Monday 6th April 2020
Find out about GoodGym TaskForce
Report written by York runner
Once again, fully prepped and after triple checking the address, I set out on my bike on a sunny Monday morning to my GoodGym mission. The postcode took me to a rather ambiguous row of houses, so stopping outside where I thought was right I phoned up Mrs W.
"I'm outside but I can't see you"... Mrs W said. So as I was early I thought i'd have a pootle around to see if I could spot Mrs W. Alas no luck, 10 minutes later and having made friends with a local council worker mowing lawns on the adjacent estate and a random man in the car park who also wanted to join in, I phoned Mrs W again. Fortunately her neighbour was around to help direct me to the correct address as Mrs W was new to the area. Cheerfully I said to Mrs W, "I'm in a fluorescent jacket so you'll spot me easily" to which Mrs W (almost gleefully) replied " Oh, I'm visually impaired, so you'll see me first!"
So after my in depth tour of the area I eventually found the chirpy Mrs W and her neighbour waiting in the sunshine. Well prepared Mrs W had the list and payment and extra details for the additional errand of delivering flowers to Mr W's grave for his birthday all ready in an envelope. Before setting off to the supermarket I thought i'd ask if there was a particular kind of flower she wanted me to get. Somewhat enjoying the questions Mrs W replied "Doesn't matter because I can't really see them!". Two points to Mrs W.
Zinging from Mrs W's wit I peddled over to the supermarket and was in and out in record time, only stopping to double check with Mrs W about one item and play at florists, settling on some rather fragrant Hyacinths, Daffs and tulips which even Mrs W could appreciate.
After dropping the groceries off with Mrs W and checking the details, I hot footed it over to the crematorium memorial garden to locate the grave of Mr W. I had sparing directions but it still involved a good 10 minutes or so of wondering around looking lost ( a trend for this mission I was starting to suspect) and trying not to step on other grave markers - small side plate sized plaques flush to the ground. At long Last I found Mr. W's grave marker and laid the bouquet. After wishing him a happy birthday, explaining the situation of this random showing up, and a quick update of current events, I said toodle-oo sent a photograph of the flowers to Mrs W (as promised) and then went on my way.
Tue 7th Apr 2020 at 5:16pm
This is just utterly lovely, wonderful. You're a good'un Katie!
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 8:43am
Well done Katie. Sure this was hugely appreciated.
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 10:21am
What a heartwarming, faith-in-humanity restoring and positively lovely mission report to read this morning, Katie!
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 11:34am
You are wonderful Katie!
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 12:53pm
So lovely! Nice one Katie
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 1:29pm
Love this report, Katie...and was thinking about asking someone to do the same for me...take flowers, that is, not shopping; I can still do that myself๐๐๐
Wed 8th Apr 2020 at 7:32pm
So wonderful