No 8 The Leisure Club

Across the road from our home is a hotel with a leisure club, of which I am a member. The dictionary definition of leisure is ‘the use of free time for enjoyment’. I agree that the people who use the club facilities are using their free time, but as for the enjoyment part, you could never tell it by their faces. The grimaces, grunts, and groans which is displayed in the gym defies the dictionary definition. Sometimes some of the people are grumpy with it! The fitness gurus tell us we have to punish our body. No gain without pain! Yeah, right!

I prefer getting out on the road for a wee two mile run. But, when the weather is inclement, (nice word for miserable!) I resort to the gym and the treadmill, if I can get on one.) There are three running machines, so I thought I could just go over and get the stuff done. Uh, uh. I had not provided for the fact of it being January, the busiest month of the year. Everyone from sixteen to sixty and over have made their New Year resolutions. (See blog No 6, Good Intentions). They have totally pigged out over the Christmas season, they sat in front of the one eyed Cyclops (TV), and now they are franticly working at reversing it all in a week! You can see the look of grim determination in their faces. The guys come in with the muscle shirts, the towel round the neck ready to sweat it out over the equipment and everyone who happens to be in the near vicinity. I dread the long haired ones, for when they shake their head you get the sweat right in the face, not a good experience. Of course, they are all trying to out do one another in how much weights they can pump and how fast and long they can last on the treadmill. Posers!!

Then you get the ladies. Ah, the ladies. They have gone out and bought the latest in keep fit gear, all colour co ordinated of course. Everything matches, from the shoes to the sweatband and their lipstick. The sweatband is obviously just for show! Now they are ready to go for their wee walk on the treadmill. (Even the name sounds like an instrument of torture) They set the miles and the speed, which is usually a leisurely shopping pace, switch on the ipod and away they go, for the next hour! Hence the reason I couldn’t get on the treadmill. These ladies seem to come in two’s or three’s and they love to have their conversations as they walk. Bless them, they really do seem to enjoy it and conform to the dictionary definition of leisure.

When I did eventually get on the treadmill,I ran off two helpings of Christmas pudding, three bowls of trifle, a tin of Quality Street and some other stuff! I must say, I really did feel the benefit of the exercise and with a bit of effort, I can see my way to getting slim, trim and energised. I won’t go into the logistics of diet and exercise now. We’ll look at that another time. I am sure you are thankful for that!

I have now sussed out when the best times are to go over to the gym so I can get on the machines, but the weather is getting better so I will be able to get back on the road. No glamour there, just Ron Hill trackies, yellow jacket, beanie hat and red face.

At this time, let me mention a wee incident that occured on one of my two milers. A lorry driver gave me a whistle. He obviously saw me from the back with my blonde hair sticking out from under the beanie hat and thought he was whistling at a much younger woman! That'll teach him. The cooncil workers are however a great encouragement. While digging their customary holes in the road,, (Which usually can take up to a year on the same hole) they will shout "You're doin great there, just get the knees up and legs pumping"!! They see me from the front, and obviously think I need the encouragement. Bless their hearts!

Anyway, it is nearly the end of January and all the grim determination over in the gym will have dissipated. The keep fit gear will be laid to rest in the bottom drawer, the gym machines freed up, no sweat will fly about and all will return to normal. What bliss.

Life is so daily, just like exercise, should be...............

No 7 The Weather

One of the great benefits of living in Scotland is that one can always open a conversation by commenting on the weather. Complete strangers will enter into a prolonged dialogue based on our ever changing weather patterns. When out walking, people greet you with a good morning, great weather or no good morning and just, miserable day!

My husband says that if we had tropical weather here, the country would sink as all the people who left, would return.

I have also heard all the jokes about how God compensated for the bad weather by making Scotland such a beautiful country. Hawaii is also a beautiful country but enjoys great weather, so that settles the compensation issue.

After all, it only rains here twice a year. Once for five months and once for six months!!

We know it’s summer here because the rain gets warmer.

We are so used to the drizzle. (A good descriptive word for unceasing rain that soaks through to the skin and falls straight down, causing everything to take on a grayish hew.)

This year we were blessed with a white Christmas and it was like a winter wonderland. The trees were bedecked with snow and ice. The hills and fields were blanketed with snow and the road and pavement surfaces glistened and sparkled with frost.

It looked like a Dickens Christmas card and the countryside took on a golden glow, which looked so tranquil and peaceful.

“Oh how beautiful” you say. Yes it is, but with it has come some challenges, especially for our local councils, who have run short of grit for the roads. The pavements are very slippy and some people have had falls and broken bones. This makes for even longer conversations on the weather. And there are those who don’t want to be outdone when it comes to the hardships, accidents and deprivation caused by the coldest weather we have experienced in fifty years, or so say the weather forecasters.

Even if you haven’t fallen yourself, you know someone who has and by the time your story has been passed on, the sprained wrist has turned into a corpse that can’t be buried for four weeks because the ground is frozen and the hearse can’t get up the cemetery road because the council ran out of grit, and they’ll be voting differently next election because the government isn’t coping with this cold spell, etc, etc, etc........

Of course I have my own woeful tale to tell.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good, now wait till you hear this one!

My plastic wheelie bins have not been emptied for over three weeks now. Uh Uh. Yes, the blue bin for my recycled rubbish is full and overflowing with Christmas paper, crackers, empty selection boxes and all the other paper and cardboard we seem to have in abundance during the gift giving season. The black bin is full of gunk and all the stuff that hopefully decomposes. Fortunately, there is no smell because it’s all outside and frozen.

Why have your bins not been emptied you ask?

No, it’s not because we didn’t give the bin men their Christmas tip. They haven’t been near to get one and it’s not just our bins but all the bins on our road lie outside absolutely full.

No, it’s not because the lorry couldn’t get up our road because of the ice. It was seen going up and down two weeks ago.

We did call the refuge department yesterday and were informed we are priority one. Sounds important but the bins are still lying outside full to the gunnels.

I won’t even go down the road of ‘What do we pay council tax for?’

No, I am exercising forbearance and mercy. I am sure there is a reason we have been overlooked and in the larger sphere of things, we have had no burst pipes, our house is warm and comfortable, none of us has fallen and injured ourselves and most importantly, it’s not raining!

Wonder of wonders!

I can look out my window and enjoy the beauty of the snowcapped mountains of Arran.

Look at the sheep as they graze in the fields, clothed in their wooly coats.

I can see the children enjoying the snow.

I can stay indoors and do some of the things I have been too busy to do.

Read the books I have always wanted to.

Make soup and hot chocolate.

I am thankful for my birthright and choose to enjoy my life regardless of the weather.

And anyway, it will soon be spring, daffodils and bluebells.

Followed by summer, roses,purple heather and yellow gorse.

Then Autumn, golds and reds.

Then full circle, winter.

All with a wee bit of rain in between!

Ah, life is so daily, just like the weather!