When I arrived at Mr M's door this afternoon ready for some chair building, he introduced himself by his first name, and said that's what I should call him - not Mr M, nor Mr Surname, or any other combination.

He showed me the two (large) boxes in his somewhat narrow hallway, and asked how long he'd got me for - I said I was there to get both chairs built, which was clearly the right answer based on his gratitude and the promise of a can of coke at any point.

Fortunately both chairs were reasonably straightforward to construct, and had all the requisite parts, tools and instructions - not for the first time the constraint was the lack of space in the hallway, but after building chair 1, and moving this into Mr M's living room, there was enough room to build chair 2, which Mr M said would stay in the hallway for now whilst he made space in one of the other rooms for it.

I gave both chairs a quick test drive - the recliner (with built in leg rest) was remarkably comfortable...Mr M was very grateful for my efforts, and doubly so when I said I'd take all the empty boxes downstairs to his bin store. The cold can of coke was well earned.