Every week that I've shopped for Mrs A, the painters have been redecorating the communal areas of her building, and today she'd kindly left me a note on her newly painted green front door warning me of wet paint...she's confident that by the time they finish (whenever that may be...) the place will be looking marvellous, and I don't doubt it judging by the amount of time they've spent on the job!

After last week's management review, it was an easy trip around the quiet aisles to get everything exactly as she wanted - it ended up being a heavy load due to the combination of water, orange juice and multiple tins, so I had one arm longer than the other when I made it back. She, as ever, was so very grateful for the help.

A return visit to Miss C's, this time to replace a damaged lampshade in her bedroom with a new paper one that she'd bought. It all proved straightforward, although I did have to borrow a chair to reach the light in question.

"Thank you Nick, I wouldn't have been able to do that" she said quietly as I stepped down off the chair...which I guess is the whole point of these missions.

Another fascinating afternoon's conversation with Mr T either side of doing the shopping (which was trouble free this week and it was a delight to see the Chicken Legs back on the menu) - we covered a lot of ground starting with his cross word of the week ("Paladin"), through to the art of butchery (of pigs and sheep), before we got into the challenges of bagpipe tuning...and a lot more in between. Friday afternoon's have never been so enlightening.

After I'd been to the aisles of the world's politest supermarket to get everything on Ms D's list today (thankfully this week in bright sunshine, so no soggy lists to try and decipher), and was emptying her shopping bags onto her kitchen top, she asked me if I could help her to open something.

Behind me was the box of laundry tablets that I'd bought the week before, with a pair of tongs jammed into them - Ms D confessed she'd been defeated (i.e. frustrated) in trying to open the (childproof) box...after a quick inspection of the instructions (and removal of the tongs), I found the small safety tabs that were holding the inner box in place, and after removing them and applying a little force, managed to get it open.

Ms D was delighted (as was I), although not for the first time it made me realise that modern packaging that has been made "child proof" is also becoming more and more "older adult proof" too...