Tag Archives: humour

Dog Spit And Other Disasters

late

Have you ever had one of those days where your hands disobey every instruction handed down the chain of command from your head? In the hotel we were using yesterday for interviews, I swear I was sending all the right instructions down my arm, like for example move hand over fruit bowl and pluck a grape from the bunch, only to find that it grabbed a muffin instead from the complimentary plate right next to the fruit bowl.

The even bigger buggeration factor was that the Asshole immediately hit the override switch which could have prevented said muffin passing my lips. Well you’ve touched it now…nobody else can eat it. You can’t put it back on the plate so unless you want to walk around with it in your hand all day you’d better eat it, and quickly.

Today didn’t get off to a much better start, to be honest. Things I learned today would include the fact that it doesn’t matter how diligently you set your phone’s very loud and extremely annoying alarm, if you forget to put it on charge and it runs out of juice in the wee small hours, it’s not going to go off.

I’d left my bedroom window open overnight and I woke to the sound of the dustbin lorry outside my house. I sort of laid there for a minute before the penny dropped that my wake-up call had come courtesy of something other than my loud and extremely annoying alarm, so I felt rather smug for a moment, as I realised I could probably go back to sleep for a bit, until it went off. Out of interest I reached for my phone to establish just exactly how much longer I could sleep, to be greeted with a blank screen.

Oh dear. As the clock on the wall slowly came into focus, it confirmed that I had in fact overslept. It was ten past six, and I had an appointment in the Kingdom of Pain at six thirty…in the next town. Shit.

Now, I have a lot of respect for the God of Pain, and also fear. Mainly fear. It’s the stare, you know? No fucking chance was I walking in late.

It’s the first time I’ve got out of bed in a long time without doing the ooh ahh morning shuffle, mainly because I didn’t have time to notice anything hurting as I flung myself across the room like an exorcet missile. Charlie-dog opened one eyelid from his vantage point on the bed, confused.

Running around the bedroom first thing in the morning, usually with my underwear in his mouth, or a stray slipper is kind of in his job description, not mine and the role reversal momentarily baffled him. He was clearly up for a game though, with warp speed he joined in, helpfully licking my face, glasses and all as I bent down to tie my trainers, which just added to the confusion.

I just about made it, screeching into the car park like Starsky and Hutch, all the time cussing the dog – I was looking at the world with blurry vision due to dog-spit on my glasses which I hadn’t had time to clean. As I took them off to give them a quick wipe on my teeshirt everything suddenly became much clearer and I realised that actually, I must have gone to bed last night with one of my contact lenses still in, which is why nothing was in focus with my specs on. Oh, and I had my pants on backwards.

Honestly, sometimes it’s really hard to be me 🙂

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

What I Didn’t Realise Was…

image

…that Body Blast was simply an amuse bouche…it seems the real action goes on in Fat Furnace. Which is where I found myself at 06h30 yesterday morning. There’s definitely an air of expectation from God of Pain that you’ll pull yourself back from the brink, and be ready to go again at your first opportunity. He looks like the kind of bloke who chews sore muscles up for breakfast and I’m acutely aware that he’s still sussing me out, so I thought I’d better show willing. I’d like to get at least a week under my belt before he writes me off as a wimp.

Strangely, when I woke up yesterday, I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I might. Charlie dog looked on with interest as I limped around the bedroom trying to find a second exercise outfit, and he only learned one new word when I pressed on my knees to see if they still hurt. (FYI, they did.)

God of Pain had asked me to get there ten minutes early for the morning session, so he could walk me through what was what. I’ve got to be honest, once I clocked the way he’d set the room out all I wanted to do was go back to bed. For the rest of my life. I’ve never actually seen a kettle bell in real life but I know they regularly make people cry on Biggest Loser, so seeing them dotted liberally around the room didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling, you know?

In Body Blast I’d had my own little corner of the room, with my own mat so I could quietly get on with the business of hurting. Fat Furnace is basically circuit training in disguise, with the whole class working their way around a series of torture stations. Given that I’m a newbie and he’s breaking me in gently (yeh what fucking ever) some of the harder stuff was reserved for the proper people.

It was more of the same from the night before, just harder. Much harder. Lots of jogging on the spot, lots of getting up and getting down again to do more stuff that hurt, and those kettle bells lived right up to their advance publicity. He gave me the baby size which were still heavier than a fully loaded suitcase and my arms were expected to swing them all over the place whilst my legs burned in a squat position…a double helping of hell, especially since those legs had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours.

At one point, God of Pain (who was quietly following me around to make sure that I was hurting enough) (without hurting myself, if you know what I mean) leaned in as he surveyed the room and whispered I run a tight ship…I’m not sure he meant it to sound like a threat but it definitely dissuaded the asshole voice from even trying to suggest it was time to go home and have a lie down with a cup of tea and a ginger nut.

I’ve got to be honest…doing all this in front of a wall of mirrors, is a torture all of its own. Being confronted with the reality of watching my whole body quiver as my arms valiantly tried to raise what felt like a ton weight up and away from my body, whilst my legs wobbled and my face got redder and redder was not attractive. My hair was dripping wet and my bingo wings were flapping around underneath the short sleeves that I rarely wear, with a momentum all of their own.

