Some evenings feel like just another task. This was not one of those evenings.

This one felt like the Beatles climbing onto the rooftop of Apple Corps without any flashy announcements, without calling it a finale, without any fanfare - just plugging in and playing because that’s what they’d always done. Because tonight we weren’t just playing a familiar tune by clearing the emergency exit at the Stroud Green and Harringay Library but we were also marking our Gramps’ 300th GoodGym task and his final night as Haringey Area Activator, after six years as the band leader.

Six years of setting the tempo. Calling the tune. Keeping the band moving slightly forward with a mix of mishaps, bad puns, and an unnatural ability for mild chaos.

The task itself was perfectly on theme: stripped back, practical, familiar. Sam, Sarah, Latoya, and Paul scraping leaves off the ground like virtuoso rhythm guitar players, Mark, Dave, and Neil firmly escorting overgrown plants off stage. Veronika running fashionably late. The emergency exit, long hidden behind greenery, came back into view, clear, usable, quietly essential. No fireworks. Just the work.

Quite appropriately, we even had time for a mid-set cameo from the Montes Surtees clan, turning up like familiar faces at the edge of the roof, for one more song.

Over those six years, this GG family band did more than play tasks. GoodGym babies joined the world. A myriad of races were run. We performed a strong socially-distanced hum through a pandemic. We wrote our own funereal hymns after the loss of one of our loved ones as we stood together in silence, and then in a lot on noise, because that was the only thing that mattered. And we laughed. A lot.

When the last leaf was cleared, we wandered to Rowans, just like the Beatles kind of did once the police have finally had enough. Drinks were raised. Speeches balanced gratitude and mischief. Karaoke followed, gloriously unpolished, everyone getting a turn at the mic. Gramps was given the most beautiful book, full of memories, that rumour has it, he still hasn't managed to get through it in one sitting.

Like that rooftop concert, it didn’t feel like a goodbye in the moment. Just one last time playing together, above the city, before heading back down into whatever came next. Only later do you realise you were watching the end of something special.

Same Goodgym. Same people. Different verse.

And what a song it’s been.

Love you, fam. And because Nurj would never forgive me if I didn't sign out with it... Boom!

8 Goodgymmers tamed the wilds of the Hornsey Health Centre as we continue to support the extension of this space for patients.

Kudos Corner

Holy smokes, Batman... Yann returned for his second heroic outing with GoodGym! Calm, steady, and equipped with the serene determination of a monk who has spent years contemplating the mysteries of garden forks, he proved his accomplishments last week were no fluke. Welcome back, Yann, your encore performance was a triumph.

Grand Designs

This week’s mission took us to the back of Hornsey Health Centre, where the Friends of Hornsey had ambitions: extend the garden for patients, create a peaceful sanctuary, and, first things first, wrestle the overgrown patch of wilderness into something that didn’t resemble the set of Jumanji.

Our GoodGymmers arrived, and within moments the quiet evening air was replaced by the rhythmic snip-snip-snip of secateurs, the scrape of spades, and the occasional joyful “Ooh, that came up easier than expected!” Together we formed a merry band of garden-tamers, shifting brambles, stray branches, mystery rubble, and even an old skool boom box.

All the while an unnamed Goodgymmer regaled us with her online scraps with a few brave keyboard-warriors who took offence to her posting about the 'man or bear in the woods' post - blokes who incidentally went to prove our Goodgymmer's point with their wild rambling. Keep fighting the good fight, unnamed Goodgymmer. We heart you big time.

After an hour, we called it quits and headed in different directions, with most making a beeline for the local watering holes.

Boom