Hanging out with Mr R. Curtainly a good deed done!

2 Goodgymers helped an isolated person in Cardiff
Ellen
Michael
1 / 4
Cardiff

Saturday 28th October 2017

Find out about GoodGym TaskForce

Report written by Ellen

Share the love

On a sunny Saturday (for a change!), Mikey and I ran to help Mr R in Canton do some minor but tricky tasks in his home. As it was in Canton, I had the better part of the deal, having only 1k to run to the location. Once there, Mr R was very welcoming and friendly and quickly explained what the tasks were: firstly, to take down curtains and the curtain rail in his front room, and replace them with a new rail and new thermal / blackout curtains; and secondly, if time, to hang some pictures around his house. So hang things up we did! Mikey was quickly up the ladder to take down the existing curtain rail and curtains. Meanwhile, I unpacked the new curtains, read the TINY instruction leaflet (honestly, worse than Ikea instructions!), and found out a little bit more about Mr R. Originally from London, he's been in Cardiff now for enough to feel he's been accepted as a local :-) A cup of coffee later, and after some discussion about fittings, screws and DIY stuff like that (not my forte!), we had the new curtain rail up, and the curtains too of course. They looked super and when drawn, would curtainly keep the light out and the warmth in for Mr R (see what I did there?!) Although Mr R thought we'd done enough, we said we really were happy to do the picture hanging too. So out came the drill and more screws and stuff (technical term), and we put up 3 pictures: one of his granddaughter; one with a framed newsclipping; and one with two Certificates of Post-War Credits - an interesting bit of history that I didn't know about, but am going to look up! It was a great first mission for me (after two aborted attempts). Mr R seemed pretty pleased with the work we'd done (as he cannot climb ladders anymore). Along the way we met Mr R's lovely but profoundly deaf kitty, and Mikey made friends with a spider. Once goodbyes were said, Mikey and I headed off to run home via Bute Park and put some more miles in for me. On the way we passed one of the last few Snowdogs for me to collect too - so a successful Saturday mission on all fronts. Thanks to Mikey too for being a super running companion!



Discuss this report
Join us on our next session

Cardiff

Starter Session - Give us a go
🗓Monday 30th December 6:30pm

Experience a glimpse of goodgym, then come to volunteer at a later task

Michael
One GoodGymer is going