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!