I have lived in Charlton for 30 years & never visited the Lido. Today that changed as I had arranged to meet Mridula there following her couple of hours being whipped into shape via the swimming pool and my stint as run director for Greenwich parkrun before we ventured for our afternoon of Goodgym missions.

Firstly let me apologise publicly to Mridula for mispronouncing her name, not once but at least twice. I feel she has had to endure this many times in her life as she made me spell out her name as I was saying it to reinforce brain with sound. Hopefully I now have it and won’t make the same mistake, otherwise I think our friendship may be tested!

I know Goodgym vision is to run to missions but when you have available transport and the distances between missions are enormous (well Google maps said at least 20 miles round trip) then it had to be the car.

I met Mridula in the car park of Charlton Lido before setting of too mission number 1 which was Mrs E in Belvedere. A lovely lady who was very sure of the tasks she wished us to complete and happily we delivered!

We then moved on to New Eltham to visit Mrs P. Mrs P needed the edges of her lawn & paths cut back as since she has injured her knee she cannot bend down. We could see that Mrs P was not in a very good place and was feeling a bit isolated and lonely.

We set to work talking to her whilst we reviewed the available tools to complete the job and continued whilst we were down on hands and knees trimming the lawn edges.

Mrs P presented us with a cake on completing the mission which we felt if we did not gratefully accept her current mind set would have mistaken our declining as a rejection. Both Mridula and I and all others that accept missions for Goodgym do it because we enjoy them and want to assist and not to seek a reward, however, it’s a case of judgement on the day.

We said our goodbyes to Mrs P wishing we could do more. Wanting to save battery power again we decided sat nav was not necessary and eventually found our way back to the A2 (we did unfortunately need to check once to make sure we were going the right way). I dropped Mridula at North Greenwich tube as she needed to finish the day by subjecting herself to Stratford shopping centre as she needed 1 or 2 pieces before her fabulous trip at the end of the week.

A great afternoon in the company of 3 lovely ladies.