The very last torture station saw me rolling an exercise ball down the wall behind my back to a sitting position without a chair, on legs that wondered just what the fuck was going on…yes, those same legs that had jogged, lunged, squatted and hoiked this fat old body off the floor more times than I can even count in the last 24 hours. I swear I could almost hear them screaming we don’t do this!! This body doesn’t do this!!! Bring back our old life, bitch!!!

We had to go round twice. Not three times. I could have kissed the feet of the lady who told me that after the second klaxon sounded we’d actually finished finished. And you know what, for the second time in two days, I survived.

It was interesting, you have an opportunity to feed back on your training session when you get your summary afterwards on email…I was going to suggest Barry Manilow, mood lighting and scatter cushions for the next session, but I have a feeling that the God of Pain would disapprove…

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Dear Body…I’m Sorry.

crime scene

So on Tuesday after work I went down to the fitness studio to meet the God of Pain. I was ready to be impressed, after all he came highly recommended and he certainly seemed like a really nice man. He was interested in my goals, and didn’t even flinch when I told him that I’m planning to drag this arse up a mountain in a few months’ time, although he did nail me with a stare and tell me I was going to have to work hard. No shit, right? I can work hard.

He followed our meeting up with an email outlining his recommendations in terms of my training schedule…I’ve had to sign up to a minimum of four sessions a week but between you and me, I can tell he thinks four times a week is for fannies. That stare told me don’t even think about wimping out and doing the minimum…oh crap, it really is the end of life as I know it.

We’re going to work on stamina and strength. Or should I say I’m going to work on stamina and strength under his very close supervision…I’ve already sussed that the majority of his input comes from the stare, which he’s very good at. I think I actually want to cry.

So, let me tell you about my first training session. I’d wrestled my head into acceptance that it was going to have to talk my body into moving a bit, and I arrived complete with water bottle, and towel. Unfortunately, I’d taken my contact lenses out because it felt like the right thing to do, so the towel I grabbed on the way out turned out to be one of the ones I use for the dog. Anyway, despite a few questionable stains it did come off the clean washing pile so it was all good, if a little embarrassing. I was ready. And everyone was lovely so I felt very welcome.

So, the good news is I now know what the difference is between a fitness studio and a gym. A gym is somewhere you go to sweat, and a fitness studio is where you go to hurt. I got off to a bit of a ropey start, to be honest…the stretches were all going fine until we got to the one where you have to bend your knee and grab your foot from behind to stretch your quads – oh yes, I’ve so got this lingo – well, that’s all very well unless you’ve got a fat leg with a rogue foot that refuses to be caught.

I had about three attempts, in fact I must’ve looked like I was trying to fucking Riverdance as I waved my leg around and desperately grabbed in the general direction of my foot whilst balancing on the other leg. By some miracle I managed to hook my finger down the back of my trainer and pull my leg up so it was a minor drama and I don’t think anyone noticed. Well, except the God of Pain, who notices everything.

The session was called Body Blast, which was all about building core strength. I haven’t got too much of that so I knew it was going to hurt. Call me Mystic Meg if you must, but I wasn’t wrong. Let me paint a picture of exactly what I demanded from this knackered fat old body. Jog-on-the spot and then get down on a yoga mat to do the plank (ouch), stand up and do some lunges, get down again and do some press-ups (ouch), get up again and do some star jumps, get down again and do some side-planks (ouch), get up again and do some squats, get down again and do some bum stuff (I’d started to lose cognitive thought at this point so can’t remember what they were called) get up again and have another jog, get down again and do some arm stuff (I’m actually dying by now so didn’t care what they were called).

That all took about twenty minutes, and I’ve never been as relieved to hear a klaxon in my whole life. Except he then made us do it again. And then again. Three fucking times.

The bit I found the hardest was all the getting up and down, you know? It’s hard enough, still, to haul this body out of a chair, never mind getting down to ground level. I can’t remember the last time my knees saw that much action, I mean come on, I’m a single girl…not much call to get down on all fours in my life, wink wink. My knees are very pissed off today but to honest they just need to join the chuffing queue.

I couldn’t help looking at my yoga mat as I punch-drunkenly jogged on the spot towards the end of the hour in a kind of out-of-body experience way, and I noticed how the memory foam retains the shape of your body for a while after you get up. Well, mine did anyway. I also couldn’t help thinking that all that was missing was a chalk outline to confirm that this was in fact a crime scene. The God of Pain was attempting to murder me and what’s more, I was paying him to do so.

But you know what? I survived it. And by the end, when we did the cool down I was astonished to discover that I still had the power of movement and speech. Who knew!

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Radiating Sunshine

mad cow

So I woke up this morning ready to face the music – isn’t it funny how in the night things always look very bleak? I’ve never been one to worry about stuff, and sleepless nights are an unknown concept to me but I must ‘fess up and tell you that last night whilst I was watching TV, and starving after vaporising every single available smart point by mid afternoon, I made a coffee with all milk to try and fill a hole…it’s the first time ever I’ve gone over my weekly points. I know, right?

