After our good gym park run and fuelled with breakfast, Steph kindly gave me a lift to my mission, it was on her way home but this was not the only part Steph played in my mission!

I arrived and after a fiddling with a safebox for a wee while I got into Ms M house. Ms M although was bed bound in her front room chatted to me about her garden and a green box of tools!

I plodded round to the back garden in search of said green box and did not find it but found a few rusty secateurs and some broken shovels (those I did not murder but there is time for that later!)

I looked at the enormity of the overgrown garden with baby saplings growing from all sorts of places, knowing my gloves would not cut it and called for back-up…Totally saving me day, super Steph came with a couple secateurs saving options!

They allowed me to tackle a little section of the patio to get the saplings or more like mini trees in some cases out and bring up the grass carpet to reveal the patio slabs.

I could see that Ms M loves water features and flamingos as clearing up I could hear some solar panelled whirring probably to move water that had totalled dried up in the heat of the last few weeks. I kept finding broken flamingo heads in the undergrowth (again not my murdering, still time for that!) but there were some complete flamingos still standing and as I looked further into the garden I could see that once Ms M garden would have been amazing with all her features some of them still making it look inviting in the secret overgrown garden kinda way.

I not only jumped at weird solar panel noises but at wonderful carers coming in to take care of Ms M surprising me in the secret garden. I went back into the house to meet them and to show Ms M progress on the garden with a few photos, I think she could see the difference.

It was hot day and before I knew it my time was up and I only tackled, maybe not even a tenth of what was needed. I would love to come back and work through the rest, maybe even get a team of us to renew this secret garden!

So here is my confession… in my zeal to tidy the last of the patio weeds up, I did break the garden brush so still earning my title ‘brush murder’… I have been sooo good lately but have to admit this recent act but in my defence the brush handle was rusting!

Anyway I returned the tools I had not broken to Steph (without her this mission would not have been possible), had to leave a black bag of rubbish in the backyard and a green bin full of saplings, carpet of grass and weed debris!

I ran a few miles home struggling in the heat but thinking what could be discovered the next bit of the secret garden!

On Monday evening, 9 goodgymers made their way back to the Urban Green Up site with Elaine. Heetu and Leo ran in super quick time to meet many of us at the task.

After a clear demonstration from Elaine and Heetu on what was Himalayan Balsam and Rosebay Willowherb, we split into two groups and set about to clear the two sides of the site. However, alas, even more nettles and thistles had grown back since our last visit and so many of us tackled these prickly weeds too.

When Bekah sounded the 7 minute call to the end of the task, we all rushed to sort the clean up with some bin bags in hand. Looking back across at the site, we could all see an impressive amount of these invasive and rapidly growing weeds had been cleared, but we knew that a return again would be much needed to sort the middle section.

As we most often work on the other side of the site, it was a surprise (well perhaps just for me) to realise the lovely view of the Liverpool skyline including the cathedral in the background.

There were puns-a-plenty for this week's report from Chris (who provides this week's report title), Bekah, Sallyann, and Lucien but you'll have to wait for the next report on our return for them to be revealed.