I have been to the gym.
The above sentence is not one that I ever expected to write.
Had you asked me I would have said that I was more likely to be telling you that I had won the lottery.
I would have liked that better.
I have got no words to describe the sense of profound reluctance that I felt about the project. I woke up this morning with a sense of impending doom and a pronounced longing just to go back to bed.
I did not. Instead I went into Kendal to buy some respectable trousers in the farm supplier’s sale, and then I went to Asda. The trousers are mulberry cord, which was all that they had left, but they are free of paint and other interesting stains, and can be worn to an interview without any embarrassment at all. I was pleased about this. I am really going to look after this pair, really.
The subsequent visit to Asda was enlivened by having forgotten to bring shopping bags and also by spending more money than I had got, so in consequence of this I am now at work. So far this has not helped matters much, actually not at all, but there is plenty of night left.
After that I did not go home. I went to the BeautifulMe WholePerson Wellness Health Spa and went to the gym.
I had raided Lucy’s drawers for some appropriate kit, and eventually unearthed my trainers in the bottom of the camper van wardrobe. Lucy’s trousers fitted perfectly well but the sports bra was another matter altogether.
On the advice of Number One Daughter I put it on over my existing bra, because of it not being the right size for me.
It was like trying to squeeze into a three year old’s party dress.
I had to wiggle about and apply some considerable leverage to get myself inside it.
When I had finished it could not have been more tightly fitted if it had been vacuum packed.
It performed its function of limiting the amount of undesirable flopping about very well indeed. The problem was that it made it very difficult to inhale.
I breathed as deeply as I could possibly manage, hoping that it would stretch a bit, but it didn’t.
Restrained like a person about to attend the sort of party in London that you used to read about in the News Of The World, I eased my way carefully into the gym, which fortunately, was empty. Sometimes the Gods are very kind indeed, although I think it was more likely that they had simply forgotten and become distracted with something else.
There was a choice of running machines. I chose one without sticks to be wiggled and stood on it trying to make sense of the instructions.
There were a lot of things to be pressed. I pressed all of them to see what would happen, and then obviously nearly fell off, the way people do in YouTube videos.
When I had recovered my balance I worked out how to make it go faster, and in next to no time I had mastered it and was running along energetically.
I ran for four whole minutes.
This was no small achievement with my entire upper body pinioned into rigidity by my undersized underwear.
At the end of four minutes I had to have a little sit down, but I was pleased all the same, because that is longer than I will have to run on Thursday. I can now rest assured that I can manage to jog along, albeit a bit slowly, without collapsing, leaking, or suffocating. I am sure that you will be as pleased as I was at that discovery.
After that I explored the rest of the gym. There were some weights, so I lifted them up and held them in the air until my arms got tired, which wasn’t long. They weighed 4kg, which is jolly heavy.
I had a go on the cycling machine and the rowing machine and then another little run. They all had little screens on them which tell you how many calories you have burned. By the time I staggered out I had burned a stupendous 147, which meant I could have a chocolate biscuit when I got home, without any guilt at all.
I could not get out of the sports bra. It was supposed to be pulled off over my head, but it just stuck, like an overstretched elastic band. I panicked a bit, because I started to worry that I might either have to ask somebody for help or just leave it there for the rest of my life, but in the end it came off.
I had a swim then, and a sauna, and by the time I went home I was positively brimming with health and well-being. I am a paragon of January fitness.
My legs are still feeling a bit like jelly now.
I shall go again tomorrow.
The picture is probably what I shall look like in a week or two. It is Number One Daughter.
