On my last visit, Mr T had greeted me at the entrance to the building as the main door wasn't working, so he wanted to be sure I could get in. In the intervening period the door has been fixed, but Mr T's telling of the story behind the repair would've filled three episodes of a tv drama - suffice to say the council workmen, when they finally did arrive, knew they had to do a good job...

Again, and fortunately, the visit to the various shops along Tottenham Court Road to pick up his supplies was a little less stressful, and perhaps a bit quicker too than the door repair, which of course gave us more time to pick apart the stories of the week (and more) once I'd returned with everything he'd requested.

Top of Miss N's list this week was "brown bread"...when I asked her to explain, she directed me to (another) Turkish shop/restaurant on Church Street that bakes its own flat circular bread...and if I got to Al Madina I'd gone too far...I assured her I'd hunt down her treasure, starting with the bread, and really hoped I wouldn't miss the shop.

Little did I know that the bread really was baked on the premises, starting (obviously) with copious amounts of small hand shaped dough balls baked inside a very hot oven by one very skilful baker. A few minutes later, I had the bread, and soon after everything else on Miss N's list neatly fell into place too.

At last, after several weeks of searching (high and low), the world's politest supermarket stocked the particular brand of Gazpacho that Mrs S had been asking for - with this in the basket, I ticked everything off her list for the first time since the heatwave began (or so it seems)...she was delighted, as was I...who knew cold blended tomatoes could provoke such a euphoric reaction!

David and I arrived at Mr M's to be met by his wife who explained that all she needed doing was moving a sofa bed from the living room (to create space for her husband's hospital bed) into the spare room next door, which she had worked impressively hard to clear.

Being self appointed "experts" on bed moving, we quickly sized up the challenge, removed the loose cushions, turned the sofa bed on its side, and got as far as the living room door where we discovered it wouldn't quite fit through...so not really experts after all.

Not to be deterred, we removed the cover, foam mattress and blanket, which slimmed the sofa enormously, and we were winning.

With the sofa bed reconstructed in its new location next door, and all cushions replaced, we asked Mr M's wife if she needed anything else shifting, but she seemed happy with our work, and that anything else could be pushed aside as and when the hospital bed arrived.