It was the lesser of two evils – there were several items of food that had collectively serenaded me from the fridge all night and I came within a cock hair of caving in…I didn’t, but I needed something. I could have had a large glass of water but quite frankly that was never going to cut it. But although I savoured every drop, the milky coffee weighed heavy on my mind, and from the point at which I woke up for a quick tinkle at normal work get-up time then tried to go back to sleep for my customary Sunday morning doze-fest I had the most bizarre dreams.

I have this mental picture of the Asshole sitting on his buffet in the corner of my mind, furiously loading movie reel after movie reel of things designed to convince me that I’d blown it. The words start of a slippery slope were playing on a loop in my head, accompanied by moving pictures of me whizzing down a giant slide, being chased by one of the Cravendale cows who wanted the milk back. In the next scene I was laid underneath the cow drinking from its udders whilst someone blew my arse up with a bicycle pump and in the last scene I was the cow…it all got very weird at that point.

I walked the green mile to the bitch in the bathroom with great trepidation when I finally shook off the weirdness. I’d managed to convince myself that the half pint of semi-skimmed milk that I’d had over and above my weekly allowance was going to mean a gain this week. I was suitably downcast and ready to take it on the chin, until she told me that I’d lost a pound.

What?? I did my usual double-check on several tiles to make sure she wasn’t taking the piss, but sure enough…another pound gone. And immediately, I started radiating sunshine. The day looked great. I’d dodged a bullet…okay I’m being overly dramatic, it was half a pint of semi-skimmed milk, not ten litres of Haagen Dazs and a ton of cheeseballs. But, for the first time in eight months and eight days I’d stepped over the boundary…thank god the bitch didn’t clock it.

So, it’s a brand new shiny Weight Watchers week and it’s an important one. It’s the UK Blog Awards on Friday in London…I’m too giddy for words. My boy got fitted for his Tux yesterday. I’ve bought new sparkly flat shoes and I’ve totally gotten over myself about the palazzo pants.  I’ve booked Thursday off work for a little turd-polishing, and on Friday we’re doing the whole first-class-train-swanky-hotel thing…it’s going to be an epic weekend.

The week’s got off to a cracking start…I did a long walk with the furry one this morning, and I’ve finally got around to sorting out that mountain of fat clothes. No messing, I’m going to make this week count. No wobbles allowed, right? Onwards! 🙂

 

Like it..? Tell your friends!
 

Shouting About The Hard Stuff

shouting

Blimey, yesterday’s post provoked quite a reaction from you lot. I’ve had a ton of messages about it, to the point where I actually feel a bit fraudulent accepting all this love for being brave enough to talk about something so cringe-worthy. You all totally get how embarrassing it was.

At the time it happened, I wrote about falling out of bed on my personal Facebook page, much to the amusement of my friends. I made sure to leave out the bit about actually breaking the bed though…that was never going to make it into print. Until now, right?

I didn’t feel particularly brave yesterday when I was writing the post, in fact it’s a very weird thing…I felt detached, almost like I was writing about someone else.  Don’t get me wrong, I can remember exactly how I felt as I stood there in front of the bloke holding the bed leg, with the hot flush of shame creeping slowly up my body, desperately wanting to be anywhere but there.  And yet, talking to you guys about it yesterday didn’t worry me at all, I even smiled to myself as I wrote down the words and imagined you all reading the bit about getting my head stuck…it was funny.

That person, the one who was 62lbs heavier than the person inside my pants today seems like a stranger to me. She’s me, obviously, but at the same time she’s not me. It’s so hard to explain, but I think it’s got something to do with the way in which I’ve peeled away layers and layers of stuff over the last few months and laid it all out for examination. Between us, we’ve picked over the bones of all manner of crap, and every time I’ve taken a step forward, I feel one step further removed from the girl who broke beds and lumbered her way through life.

In doing all that, I’m conscious that I’ve sort of become a bit de-sensitised to some of the painful stuff. I can only liken it to having a baby, you know? You start your pregnancy feeling like your body is a private thing, with intimate places which are off limits to most. By the time you push the baby out you’re so used to folk faffing around with your tuppence that you barely look up from your crossword whilst they’re having a poke around.

I’ve talked about it all so much, it’s lost the power to hurt me. To bother me.  I mean, I still remember the pain and the humiliation but I don’t feel it any more, I’m just reporting the facts about how life used to be. And besides, it’s all just between you and me, right?

You’d have laughed the other day. I had to provide some information for the people my boy works for – long story, he doesn’t exactly work for MI5 but it would take too long to explain why they need it. The form asked for my build, so I wrote fat. He was peering over my shoulder as I wrote down my details and he was horrified…mum you can’t write that!  I hadn’t even given it a second thought. I pointed out the fact that I was only being honest, and quick as a flash he said yeah well under the question about facial hair you wrote NONE…if you’re all about being honest…

Cheeky twat.

Like it..? Tell your friends!