First time GoodGymmer Patrick joined five of us last night for a trip to Beaufort Community Centre to paint a large cupboard.

Now, the thing about a large cupboard is that it's still quite small when you try and squeeze six GoodGymmers inside. But, perfectly balanced and poised we managed to get in there with rollers, brushes and two types of paint.

Lack of a stepladder or eight-foot-tall member of the team, meant we couldn't quite do the cutting in around the top, but we were 90% there. A remarkable amount of work done in just twenty minutes.

Hands covered in paint, white spirit and who knows what else we headed back. Games time!

First off, secret surges: everybody gets a secret number and has to try and sprint away from the group when their number is called. Great fun. I think it was about this time that we started talking about ale.

Then we did a spot of Indian Filing: jogging as a single file while the person who finds themselves at the back of the line must sprint to the front. Or run high knees to the front. Or skip to the front. We considered hopping but we're good not great.

But, that's not enough! Next, it was into two teams for a bit of pacing and chasing. Worked perfectly the first time with the pacers setting off at a nice steady jog and the chasers slowly winding things up and catching them over a predetermined distance. But following a swap of roles and a false start all the rules went out the window and the pacers started surging, as though they were chasing invisible beasts, while the chasers giggled and scratched their bonces. Maybe it was something to do with all the talk of ale? If none of this makes sense then you should have come! (actually even if you were there it probably doesn't make sense)

Anyway, we finished up with a mix of exercises: lunges, running high knees, hopping, jumping, skipping, sprinting and a plank (thanks, Daryl). Add all that to an 8k round trip and it's not a bad workout at all. We definitely earned our ale.

A pleasure to be beside the seaside all. Lydia's back next week and I'm back to sucking in diesel fumes and getting annoyed at people standing on the wrong side of the escalators,
Simon