Hymn

Head Down

Life is miraculous. Pretty much everything about it is amazing, if you look at it from the right angle.  And often I think it’s a miracle that I’m still here to enjoy it. 

You’d think with my complete lack of coordination and absence of any recognisable skill, I’d bit quite careful in my choice of hobby.  Not so.  In fact such is the continuing demonstration of stupidity that I am single-handedly disproving the whole theory of evolution.

Now, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  And when the dog can’t rub his tummy and pat his head at the same time, you’d be a little cautious when approaching new life-threatening situations wouldn’t you?  Unfortunately this dog is fond of chasing parked cars and barking at the sun.  There is a suspicion that he might have a touch of rabies or at least the early stages of dementia.  I am that dog.

So when the skydiving instructor tried to teach me two new manoeuvres simultaneously, I nodded my head and yapped enthusiastically.  On the ground, I nearly had both of them.  Nearly.  In the air,  I got them half right.  Or rather I got half of one position right and half of the other.  If I hadn’t combined them, I might not have pitched head down and rocketed away from the other jumpers I was meant to be flying with.  As I looked at my feet and clear blue sky, I caught a glimpse of my tutor.  He looked quite pale all of a sudden.  As I turned my head and looked forward, all I could see was ground.

Now, I’m quite used to falling as one’s supposed to, that is flat and looking at the horizon.  In that stable position, a hundred and twenty miles an hour feels almost leisurely.  Rotated ninety-degrees and falling head first, the whole experience becomes rather more intense.  It’s rather like those times when one wakes tied to the bull bars of a cowboy’s SUV and he’s about to start herding some very frisky cattle.  Except in this instance the whole experience took place very fast indeed.

For the first time ever, I was the first to land.  I waited for my instructor, keen to digest the jump and organise another. 

Looks like I’ll have to make other arrangements though.  Apparently he’s busy the next time I go to the airfield.  Whenever that is.

Ready Steady Stop

I went to the gym today.  Actually that’s such a remarkable event, I’m almost tempted to stop there.  I don’t want to dilute the achievement by wittering on inanely.  But when has that stopped me before? 

For the first time in five months, I got my lardy arse to the Shiny Land of Stretching, Bending, Pushing, Pulling Machines.  I didn’t want to calculate how much my ninety minute workout actually cost given my monthly subscription but in the same way one can’t help but watch The Jeremy Kyle Show or pick a scab, it didn’t take too long to work out that my hour and a half’s sweat had set me back a couple of hundred pounds.

And so I sat, obscured by the mist of the steam room, invisible or ignored by the clutch of middle-aged women chatting about manicures and MRSA and the elderly man in cycling shorts with his phlegmy cough, and reflected on the benefits of my membership.  In my four years I’ve acquired a fat arse and long legs, my hair hasn’t grown back, I’ve had seven conversations with strangers but three of them concerned an unidentified stain on the Hip Flexor machine and another was simply informing me that my trunks had split and that was more pointing and giggling than actual words, I’ve had a scuffle over the lockers and an embarrassing swelling during an ill-judged Pilates class. 

With a drop of perspiration hanging off my nose, this catalogue of achievement didn’t feel very impressive.  I made a New Year’s Resolution: I would stop going to the gym.  Moreover, I would stop paying for not going to the gym.  I felt as though I was on a running machine to Emmaus. 

I approached the desk with convicted glee.

“Afternoon” I said cheerily.
“Awright” replied the sixteen year old peroxide blonde behind the counter without looking up from her nail filing.
“Yes.  I’d like to cancel my membership.”
“Please.” I added as though somehow they were doing me a favour or more accurately, I was doing something wrong.

‘Yer what?’  Asked the girl.  Not aggressively so much as utterly baffled.  As though I’d spoken to her in Klingon. 
“Well, I’d like to cancel my membership, please.  You see, I’ve had a baby, not me obviously, but my wife, we’ve had a baby and, well, I don’t get home from work until late and...”

As I was speaking, the girl, let’s call her Lizzi because that’s what it said on her badge, reached over and pressed a large red button on the desk.  Her voice boomed out across the complex,
‘Sarah.  This is a message for Sarah.  There’s someone here who wants to cancel his membership.  Can you come to the front and sort him out?  Ta.’

The entire building went quiet.  A sprig of tumbleweed appeared magically and rolled across the desk for dramatic effect.  The runners stopped running, the rowers stopped rowing, the elliptical trainer stopped training elliptically.  Even the weights waited.  I thought I heard distant sirens and expected the shutter to slam shut at any moment.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t want to cause a problem”
‘Sandra will deal with you.’  Lizzi said having not looked up once.  I thought about defusing the situation by complimenting her beautiful cuticles until I realised all her nails were false.  I wondered why she was filing them at all but suspected she would regard any questioning about Beauty Therapy as inflammatory.  I tried another tack.
“Sandra?  I thought you said ‘Sarah.’”
‘Yeh.’
“Ah.  Good.  I see.”  I didn’t.

