This afternoon I met up with the lovely Paul for a mission in Lambeth. He'd already been to parkrun and done a gardening mission in the morning, and so earns some form of extra celebrations for being super productive. Consequently: Woot! 🎉

Our task for the day was to help clean Ms J's flat before Christmas: she's recently had some workmen around to replace some central heating pipes and they'd left dust and grit everywhere! As Ms J has restricted mobility, she's been unable to clean this up herself, and so enlisted helpers from GoodGym. (Us! 😄)

As soon as we arrived at Ms J's flat (after a brief foray up a couple of flights of the wrong staircase - sorry Paul!), Ms J greeted us warmly and showed us her beautiful flat. As she went, she pointed out the different areas of the flat that needed dusting/cleaning (namely, a storage cupboard, an airing cupboard, a bathroom, a W.C., her living room and the hallway in-between). I think there were only two rooms that we didn't need to dust in the end! :D

I started by tackling the storage cupboard, leaving Paul and Ms J to chat happily while Paul dusted the living room.

When writing these reports, I normally end up thinking a lot about one part of the visit that I expect will stay with me for a while afterwards. For this mission, I think the dust will stay with me even after it's long been physically washed away (as a side note, this is probably why my mother advised me to have a cleaner when I lived by myself 😅). I decided to only scrub the floors twice (with multiple changes of water during each scrub) as the floor needed to dry properly before any items were put back into storage. After checking with Ms J whether there were any items she needed more immediate access to (& so should be packed last), I re-packed the storage cupboard and moved on to some of the other floors.

From the other room, it sounded like Paul and Ms J were getting on like a house on fire. I frequently heard phrases like "X is an interesting type of marsupial", and "when I was in Italy the first time", which made me a little envious of their conversation. It wasn't too long before Paul and I switched jobs, however (& when I say "switched jobs", I mean Paul came over to help with the floors and I just stopped work completely to chat with Ms J).

After a couple of hours of busting our guts at cleaning, we had made pretty big inroads into the dust and debris and Ms J seemed happy with our progress. Making our goodbyes, Paul and I stopped for a quick selfie, in which he loaned me a Christmas disguise and I ruined his. Great working with you, Paul. Hope you enjoy the holidays! :)