Day 160: Nibbling The Braid

Today, for the first time in several months, I find myself daydreaming as I run.  Rather than focusing on my aching lungs and legs.  Seems to take half the time, and I'm surprised when I get to the end.  This is a pretty clear sign that I'm recovering my cardiovascular fitness.  Good. 

This evening I watch a ridiculous programme on fitness through the decades.  Brilliant vintage footage of 1950s women swinging their legs pointlessly (but unsurprisingly, given that they're wearing high heels and full make up).  Freestyle dancing in the 60s.  Stupid contraptions in the 70s.  Cheese string leotards in the 80s. 

But the thing that really stands out for me is some footage of schoolchildren - probably in the 60s - busily engaged in 'nibbling the braid'.  This involved standing on the end of a strip of webbing (the braid) - which you pull towards you by scrunching your toes, so the 'nibbled' bit goes under your feet.  I only wish I had been allowed to nibble the braid at school.  I'd have been a lot keener on P.E. if that had been the case...

I hated sports at school, and would do anything to avoid them.  Top tactics included making sure I had a piano lesson right in the middle of games (and dawdling there and back); doing a lot of 'deep fielding' (making daisy chains, daydreaming and then reliably letting the team down if the ball ever came anywhere near me), and doing dramatic full face skids on asphalt.  This was the best, as it meant hobbling to Sick Bay, where Miss Glazier would swab you with raw alcohol while you teased Brock, her bad-tempered dachshund.  Good times. 

P.E. was marginally better.  At ten, the entertainment value of a fat child doing forward rolls to the theme music from 'Born Free' was not lost on me (even though I was that child).  


I was twenty-four before I realised that I actually enjoyed exercise.  The thing I didn't enjoy was P.E. teachers. 

I don't think I'm alone.

Day 159: Ten of Clubs

A walk in the woods.  Nobody about.  As always, in this sort of situation, I am keeping half an eye out for an intervention.  A wizened dwarf with a riddle.  A crone prepared to exchange three wishes for a good deed.  A talking tree.  (As any fool do.) 

Nothing.  But I do find a playing card on a tree stump.  A ten of clubs.  Pretty good for a completely deserted wood (no visible poker players or patience fans).  Obviously I know what happens next.  If I pick up the card - I'm in the game.  (It's a portal.  An invitation to dance from another world.)  But as always, there will be unforeseen consequences.  A wager that goes horribly wrong.  I will probably end up enslaved in the wood (bad). 

Or perhaps it's just cartomancy?  Maybe the ten of clubs predicts my fortune.  An internet search reveals that it's good news.  The ten of clubs is, apparently, a 'strong good luck card, with riches suddenly acquired.' 

Later today I go to the post depot to pick up an unexpected parcel that's been waiting for me.  I have been sent a Cadbury's Caramel Easter egg.  Yes!

This confirms my belief that the wood is a powerful place, full of augury and magic.  Going back there tomorrow, to see if I can share my lunch with a crone.

Day 158: Cobblers

Shopping.  Friend's impending wedding forces my hand.  Throw money at a dress that I am actually likely to wear in civilian rather than nuptial circumstances.  Normally I leave it too late, panic sets in, and I buy something odd/depressing/horrific.  So feeling pretty proud of myself this time.

 However, there is still room to disgrace myself.  Rather than buying new shoes, I am choosing to 'renovate' some old ones (see - still leaving the door ajar for odd/depressing/horrific).  I have been to the cobblers.  I have bought some shoe dye (vintage 1970s by the looks of things) and some pink laces.  Tomorrow I will apply the dye - photo to come.    

I enjoy the conversation between two bored shop assistants, one of whom is (apparently) fasting for forty days.  Seems a bit late to the Lenten party.  That's all over now.  (Reminds me of the ex-colleague who chose to wear her 'Free Nelson Mandela' badge on the day he was freed.)

Shop Assistant 1: What would be the worst temptation for you?  Like, if the Devil was in front of you - what would he be holding?

Shop Assistant 2:  Any kind of cereal.

Shop Assistant 1:  Oh...  Really?  For me it would be fillet steak. 

Shop Assistant 2:  No.  Cereal. 

I'm not sure that SA2 is really fasting.  Sounds suspiciously like a low-carb diet to me.   

As I beat a hasty retreat from the shopping centre, I surprise a baby.  She's sitting in her pushchair, fussing a bit. The very moment she lets out a loud squawk coincides with my sudden appearance through a set of double doors.  She's startled, and stares, open-mouthed.  I clearly see the cogs move in her brain as she comes to a cause-effect conclusion.  She squawked; I appeared.  Like a badly-dressed genie.  She MADE me happen.  I walk off, and she cranes after me, hanging out of her pushchair in fascination.  I do not envy her the come-down when she realises her magic powers have deserted her. We've all been there.

Day 157: Bank Holiday Moanday

Rainy Bank Holiday Monday.  We're back on track.  Everything is as it should be.

Day 156: Resurrection

Easter Day starts as it should - with the ceremony of the Lindt Chocolate Bunny.  Amen. 

And then a trip to the cinema to see 'Headhunters'.  An enjoyable thriller, with a particularly memorable tractor-driving scene.  Allelujah.   



Xfm in the car, and it's a programme with a topical theme.  Resurrection.  What would you resurrect, if you could?

General consensus appears to be 'The Smiths'.

That's as religious as the day gets. 

   

Day 155: New Forest

This morning I see a young mallard attempting to mount a swan.  Things pan out as you might expect - a fair amount of swan outrage expressed through the medium of violence. 

But you have to admire the mallard's pluck and optimism.  Why aim low? 

Heartwood Forest.  Just outside St Albans, the Woodland Trust is planting England’s largest new native forest.  The site is big - about eight hundred acres, and is going to include wildflower meadows as well as woodland.  I was expecting fields with saplings - nothing that will be even vaguely foresty for decades - but the site also encompasses four ancient woods.  Awash with bluebells and windflowers.  And stretches of heathland with larks singing high over head. 

It feels a bit managed - in the new bits there are gates and fences, and planting, and slightly prescriptive signage ('The Magical Wood').  But the heart is all there.  No buildings, no commerce.  Just trees and flowers and space.

Plucky and optimistic.  Like a mallard.  Hooray.

Day 154: Good Friday

Today I am good.  I throw stuff out.  Mainly books.  Every room is choking with the damn things.  So I get ruthless.  If I failed to get through it on the first attempt, and put it to one side to try again later, it must go.  If having read the blurb on the back, I still can't remember it, it must go.  If I do remember it, but it's unlikely I'll read it again, it must also go.  I forcefeed the Oxfam book bank like a Strasbourg goose. 

Initially I wince slightly as I bin some borderline cases, but that's soon replaced by a reckless abandon.  It would be very easy to cull the whole lot and reduce my shelves to Zen emptiness.

I also muck out my sock drawer - any strays are rounded up and binned.  I'm not unfair.  Every sock gets a chance.

I have a death row bag - a holding pen for strays, where they get a six month stay of execution.   Sometimes their opposite number turns up, and they're reprieved, paired up and sent back into the sock community.  If not, it's curtains. 

And there's no room for any injured players on the team - any holes or thin patches and you're out.  So far, so normal sock mucking-out.  This time is different though.  I also throw away all socks I simply DON'T LIKE.  

I realise that some of these socks I've had for years.  Because I will only ever wear them as a last resort.  So they're still intact, not worn enough to throw away.  Hanging on, taking up a disproportionately large slice of space in my life.  Still annoying me, when much-loved socks are a distant, holey memory.

Good Friday.  Good - as in no room for bad.  No bad books.  No bad socks.