Four Goodgymmers had to turn their back on a night at St Mark's Church after some overzealous Council officers stole their task from them mere minutes away from their arrival.

Theft in cold blood

Raj and Gramps, our running crew for the evening, were just about to set off to task when a bird chirped in Gramps' ear that our task for the evening might have just been cruelly stolen from under us.

Undeterred, our running crew took a detour to the location of the task just to double check and St Mark's Church had never looked cleaner! Turns out that when our assistance was requested to help as the outside of the church had become an ice rink with the frost and fallen leaves, the Council had also taken notice and cleared the mess of their volition. Credit to them, I suppose.

Our Goodgymmers, now joined by Niamh and Veronika, decided to find themselves another job and before you could say 'it's colder than a leaf-sweepers bum out here,' they were at the Noel Park Children's Centre, clearing the courtyard of leaves.

In a task described variously and unironically, as 'the best task ever,' our Goodgymmers swept, laughed, joked, and frolicked to their heart's content before a number of them decided to check notes jump in their car and get back home. It takes all sorts, sometimes, to rescue a win from the jaws of certain defeat. Boom.

Come next week!

3 full-sized Goodgymmers and two half-pint-sized Mini-Goodgymmers waded through the swampy lands of the St Mark's Churchyard in Wood Green for a very productive litter pick session.

Task Report From 9 year old Mini Goodgymmer

"We found a lettuce that turned out to be a nappy covered in sick from a baby who smoked cigarettes and watched Harry Potter films from a DVD in the Church. We also jumped in the mud. A lot. The end"

Nobody Likes A Soggy Bottom, or Shoes For That Matter

As the snapshot with some of things we found tonight from our Mini Goodgymmer above suggests, it was a particularly dirty and wet evening at the Churchyard in St Mark's. Helping to prove that nothing is sacred anymore, the yard seems to have been used as a dumping area over the cold dark months and it was in need of a proper clean. Enter our Goodgymmers.

Despite the waterlogged nature of the terrain, our adventurous explorers wasted no time in collecting the detritus left behind by what one of our Goodgymmers generously referred to as 'Right [REDACTED].'

Anyway, it was a soggy affair as it drizzled all the way through on an already moist crew but we persevered and after about an hour, we had managed to fill four green street sweeper bags between five of us! Not bad for a small squad, I'd say.

We made sure to finish before Low Mass started at the church but not before we posed for some holy, and some unholy, selfies.

We all then went on our way, with our Mini-Goodgymmers being treated to a very well earned post-task milkshake. All's well that ends well.

Come next week as we battled the elements again, this time at the Westbury Banks Nature Reserve.

Another weird year comes to an end. None of us can say that our Goodgym year went as planned but we stuck with it and I'm very grateful to every single one of you who made it to a run, community mission, or stayed in touch with their coach in Haringey.

We, as a community, do good and stay fit and I can't put into words how much you all helped me stay mentally fit this year. I hope you've got something out of this wonderfully weird fam we've somehow cobbled together too.

Final kudos to our six goodgymmers who made it to our final run of the year. Believe it or not, this was their millionth bulb planting session in a row, or so they would have you believe. And they did it with aplomb.

May you all get some rest over the next couple of weeks and we'll catch up in 2022 for, hopefully, a much easier year.

There will be hugs.

Much love, Gramps