A lively group met this evening at Charing Cross to serve hot food to people in the streets.

While waiting for the van of food, I met Chandrima, and while chatting about GoodGym we found Dom who has been getting the emails for a while, but hasn't signed up to a session! So congratulations Dom, this counts, we hope to see you at more GoodGym events soon (you don't even have to run every time!)

Once the van arrived we quickly set up and were soon serving biriyani, pasta salad, bread, gulab jamun and socks to whoever needed it.

There was an abundance of food this evening, and so noone went away hungry. Jas the driver was even able to drop some leftovers back at a nearby hostel.

It was a balmy evening with pleasant company - I for one will be back again.

Except bunches of Sainsbury's bananas which come in fives - so Miss P got one extra for her money - otherwise it proved to be a straightforward task to find the four items on her list this week, and as always she was extremely grateful for the help.

I can't think today's absence of Mr R's favourite Rye and Seeds Sourdough Loaf on the shelves of Tesco in Maida Vale can be blamed on the current geo-political crisis, but stranger things have happened, and if the situation is the same next week then something is definitely up on the Rye front...

It was the second part of our two part task last night at Traid, and it was a race to get everything done before the shop could open the next day completely restocked.

Luckily Delphine and Susan were on hand to help, and bagged themselves a great upper body workout in the process!

Traid is on a mission to stop the harmful effects of fast fashion, and in doing so funds projects all over the world to make sure that everyone who contributes to making our clothing, whether that’s farmers or garment workers and their families, gets fair treatment and control over their own future.

The pile of bags to sort and pack up were very evident from the moment we walked in - a massive blue sea upstairs and a mountain more downstairs to move up.

We started with a warm up, quickly forming a human chain to pass hundreds of bags up the stairs. It was hard work but strangely satisfying!

Our next step was to put clothes on rails. Sounds simple enough but there was more to it. Not only did all the garments have to face the right way with the hanger facing in, but they had to be arranged in a pre determined colour scape which tested our sorting skills! Towards the end of the power hour Gemma, the manager, put us back into our chain formation to bring up the rest of the stock. Turns out it was a great finisher which left us with wobbly arms and the sense of a job well done!

Next Tuesday evening we will have the group task as usual, which is just being confirmed - keep an eye out for next week's challenge.

I was faced with a (first world) dilemma this morning in the aisles of the world's politest supermarket - Mrs S is always insistent on me getting her the Lindt 85% but the shelves were bare - so I had to make a decision on whether to go with 70% or 90%...of course when I got back and updated her she replied she'd have been very happy with either...

Following the request, I gave Mr R a call about an hour before I planned to arrive. He was very grateful for the heads-up, as it gave him plenty of time to get ready for the delivery.

I headed to the local Sainsbury’s and picked up a medium-sized bottle of semi-skimmed milk. Upon arriving at his place, I called him again to let him know I was outside, given the broken doorbell.

We settled the payment for the milk, and he was very thankful for the help. It’s missions like these—simple, direct, and well-coordinated—that remind you how much a small gesture can mean to someone's day.