One stop on the tube to cross the river, and a twenty-something-minute walk took me from the concrete jungle, where I work, to a canalside, an enchanted woodland and streets ruled by bold, daring foxes. In that magical land, I found Mrs M's home.

Aren't you too little for moving boxes?
Why? Are they up high?
Well, no...
Let's have a look at them then!

It's been really hot in the flat, so I took off my work shirt. The sight of the black GoodGym t-shirt, and my arms perhaps, cemented my creds as qualified to do the job. Phew.

If I was in such shape, I’d be moving boxes from here to Liverpool! - Mrs M.

The bedroom was full of... stuff. Everywhere. And boxes, which sadly didn't make it into the report photos. I took time to slowly fish out the requirements from Mrs M, who, although being a lovely lady with a sense of humour, was hard of hearing and, as she shared, was in the early stages of dementia. I gathered that she wanted access all the way to the radiator on the opposite side of the room, which was blocked not only by boxes, but also by a hospital bed. In addition to that, there was a massive massage armchair in the bedroom to make the mission more exciting.

Without hesitation, I threw myself into a game of a large-scale jigsaw puzzle, moving boxes and furniture back and forth. First, I needed to gain access to storage, where, as agreed with Mrs M, I could relocate some clothes and shoes found in boxes and on the floor. As we've opened the cartons, Mrs M would decide whether to keep things out, put them into the storage, or bin them (that's where old packaging I found ended up).

Mrs M raised the bar of the game, as she needed to walk to the living room to lie down more comfortably, then to the kitchen to get some water, then back to the living room. For each Mrs M's relocation, I had to shift the boxes in the corridor since at that point I had nowhere else to put them. Mrs M was confident she would go past the cartons with her walking frame (which wasn't physically possible) and insisted she would get a glass of water herself - only to call me later to the kitchen so that I could pour her some water, which I had offered to do earlier. Little did I know, we were about to have a lovely chat in the kitchen, after which I had no doubt of how interesting a character and a kind person Mrs M was.

After the break, Mrs M stayed in the kitchen to rest a bit more and gave me creative licence in rearranging the rest of the bedroom, already being delighted with the progress. She revealed she used to be an architect and would have loved to work with me on some decorating projects.

I stuffed the storage with items we had agreed to put away, collected rubbish, and shifted the hospital bed by 90 degrees, as I saw no other alternative to create access to the radiator. I also found a better place for the armchair, cleared the bed of clutter, and left some items in the bags from storage for Mrs M to go through at her own pace.

My idea to temporarily push all the empty boxes towards the flat's door to make room for Mrs M to freely move between the rooms wasn't foolproof. I hadn't anticipated that the carer, another Ms M, would come to check on Mrs M and heat up a meal for her. The carer hadn't expected to find a pile of boxes when entering the flat, but she was grateful to see Mrs M's hospital bed finally free of clutter.

When Ms M (the carer) left, I packed the recycling bin with collapsed cardboard boxes and waited for Mrs M to finish her soup and see what her bedroom looked like after the transformation.

Good? - I asked.
No. Not good. Fantastic!

Mrs M could not contain her enthusiasm and sat on a newly decluttered bed, looking around at her revamped bedroom. I’m telling you, no one in life makes you feel as appreciated as the mission beneficiaries do!

Today two Goodgymers sorted and packed away food donations in preparation for Borough food pantry tomorrow.

It was wonderful, I played sport with some of the players I met there. Was taught how to play badminton and ended up giving out flyers and inviting others to join the proud sports club. With Korra (forgive my spelling errors) overall it was fun and they will be seeing me again.

On this grizzly Wednesday night, Emma Isaac and Steve joined me to leaflet for GROAD. We did a mixture of blocks of flats and houses, covering every part of the warren that is Champion hill. We were finished in 30 minutes, before heading back to warm homes and hot dinners, happy to have done a good deed!

2 GoodGymers powered through (in record time!) a busy afternoon at Borough Food Co-op.

Ivar put his strong muscles to work unloading a massive delivery from the truck, packed with heavy crates full of fruit, veg and cans. Once everything was inside, Ivar and Chandrima got stuck into quality checking and crate-mixing apples, pears, bananas, oranges, onions, carrots, parsnips, big potatoes, leeks and sweetheart cabbages to create colourful, ready-to-go displays for distribution.

The tin taskforce then took over for a very satisfying sorting session. First up were towers of canned tuna chunks, sardines and mackerel fillets in every possible liquid (brine, sunflower oil and spring water), all unloaded, separated and stacked so the right tins were easy to find. That was followed by a sea of store-cupboard staples: cans of baked beans, butter beans, chopped tomatoes, marrowfat peas and mushy peas were all sorted into neat groups. On top of that, crates of Diet Coke, Dr Pepper and Korean lemonade were unloaded and arranged so the shelves looked full but tidy.

With Ivar now very close to the brilliant milestone of 200 good deeds – and plenty more deeds to come for 200+ – the pair rounded things off with a quick clean-up, sweeping the floors and wiping down desks so everything was left spotless for the next session.

Big Cheers to Ivar for being a champ and an inspiration to newbie GG-ers! 💪🏻

2 GoodGymers kicked off a very productive Monday morning at Borough Food Co-op, helping keep things running smoothly behind the scenes.

The session kicked off with a very satisfying freezer task: wiping down and neatly stacking around 100 frozen boxes of aubergine tagine with vermicelli rice, making sure everything was clean, organised and easy to grab for future distribution. That was followed by unloading and storing roughly 30 egg cartons and a batch of milk bottles, plus sorting various blocks of butter.

Anna left no time to waste before getting stuck into the potato workout – unloading heavy sacks, quality checking them, and crate‑mixing the spuds into a neat, eye‑catching display! After that, Chandrima stored away various lentils (red and brown), plus pinto beans and chickpeas to keep the dry goods area looking calm rather than chaotic.

To round things off, cardboard boxes were flattened for recycling, and a stack of veg crates got a deep clean so they were fresh, hygienic and all set for other volunteers to use for future crate‑mixing sessions.