We waited fifteen minutes. Silent except for the slight scratching of emery board on acrylic.  When I looked around I occasionally caught the eye of other gym members.  Most were dumbfounded, a few looked at me disgusted, others with what I took for admiration.  One mouthed ‘Help me!’ as he tapped out S-O-S with the weights bolt.

Eventually Susan arrived at the desk.  I suspect Susan ran all the classes.  She was nothing but bones in that horribly gaunt and terribly manic All-I-Do-Is-Exercise way.  She was also just less than five foot high, a characteristic I assigned to overly abrasive treadmills.

‘Can I help you?’  she said meaning the complete opposite.
“Yes.  I’d like to...I’d like to...Yes. I’d like to cancel my membership.  Please.”
‘I see.’  She didn’t.  ‘Why?’
“Well you see my baby’s had a wife and my home’s late and I often get work, you see.”  My legendary communication skills coming to rescue as ever.
‘What?’
“Well, it just seems a lot of money to spend on something I don’t use very often.”
She looked at me with utter repugnance.
‘So you can’t afford it?’
“No.  I mean yes.  I mean that’s not really it.”
‘Because you look like you need it.’
“Sorry.  What?”
‘Bit haggard.  Bit flabby.’
“I’m sorry?”
‘Well, it’s not like you don’t need it.’
“Thank you.”

At least the mild abuse hardened my resolve.

“So, what do I need to do?”
‘Well I’d start with cardio.’
“I’m sorry.  What?”
‘To get rid of the flab.’
“No. I mean to leave.”
‘Oh.  Well, you’d have to give us notice.’
“How much?”
‘Quite a bit.’
“Yes, I’m sure but can you possibly be more precise?”
‘Hmm.  I’m not entirely sure but I think it’s thirty one days and a whole calendar month before the penultimate payment.’
“I’m sorry.  What?”
‘And you’ll need to fill out these forms in order to not breach your contract.’

She handed me a hundredweight of paper.  I realised I was getting nowhere.

“And what would happen if I just cancelled my Direct Debit?”
‘Erm.  We’d cancel your membership.’
“Smashing.  Goodbye.”

At home, thirty minutes later, one direct debit finished, one Mars bar eaten and enjoying my first few moments of freedom:  I felt better already.

Boys' Day Out

Some friends and I have a Christmas tradition of embarking on an overly ambitious seasonal walk.  We remain gaily and wilfully deluded about the weather, terrain and our general levels of fitness (believing that regular exercise, i.e. one good yomp a year, will keep us healthy).  This year was no different: a solid ten-mile trek over a mountain, in conditions described by the guidebook as ‘difficult’ in icy rain and dense fog.  Marvellous. 

Without doubt the best part of the day was the descent; not because it was downhill and homeward bound, rather because of the nature of the ‘path.’  The so-called track was actually a steep valley stream.  However, the perilous boulder hopping quickly went to our heads.  Soon we were skipping back and forth across the stream with the increasing pace and recklessness of a runaway train.  The sheer foolhardiness of it all was intoxicating.  Things only came to an abrupt halt because we fell over each other in unstoppable laughter.  It was deliciously puerile and marvellous to be so utterly incapacitated by mirth.  We rolled as drunken men before hopping another fifty metres or so only to collapse giggling again.  Desperately immature, irresponsibly dangerous and absolutely wonderful. 

It was a breathtakingly good day. 

Socks Appeal

I’ve never listed ‘sharp feet’ among my physical characteristics but sometimes I wonder if I grow razorblades instead of toenails, the ease by which I shred socks.  I’m pretty much reliant on distant relatives buying me replacements for Christmas.  It’s easy for them, what with them not knowing me and all: they always plump on the blandest, least offensive, garment possible.  And that suits me just fine.  In the past, when I’ve been let out on my own, I have recklessly tried to buy my own.  Unfortunately by the time I’ve returned home, my brave Stop-Being-So-Stuffy-Let’s-Try-Something-Different idea has metamorphosized into some hideous lime green stocking that would only fit a child pygmy.  And I don’t want to talk about the terrible terrible time I tried to buy some underwear for T.  All I’ll say is that it looked very nice on the model and how else was I supposed to determine her size?

While most socks only seem to survive a few hours on my feet, there is one notable exception.  I’m not entirely sure what alien fabric they’re made from but my rugby socks are still pristine.  Now, remember, I was at school not long after sulky Webb Ellis tried to take his ball home, so these socks have been around a while.  It’s incredible but there’s no sign of wear and tear.  Even though they should be in a museum or being analysed by scientists, I still use them every time I embark on any slightly masochistic athletic adventure.  Like this afternoon’s biking expedition.  However, with my stripey black and white socks pulled up to my knees and jersey covering my cycling shorts, I ended up looking more like a St Trinian’s-themed drag act than a hardcore mountain-biker.  And I’m sure that the distance my friend kept from me was purely for reasons of safe cycling.

