Today's downpours meant a bit of diligent navigating up and down Tottenham Court Road in a vain attempt to keep the wheels of Mr T's trusty trolley reasonably dry - I discovered (as with many of the best tricks) that a judicious flick of the wrist was effective at getting the trolley to bunny hop it's way over the worst of the ponds.

Mr T is clearly in seasonal mood as the Brussels Sprouts had been added to his leafy vegetable request - I was circumspect as to whether these had made it yet to the shelves of Lidl, but of course I was proved wrong...it's never too early for festive fayre these days.

Ms D seemed a little less flustered this week, which I took to be a good sign that things felt a little more under control in her world. As we ran through the list she mentioned that she liked the mini pork pies I'd found for her last week, but that the small pack of two wasn't enough, so could I get four? I said they only came in packs of two or six, to which she replied that six would be too many...as our collective brains whirred into action, we quickly solved the puzzle by agreeing that I'd just buy two packets of two...simples. Of course when I got to Waitrose, only the six pack was available on the shelves, albeit only marginally more expensive than if I'd bought two packs of two...

A first time shop for Mr R who admitted that this was all new to him when I arrived - I found myself resisting the temptation to say that it wouldn't hurt a bit, but stopped myself just in time - I'm clearly watching too many medical/emergency programmes at the moment...

Thankfully Mr R was on top of the prices for all the items on his list, and pointed me in the direction of his local Tesco where, sure enough, I found everything that he wanted and we came in under budget.

A pleasant walk back through the autumn leaves with bag in hand and I was soon at his door to drop off the treasure. Mr R was very grateful for the assistance, and I got to explore a new part of west London in the morning sunshine (sort of)...what's not to like.

You know that autumn's here (even if the thermometer is trying hard to convince you otherwise), when evening group tasks involve (a lot of) leaf sweeping, and so it was for Graham, Eugene, Hilary and I once we'd convened at Ange's place, aka the Hackney Adventure playground. Armed with brooms, rakes, spades and a bag big enough for a small family to shelter under, we quickly got to work clearing the basketball court/football pitch of leaves, branches and other deposits...

We'd like to say there was some method applied to how we went about the task, but that would be overstating things somewhat, although our biggest challenge was staying ahead of the gusts which blew inconsiderately and kept depositing more debris onto the playing surface just when we thought we were winning, but after 45 minutes of pretty vigorous sweeping, piling up and bagging, the court/pitch was once more ready for play, and it would've been rude if we hadn't given it a try out...suffice to say we're clearly better suited to sweeping than we are at hooping...

I wasn't quite sure what to expect in terms of the scope of today's mission - "Moving boxes for Ms L" had the potential to cover a lot of bases...but it turned out largely as described, and the ever chatty Ms L was pleased to see me again, which was an added bonus.

She just needed about a dozen cardboard boxes moved out of a cupboard and into the living room so that she could sort through them all and decide what to keep and what to get rid of - so following the maxim of "Lift with your knees", this particular task was soon complete - I don't doubt there will be a follow on mission to return some boxes back to the cupboard in due course!