A "fun" shopping mission for Miss N this afternoon as it didn't involve visiting any chain supermarkets, instead I was tasked with going to the Halal Butchers for chicken breasts, her preferred fruit and veg shop on Edgware Road for a Honeydew, and then Farah Supermarket for 1kg of Honey...all successfully found and purchased, much to Miss N's delight!

A milestone mission for me, but a normal chat plus shopping mission for Mr T, who was feeling a little under the weather this afternoon, but still on good form, and we covered the usual wide range of topics both pre and post shop - and not for the first time I left feeling educated about things I didn't know about prior to arriving at his front door!

I worked out this was my 83rd shopping mission for Mr T, and there was something suitably satisfying about him being the beneficiary for this particular mission today.

Today's task to help clear space in the living room to enable Ms E to return home from hospital felt like the culmination of David and my furniture shifting experience of recent times - helped enormously by Ms E's social worker being on site to direct us to exactly what needed moving and to where.

All the items we moved fitted neatly through the doorways in the flat without presenting us with too many spatial challenges, and having earlier prepared space in which to put them, and keep a passageway clear to a cupboard in that room, we made rapid progress getting the living room cleared, and one heavy bureau aside that seemed to have a number of false front drawers...nothing fell apart in our hands either (always a relief).

A small band this evening of Hilary, Rebecca and Nick - very much quality over quantity - met up at the Aquatic Centre (just about still light-ish), and navigated our way through the Olympic Park along the canal to find Ange waiting for us, with spades and wheelbarrows neatly parked...

The dune of sand(?) that we'd initially attacked back in July was our task for tonight (https://www.goodgym.org/v3/reports/leaps-and-mounds) - the dune had shrunk a bit since our last visit as Ange (with a few other smaller people helpers) had managed to get some of it moved to various parts of the playground over the summer, but there was still enough to keep us amused for a good hour.

With Hilary and Rebecca on shoveling duty and Nick on wheel barrowing, we soon established a chain gang that worked pretty well to get the sand shifted from outside of Ange's "office" to near the Big Ship where we slowly built a new dune...with only three of us on duty there were no tea breaks allowed in spite of occasional groans from one staff member whose shoulders were starting to complain.

When Ange comes out and compliments you on a job well done, you know you've done something pretty good, and at 8 we parked the spades and barrows - there's still quite a bit more to get moved, but we don't think you can long jump into what remains...which is real progress - and had a sociable run back to the Olympic Park along the canal, avoiding the occasional unlit pedestrian and bike rider along the way...