Remember, remember the 5th of November. The air hadn't yet smelled of gunpowder when I set off on a 16 km run with a task in the middle. That smoke would come later, when the fireworks started.

I called Mr T as usual before leaving for my mission, only to learn that he'd recently been bedbound and wouldn't be able to open the door for me this time. Instead, you could say he'd given me my North Star to follow – except that I was heading south-west. A white, red or black star would guide me to find the way into the building

I didn't look to the stars in the night sky. Hoping for anything other than an overcast sky in November in the UK seemed a bit of a stretch. On my way through the heart of Hounslow, though, I spotted something else that reminded me of stars: the indistinct festive lights along the High Street. To me, they could just as easily have been put up for Diwali as for Christmas. If they were meant to mark a religious celebration, they were surprisingly agnostic.

Eventually, I reached Mr T's building and it was time to crack the lockbox. But which one? From Mr T's description, I'd expected there to be about 15 fewer lockboxes than I actually found. I had to rely on his descriptions of the signs to narrow down the options. The only thing I was certain of was the code. I tried it on the lockbox with the red arrow (not quite a star), the white X (sort of a star with a missing limb) and the black asterisk (now THAT is a star!). One of them eventually released a key fob, and shortly afterwards I was in!

Inside, I found almost double the usual Mr T recycling haul waiting outside his flat, as he hadn't had any GoodGym visits for a few weeks. This time, I had to make two trips to dispose of it all, and I was rather happy to have the key fob so I could let myself back into the building.

With the assignment complete, I returned the fob to the keysafe, called Mr T to confirm the job was done, and set off on the run home to enjoy the rest of my evening.