Kenny and I both thought in advance of today's mission for the cheery Ms M that this should be a straightforward bed dismantling and moving outside on a Sunday morning task...goodness, we really should've learned by now...

Ms M showed us into her bedroom, where the bed to be moved could just about be spotted under a huge pile of bags and clothing, and surrounded by further bags that looked like they would topple at any moment - and especially so once we'd try to move the bed. Furthermore Ms M pointed at a couple of carpets hidden under another pile of bags and asked if we could remove those too.

Kenny and I rolled up our sleeves (literally and metaphorically) and got to work moving as many of the bags as we needed to into the kitchen (the only available space), and before long we had the mattress off the bed and downstairs. This left a pile of clothes (and hangers) on the bed base itself (the princess of "pea fame" would've been impressed) - the clothes got wrapped into a giant homemade Santa sack from a useful nearby sheet, the hangers and almost everything else went quickly into bin bags

The headboard was easy to remove, but pulling at the divan base caused more bags to tumble onto us, so further moving and stacking ensued before we were finally able to split the base in two and get it outside.

We then turned our mind to the two semi hidden carpets - with the floor space now clear without the bed, it was just a case of moving the bags from one side of the room to the other, again stacking gingerly to avoid a plastic bag avalanche. The carpet came apart in our hands as we rolled it up, giving off a yellow dust cloud that then settled on the carpet and everywhere else, which Ms M then asked us to sweep up.

After a bit of a discussion with Ms M over which bags were going where, we then relocated all the kitchen bags back into the bedroom, albeit in a different corner from whence they had first come.

Unfortunately there is now not enough space for a new bed to be installed in that room, something we pointed out to Ms M, and that if further volunteer assistance was required, she shouldn't hesitate to ask her referrer.

After a quick de-dusting of ourselves, we wished Ms M a very Merry Christmas and headed downstairs - she was leaning out of her window before we'd even got to the street commenting on our handiwork, and with a few more waves, we were finally able to say goodbye.