Today’s mission in Brighton took us to assist Mr K and his live-in carer, Ms A. Following an OT assessment, a brand-new, bright blue kitchen chair was ordered for Mr K, who lives with dementia. Flat-pack assembly was required, and with Ms A unable to use her left hand, it was time to break out the toolkit and conquer the IKEA-style puzzle.

What seemed like a quick, straightforward build quickly turned into a battle against factory alignment. A pre-drilled hole and One stubborn wooden dowel refused to sit where it belonged. After a bit of coaxing, realignment, everything finally lined up.

Ms A mentioned that most of Mr K’s previous chairs had met an untimely end—turns out Mr K stands at over six feet tall and gained a bit of healthy weight during his stay in a nursing home! With that in mind, I extra-tightened every single screw to ensure maximum structural integrity against future seating impacts.

Before calling it a day, both Ms A and I gave the chair a full sit-and-wiggle test to confirm it was rock solid and ready for daily use. I advised Ms A to keep an eye on the screws periodically and to reach out to the referrer if the chair ever needs tightening down the road. Mission accomplished.

Mission completed! I kicked off the session with the real workout: shifting a small mountain of heavy boxes full of books and files that had practically taken over the hallway and sitting room. Playing a high-stakes game of real-life Tetris in a tiny store room got the job done, though a few stubborn boxes still had to claim residence in the hall. Naturally, I was sweating up a storm after all that heavy lifting, but Ms V saved the day with a cool glass of peach sparkling water. Absolutely top-tier deliciousness—I’m 100% buying a case before summer ends!

Once refreshed, I tackled the curtain swap—unhooked the old ones, popped the fresh ones up, and thankfully didn’t end up coughing my lungs out since the original curtains were surprisingly dust-free compared with the referer "extremely dusty" (my face mask lived to fight another day).

With 10 minutes still on the clock, I decided to go for bonus points on her to-do list. I reattached her rogue sink stopper and fixed the letterbox flap back onto the front door. All in all, a super productive visit, great refreshment, and zero dust-mask emergencies!

Millions of people visit Brighton's beautiful beaches every year to swim in the sea and enjoy the seaside vibes. However, not everyone departs without leaving a trace. After this year's May bank holiday weekend, the council cleared up 20 tonnes of rubbish from the beach.

Brighton & Hove Tidy Up Team is a volunteering organisation that has equipment stashed all over the city to allow volunteers to proactively keep their city clean.

On a blissfully cool summer evening, we took a shift with their equipment to have a beach clean of our own. We were joined by new Goodgymmer Alessandro, lapsed Goodgymmer Rachel back after a long sabbatical and Liz for her second task with us. We picked-up funky vests, monstrous litter pickers and an array of bin bags from the communal equipment bin by the Bandstand and then descended on to the surrounding promenade and beach.

We split into pairs, with dedicated bag holders to avoid the ignominy of having a gust of wind upend your rubbish bag while you're trying to put something else in. Although the beach wasn't looking too litter strewn we still managed to pick-up a lot of cigarette butts, bottle caps, plastic wrappers, straws and cans.

Hearteningly, throughout the evening we were approached by a number of people thanking us for our work, which was a beautiful reminder that most people care deeply about keeping their beaches clean and that the litter is only dropped by a small minority.

Another very warm Sunday morning saw us back at Queen’s Park Junior Parkrun, helping the young runners safely around their 2km course.

I was on tailwalking duties, while Sarah took up position marshalling at the wonderfully named Fairy Grotto, guiding the kids around the course and helping point them safely home towards the finish.

Despite the early start, it was still seriously hot out there! A few of the youngsters sensibly decided to call it a day part-way round. This did, however, leave the tailwalker suddenly with nobody to tail...

So much for walking! 😅

With the remaining runners disappearing into the distance, this particular tailwalker had to put in an unexpected sprint around the course to catch up with the back of the field. Who knew tailwalking could turn into speed training?!

Eventually everyone was safely accounted for, with Sarah cheering and directing our runners through the Fairy Grotto and onwards to the finish.

A hot but fun morning supporting another brilliant junior parkrun — and a rather more energetic tailwalk than expected!

Great turnout, we had plenty volunteers but each one was very dedicated and worked so efficiently. We chopped veg and cooked a veggie chilli, roast butternut squash, sweetcorn fritters, and a cherry almond cake all in just over an hour, it's never been so quick! Thanks everyone

With a solar eclipse due later this evening, today's mission was all about bringing a bit more light into Mr A's day.

A dense wall of brambles had blocked access to his garage and rear garden, so I spent the session cutting them back and clearing a path. By the end, the garden was accessible again and a major source of stress had been removed.