Man, That's Sick

I’ve spent months trying to penetrate the close knit skydiving fraternity.  You’d think it’d be easy, what with the shared recklessness of throwing oneself at the ground from high altitude and all.  But, no.  It’d be easier to insert an fully grown oak tree into a pair of stockings.  It’s not just that it’s all a bit cliquey, it doesn’t help that I’m a little too old, a little too incompetent and too rarely at the airfield.  I’m also way not cool enough for these ‘Diver Dudes.  My clumsy attempts at being friendly just make me appear desperate - never an attractive look.  Let me tell you, you just can’t coax a terrified Blind Date out of a toilet cubicle by being enthusiastic.  Even if you’re really, really, enthusiastic.  It gets even harder after a Restraining Order. 

However, today I made a little progress.  I’d managed to wring a conversation out of a guy buying coffee, one thing led to another and it wasn’t long before we’d agreed to jump together.  Now, before you start thinking that I’ve stumbled onto the set of a gay porno, let me just remind you that these are guys who regularly slip into tight-fitting jumpsuits, carry oversized coloured silk handkerchiefs, are transported to what some might say are unnatural highs with other men and then fall out with them.  You don’t get more macho than that. 

Anyway, despite the fact that we’d left the plane at 13,000 feet with me clinging on to him like a limpet and spent 8,000 feet (that’s 40 seconds to you and me) failing to make any other contact, we survived to tell the tale.  And we joked about chasing each other around the sky - in a perfectly normal and manly way, of course.  In fact, it was all fine until I started to leave.  “Yo! Man, what that on your trousers?”  ‘That?  That’s dried baby sick.’  And the bubble burst and it was all over.  I wasn’t cool.  I was a dad covered in vomit.

Heal

I knew I’d pay for my bit of adventure.  It felt pretty painful as I yomped up but there was never any question of stopping or going back.  Besides, my lift home was waiting on the other side.

Back at base though, there was no alternative to having a look.  The blood-soaked socks should have been a warning.  The uncomfortably large disk of detached skin should have prepared me.  It was still a shock.  I have the biggest blister I’ve ever seen in the whole world.  Virtually covers my entire heel.  And do you know what? It kinda stings.

Good healthy exercise - there’s nothing like it.

Rider

When I die there’ll be lots of terms that won’t be used to describe me: punctual; tidy; single-minded; well-prepared.  Today, however, I attempted to challenge one of those absent qualities only to have my designs thwarted by my obituary writers.

I jumped at the chance to join my dare-doing friend on a cycle jaunt around the local countryside.  For once, I had every eventuality covered - map, money, phone, tools, puncture kit, pump, spare inner tube, provisions - everything.  Fate, however, bided its time, waiting until the furthest point of the trek, the very moment we turn towards home:  my tyre explodes.  Not a hiss.  Not a slow puncture.  Explodes.  Nothing on the road.  Nothing sharp.  No.  A perfectly flat, perfectly clear piece of tarmac.  And bang, my wheel self-destructs.

My spare tube - valve too big for wheel rim aperture
My puncture kit - dried out and useless
The patch given by a friendly passing cyclist - too small for the rip
The offer of the helpful gardener - the same

As my heroic companion heads back for a car, I start the yomp home, smiling to myself as it starts to rain.  ‘Well prepared’ - with the proviso that one can never cover every eventuality or indeed any eventuality if its One of Those Days.

Three Men in a Boat

I volunteered to canoe with the boisterous boys.  Rapscallions, they might have been called once.  But harmless enough.  Seven and half miles, three men in a boat, downstream, I grant you, but in the rain nevertheless.  There’s something slightly contradictory about water sports in the rain but my philosophical murmurings were rather lost on my wet ten year-old wards.  Let’s tell jokes instead, I ventured.  Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing.  Some might argue that suggesting to prepubescent boys that this was their chance to tell a non-parental adult some funnies, was a bad idea.  They might be right.  The first gag involved a discredited pop singer and children (no, not that one, the other one).  The second, an old lady, a rottweiler and some unmentionable act.  Both were slaughtered by a combination of incomprehension, explanation to peers, embarrassment and distracting paddling.  Still, it did present me with a dilemma: frown, tut-tut and disapprove, laugh along and risk the wrath of their parents, or just plead ignorance.  In the end it was easy - I’d already heard them and they weren’t funny the first time.

Saddle

A friend is doing a preposterous cycle ride for charity.  A million miles up and down sheer cliff faces or something equally perilous and foolhardy.  I warned him about his saddle and he’s duly obliged, confirming it with this picture.  “I’m very pleased for your testicles” I commented.  Now, there’s a sentence you don’t say everyday.

Thicky Reeve

How is it that every time I visit the gym, the scales display a bigger number?  No-one tells me I’m looking fatter.  Maybe I’m just getting denser.