What's the best thing about the GoodGym missions to help older people? Meeting an inspiring person with great stories to tell, of course! Mrs J was one of those. She came to the UK from West Indies as a child. In the girls' school, she learnt discipline - think about being forbidden from running and shouting when wearing a uniform (GoodGymer's nightmare!). Maybe that rigour put her on a path of living a healthy life with activity, homecooked meals, and never needing things like smoking and drinking. Mrs J had something better to keep her going: a passion for cycling and photography. But that was not all Mrs J was fond of, oh no! Sometime after she was fifty, Mrs J's sister convinced her to take computer skills classes for seniors. Mrs J decided to learn the knacks of the new technology, which enabled her to photoshop the pictures she was taking. She even got some unexpected fame because of that.

"Granny, is that you in the newspaper?"

Sadly, Mrs J's computer and the Nikon camera were stolen and disappointed Mrs J abandoned those passions. She still had her garden to keep her engaged but she was already eighty and had arthritis. And there was another small problem: while not scared of spiders or lizards, Mrs J had a fear of worms, possibly since she had found one in a pea pod when she was a child. All of those factors made her a perfect candidate for help from GoodGymers Ana and Kash.

Kash arrived 10 minutes early, after the run from her second task in Isleworth and was planning to do some stretches. Now, a plot twist: Mrs J was already out with a broom, fully into the leaf-sweeping action! A man on the street asked the older lady whether she needed help. Mrs J confidently replied she was waiting for someone's help. Hearing that, Kash couldn't just wait on the other side of the street till the mission start time. She walked up to Mrs J and learned about the older lady's struggles to keep the front of her house clean and safe.

"Every day, I have to do that. People often ask whether I need help. But the leaves from the neighbour's tree keep falling at the stairs and into my garden."

Mrs J had other tasks for Kash, but first, she offered the GoodGymer water and asked where she came from. Kash explained her running routes to the missions today, which shocked Mrs J, who asked whether she trains for a marathon. Kash said she was too lazy to run even a half and only ever ran to GoodGym tasks. Then, Ana appeared.

"Oh, here's the proper runner!"

Ana smoothly engaged in the conversation with Mrs J while getting the tools out and starting to sweep the leaves. Kash, in the meantime, dug out the weeds from the flower bed. A big part of the mission was to take down the branches of a tree that were invading Mrs J's windows from the neighbour's garden. And I mean BIG! It was a David vs Goliath situation because the tree was very tall. Ana worked her saw and secateurs to remove the bottom branches but the ones on the top were out of reach. Kash jumped on a concrete table to give herself an extra meter of height. Mrs J was worried she would fall.

"Be careful! Oh dear, she's so small out there!"

But Mrs J had an ace in her sleeve: a tree pruner on a pole! It was a new tool for Kash, and she was very excited about trying it out. She chopped all the tall tree branches growing towards Mrs J's garden. The older lady didn't mind leaving the other twigs on the tree.

"Oh, let those grow to heaven!"

Ana also had her time with the long trimmer, attacking other tree branches from the ground. The previous situation, where she was diligently chopping and bagging the trimmings, while Kash was having fun and kept saying: "oops, sorry!" when a branch she cut dropped near Ana, didn't seem fair!

The GoodGymers' happy adventures gained the attention of a passerby, Mrs E, whose daughter already heard about GoodGym. Ana and Kash explained how to find their website and find out more about requesting tasks. Thanks to that encounter, Mrs J also got acquainted with Mrs E.

Mrs J couldn't stop praising the GoodGym volunteers, and if not for the incoming dusk, you would probably see them blushing!

"The angels came to me to help. Even without wings!"

And they still got the branches down, even without those wings!

After all the trimmings were packed, Ana helped Mrs J put away the tools. The GoodGymers took water from the old lady, said their goodbyes and happy-new-years, then took out the bags with garden waste, and ran back home. Such a lovely mission to close 2023!

No angels have fallen during this task.