the garden was a lot for him to manage, especially now it was so overgrown. Despite having a Spurs fan in our team, we didn't want to make Lee walk alone.
Lee had previously tended the garden so had a good arsenal (lower case A) of tools and had even just bought a new lawnmower and a hedge trimmer which outclassed the shears and secateurs. They made a big job much more manageable.
Ben and I had a great chat with Lee about his decades of life around London and the time soon passed. His neighbour was a star and lent us three huge canvas bags which we think easily filled to the brim with the overgrown grass and weeds.
I used the lawnmower and Ben had the lion's share of the hedge trimmer and while cleaning up after ourselves, we found some weird things along the way:
- A shoe
- A football
- A cuddly toy!
It could've been the generation game!
After nearly two hours which actually flew by, we had transformed Lee's garden, topped up our Vitamin D and made Lee's day. We were talking about the local area and persuaded ourselves to have a celebratory ice cream from a very nearby place.
Off on our merry ways, we went off to the sunny afternoon with our icy treats (I had cheese and Milo flavour - not your average flavours!). I also had another on the way home! I do like ice cream.
Missions really are a great start to the weekend! Neither of us were quite up and about for parkrun (also an awesome way to kick off a weekend) but we shook off a long week and late night by doing some good in the 'hood and felt supercharged afterwards
Report written by Patrick Luong
Discuss this report
Share the love
Get your mission on
What are you waiting for?
Find a missionJoin us on the next run
FRIENDLY GROUP SESSION + OPTIONAL 5K RUN!! Clearing Litter 🚮 at the West Hampstead Sherriff 🤠Centre
Wednesday 18:15 - 19:45
Led by
Alex Murtough
The Francis Crick Institute
Become a member
with an optional monthly donation
- Run, walk, or cycle to help older people
- Access sessions across the country
- Claim your GoodGym t-shirt
sign in to add a comment