Go ahead Mr J, make our day...

Under clear blue skies, reminiscent of a sunny afternoon in downtown San Francisco, Liv and I met outside Mr J's flat on the third floor (which did involve quite a lot of stairs...of which more later, but important to the plot) and introduced ourselves.

We felt guilty interrupting Mr J watching a film he'd clearly seen before, but once introductions were made, he explained the tasks at hand, which involved clearing a large number of shelves and drawers in his bedroom and spare room of various items he no longer wanted or needed.

Liv (quickly renamed Ollie by Mr J) and I quickly got to work filling bin bags with old books, video tapes (which sadly can't be recycled or donated) and various other bits and pieces of a largely bygone era (including an impressive collection of braces (of the trouser hold up sort)) that Mr J had accumulated over the years in his home. Mr J stood watch as we went through his possessions to confirm what was to be kept and what could be disposed of.

Mindful that the bins were on the ground floor (those stair references at the start of the film were important), we were careful in not overfilling the bags in the knowledge the disposing of said items would become the next part of our self inflicted work out for the afternoon.

We made pretty quick work (at least in our opinion - Mr J's acerbic wit, interrogations and good humoured comments weren't always so complimentary...) of the items in his bedroom and took all the bags down the stairs to the communal bins via multiple trips, and after gathering our breath (and coughing some dust), moved on to his spare room...which we soon realised should actually should be a whole new series in the boxset.

Not to be deterred, we got to work clearing the shelves of another impressive collection of now past their sell by date video tapes (whilst silently seeking forgiveness from Greta Thunberg) into the bags to be taken down those now familiar stairs once again.

It became clear that Mr J would need to request a follow on task to empty this room of all the items he wanted rid of, which also included pieces of furniture (bookshelves, chair) that might require a proper furniture removal arrangement.

And so after over an hour of clearing, bag filling and stair climbing, we felt we'd got as far as we could with this particular mission. Mr J and his stories had been a highly entertaining soundtrack to our workout, and as we left him to return to his film (for which it was clear he already knew how it all ended) and his impressive ornamental gun collection in the front room, he was genuinely grateful for our efforts - so much so that he invited us back to take part in the sequel...