.14 Goodgymers turned up at the Community Centre last night for what promised to be a spooky evening of Goodgym spirit at St Luke’s church. After being warned to be nice to the ghosts and to not get eaten by any resident falcons, we set off on a walk which had been deemed to be far too short. This meant that, after arriving, we were promptly told to go away again. Not because we’d been really annoying (I think) but to do what we call a ‘meet and retreat’. This involves pairing up, moving around the perimeter of the church at your preferred speed, doing an exercise when you found your partner, and then moving back to where you started. Competitiveness is entirely optional.

After everyone had returned, we were armed with various sizes of cutty things, which is the technical term, and set loose on the graveyard to conduct a Goodgym haunting. Our instructions basically amounted to ‘fix it’, so we resorted to the destruction of unruly plants. There were very, very many to choose from. We battled bushes of brambles to uncover hidden gravestones (one which included a rather well-preserved anchor), had a fight with some allegedly non-sentient ivy, and created the world’s biggest piles of plant as proof of our victory.

There were protests when we had to finish and threats to stay in the graveyard all night (you know, like normal people) - our Goodgym spirit is just too strong! We were convinced to stop the haunting before the exorcists had to be called in and herded to the front of the church for some more exercise. A circuit of fun awaited us, involving running, jumping, and trying to figure out how to do the bench one without just looking like you were sitting down. Then, tired and happy with our inspired success, we all went home with our spirits high.