We have recommenced swimming.
Regular readers might have noticed that I have not mentioned swimming at the Holistic Loveliness WonderfulHealth BeautifulMe Spa lately, this is mostly because I haven’t been there.
It is not entirely because I haven’t been, there have been some days when I have had a swim and either not had room to mention it or alternatively been unable to find anything interesting or entertaining to say about it and therefore left it out of my account of the day. I am allowed to do this if I like, it is called Artistic Licence and you do not, presumably, want to hear every tedious detail of my activities, you might be surprised to discover that I edit out some of the dullest bits, but actually I do.
Anyway, we have not been swimming very much lately, this is because I am more idle in my soul than I like to own up to. I have been telling myself that I am too busy or have toothache or children or work. Indeed, every time I have thought I ought to go and have a swim some villainous part of my inner self has helpfully offered a very plausible excuse for why it would be a far better idea just to sit in my taxi and eat chocolate.
Funnily enough last night, and again tonight, I suddenly realised that I very much wanted to go and swim.
This was very surprising indeed, I did not think that I had a better self, but clearly I have, and so for the last couple of evenings I have packed up our swimming things and clean clothes and all of our lovely soap and perfumes and when we have finished the day’s adventures we have gone off for some bracing healthy activity.
It has been splendid, and I feel brilliant. We have bounced straight back into our usual not-terribly-gruelling fitness routine, followed by a sauna and ice plunge and then hot and cold showers, followed by the youthful Adonis on the desk telling us in detail how much he admires Number One Daughter and her astonishing feats of human endurance and impressive pectoral muscles, and clearly eyeing me up to try and work out how on earth I managed to produce her. I shut him up tonight by remarking how very much the sauna and ice plunge gave you an all-over buzz that was just like the afterglow of sex, and suddenly he remembered that he had got to go and sluice out the steam room and buzzed off hastily, looking rather pink, leaving me to read the magazines in peace and wait for Mark.
Mark does not really need the exercise of swimming quite as much as I do, on account of being a person who hauls logs and does exercise at the farm, but he is having a middle aged crisis at the moment about becoming decrepit and round, and hence is trying quite hard to get his muscles working a bit harder. Fortunately for me he likes rounded women so I don’t need to mind about having a body for which the design brief could have been ‘balance some spheres on top of one another and squash them about a bit’.
In fact I think I have had quite a bit of exercise today because of doing lots of housework, assisted by Number Two Daughter. This was kind of her because she has possibly got less inclination or aptitude for housework than any other person in the world ever. After some encouragement she tidied and hoovered her bedroom and put clean sheets on the bed, which was an achievement for a person used to the attentions of Philippino domestic help. I suspect that she did not find the activity especially satisfying, because she sloped off quite quickly when I suggested that she helped me with some dusting downstairs as well.
One of the good things about living in a house with several layers of upstairs is that it does encourage exercise, especially when the top floor needs to be hoovered. I trotted up and down the stairs with washing and bowls of hot water and clean sheets until I felt very virtuous indeed. By the time it came round to swimming time I was already thinking I might be getting thinner, although obviously when I glanced in the mirror it turned out that I wasn’t.
However, I think that I might be heading into a fresh era of health and well-being.
I hope it doesn’t wear off.
The picture is the leaves on the grapevine in the garden starting to open. This is brilliant, because yesterday they were just twigs, and during today’s lovely warm sun they burst into new life, so I thought I would show you.
