Ms D seemed a little less flustered this week, which I took to be a good sign that things felt a little more under control in her world. As we ran through the list she mentioned that she liked the mini pork pies I'd found for her last week, but that the small pack of two wasn't enough, so could I get four? I said they only came in packs of two or six, to which she replied that six would be too many...as our collective brains whirred into action, we quickly solved the puzzle by agreeing that I'd just buy two packets of two...simples. Of course when I got to Waitrose, only the six pack was available on the shelves, albeit only marginally more expensive than if I'd bought two packs of two...

A first time shop for Mr R who admitted that this was all new to him when I arrived - I found myself resisting the temptation to say that it wouldn't hurt a bit, but stopped myself just in time - I'm clearly watching too many medical/emergency programmes at the moment...

Thankfully Mr R was on top of the prices for all the items on his list, and pointed me in the direction of his local Tesco where, sure enough, I found everything that he wanted and we came in under budget.

A pleasant walk back through the autumn leaves with bag in hand and I was soon at his door to drop off the treasure. Mr R was very grateful for the assistance, and I got to explore a new part of west London in the morning sunshine (sort of)...what's not to like.

You know that autumn's here (even if the thermometer is trying hard to convince you otherwise), when evening group tasks involve (a lot of) leaf sweeping, and so it was for Graham, Eugene, Hilary and I once we'd convened at Ange's place, aka the Hackney Adventure playground. Armed with brooms, rakes, spades and a bag big enough for a small family to shelter under, we quickly got to work clearing the basketball court/football pitch of leaves, branches and other deposits...

We'd like to say there was some method applied to how we went about the task, but that would be overstating things somewhat, although our biggest challenge was staying ahead of the gusts which blew inconsiderately and kept depositing more debris onto the playing surface just when we thought we were winning, but after 45 minutes of pretty vigorous sweeping, piling up and bagging, the court/pitch was once more ready for play, and it would've been rude if we hadn't given it a try out...suffice to say we're clearly better suited to sweeping than we are at hooping...

I wasn't quite sure what to expect in terms of the scope of today's mission - "Moving boxes for Ms L" had the potential to cover a lot of bases...but it turned out largely as described, and the ever chatty Ms L was pleased to see me again, which was an added bonus.

She just needed about a dozen cardboard boxes moved out of a cupboard and into the living room so that she could sort through them all and decide what to keep and what to get rid of - so following the maxim of "Lift with your knees", this particular task was soon complete - I don't doubt there will be a follow on mission to return some boxes back to the cupboard in due course!

Somehow our post shop conversation took us all the way from the Breeders Cup in LA to Mozart in Vienna, and with quite a few interim stops on the way, including back pain, economy class seats and the miracle of how the human body can heal itself. If Mr T were ever to go on Mastermind he's got a ready made set of specialist topics tucked away in that little grey matter of his...and he'd ace the general knowledge round too!

A real mix on the list for Ms D this morning, and she was (unnecessarily) concerned about whether I could read her writing this week (familiarity is quite helpful in this regard...). After a diversion to Boots to pick up some magic hair potion, the aisles of Waitrose once more didn't let me down for the rest of the list, even with the stergene and long emery boards she was after.

Mr B was expecting me when I rang his flat number this morning, as was the building manager, who then kindly accompanied me up to Mr B's flat where we discovered he'd placed one of the two parts of the divan on top of a suitcase - something to surely rival the Princess of pea fame...

We got to work clearing out the old broken bed frame that had been pushed to one side, along with a very tired(!) looking single mattress, and then unpacked the divan base and got the wheels and legs fitted, and the two halves joined together.

With a space now cleared (and the floor a lot cleaner), it was just a case of moving the divan into the space and putting the mattress on top - "a proper bed" declared a clearly pleased Mr B, who has apparently been sleeping on the single mattress for over a year. One final request to change the lightbulb above his bed to give him some light, and the mission was complete.