Last Thursday I invested in some new fat old clothes (The unfatness plan has not yet worked its magic – possibly partly due to the number of Freddo Frogs I get through a week – and I couldn’t fit into my thin old clothes).

Last night I was rummaging in the shed in the dark to find my gardening gloves.

This morning I (intentionally) went to work without my laptop.

 Why?

A Dragon Arum - it is HUGE!

Well, at the company where I work, we’re entitled to one paid day a year that we can use to volunteer in the local community.  This morning I joined 16 colleagues to help out at a charity called St Mary’s Secret Garden (a teeny oasis in Hackney  for the benefit of those in need of a bit of support as well as any one local who fancies a bit of gardening) where we became our own little makeover team worthy of a television programme.

 I discovered that:

• I cannot drive a huge trolley thing full of plants
• I cannot use a staple gun
• I’m really quite pants with a screwdriver
• I cannot refuse a second scone where a cream tea is concerned
• Wearing an old t-shirt over your clothes doesn’t mean that you wont end up in the pub looking like you have rolled around in a muddy ditch and then run through a hedge

But…

• I can mastermind the re netting of an anti pigeon frame (it probably has a better name than that but that is what it is…)
• It’s possible to cook a leg of lamb on a bbq (and rather lovely it is too)
• It’s knackering but it feels great to do physical work outside that makes a difference to people
• Toilets make rather…erm…interesting…plant pots
• It is possible for 17 people to paint a shed and tidy its inside, to take everything out of a huge greenhouse and re-board all the tables inside and put everything back, to move plants around like nobodys business, to paint an old Covent Garden mobile stall, to take apart two anti pigeon frames and re build one and do a spot of weeding

I also arrived knowing three peoples names and now know 16.

I think this is the way forward for Mondays.  And that has nothing to do with the BBQ lunch or the cream tea this afternoon.  Well, not much… :o)