by sibelhodge
The middle of the room housed quite a few treadmills and exercise bikes and a funny-looking skiing thingamabob. A couple of trendy-looking fit women jogged away on the treadmills without their mascara running or them even breaking into a sweat (so not natural. I break into a sweat reaching for the remote on my TV).
After he showed me the torture chamber of contraptions, some of which looked like inventions Saddam Hussein had come up with, he left me to it.
Omigod! The next day I couldn’t walk. It was bad enough trying to walk on a flat surface, but walking down or up stairs was a definite no-no. I had to sleep on the sofa in my living room for two days before I got the use of my legs back.
Nevertheless, I did persevere. No pain, no gain, and all that. I did weights for a long time but then I turned to yoga.
Now, if you think that yoga is just about doing the splits and headstands or tying yourself up in knots like a demented octopus, then read on; you might be surprised. It could actually be dangerous to your house.
I bought a video (yes, it was a long time ago: no DVD player then), got my yoga mat out and positioned it in front of the TV in the living room, and wey hey! I was ready to go.
OK, so the first part was an introduction. Blah, blah, blah…
The good thing about yoga is that it will never get boring because your practice will develop and change with time. Although the actual poses will not differ unless you introduce new ones to your routine, your flexibility and strength will increase and you will find that you are able to get more out of your practice. Yoga is not competitive in any way and some days you will find yourself able to achieve more than others depending on how you feel physically and mentally. It can be as gentle or as vigorous as you want it to be and a good video or instructor will be able to modify poses to suit beginners and advanced levels. It is important not to push yourself too hard. Unless you are a gymnast or ballet dancer, you won’t be able to put your leg behind your head in the first lesson. Many advanced poses takes years of practice and rely on a combination of strength, flexibility and stamina that has been gradually built up. Look after yourself by going slowly in the beginning.
Right, got that, now what?
Breathing exercises. No problemo. I’d been breathing for thirty years already. I could do this part standing on my head…or not, as the case may be.
And then we were into the actual poses, which as a beginner were pretty challenging.
I will not give up, I will not give up became my mantra as I shook and wobbled in some of the positions and sweat poured from my forehead. I thought yoga was supposed to be gentle. Hah! And were you supposed to look like a vibrating Superwoman about to take off, or was I doing it wrong?
I was in the middle of bending forward with my legs akimbo and my ass in the air (I was supposed to be touching the floor with my fingers but it wasn’t working out like that!) when my husband entered the room. I could feel his eyes wandering appreciatively to my lycra-clad behind.
‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘How come you never do that position in the bedroom?’
‘Go away!’ I giggled.
Next was a headstand pose, which the instructor made look really easy. I’d done headstands as a kid, how hard could it be to do one as a thirty-year-old, five-stone-heavier adult? If the calm, no-sweat-on-his-brow instructor on the TV could do it, I could bloody well do it!
‘Kneel on the floor,’ he said.
Yep. Next bit.
‘Lace your fingers together and set the forearms on the floor, elbows at shoulder width. Roll your upper arms slightly outward, but press the inner wrists firmly into the floor.
O.K. Easy.
‘Set the crown of your head on the floor,’ he went on. ‘If you are a beginner, practice this pose for a while.’
‘No, get on with it,’ I told him. I’m a very impatient person. Not a good trait, I know.
‘Press your palms together and rest the back of your head against your clasped hands.’
Check!
‘Inhale and lift your knees off the floor. Carefully walk your feet closer to your elbows with your heels elevated. Then lift through the top of your thighs, forming an inverted "V." Firm the shoulder blades against your back and lift them toward the tailbone so the front torso stays as long as possible. This should help prevent your shoulders collapsing onto your neck and head.’
Ouch. Slight twinge going on there but what the hell. I’m game. I manoeuvred into the position.
‘Exhale and lift your feet away from the floor. Take both feet up at the same time, even if it means bending your knees and hopping lightly off the floor,’ he said.
Hmm. Slight problem there. And that was when it all started to go wrong.
I managed to get my feet off the floor, then do a weird kind of somersault thing at high velocity so my legs went in a fast and furious one-hundred and eighty degree flip, feet banging into the plasterboard wall next to the TV and bashing a big hole in it.
Not to mention I think I’d just cricked my neck!
The only spot of good news was I’d missed the fish tank and stereo system by mere centimetres.
Crap! I peered at the wall, trying to see what I could do as damage control.
I thought about hiding the damage from my hubby by moving the fish tank in front of the hole but it was too high up.
Could I hang a picture over it? No. Damn, it was too low.
Nothing was going to disguise the gap in the once-pristine lilac wall. And it was an outside wall of the house, too. On the other side was just cavity and then the outer brick.
Uh-oh!
‘What the hell was that noise?’ My husband rushed down the stairs.
Oops, too late to hide it now!
After not talking to me for two days, he was OK about it. Really. Well, as long as I promised to rent a padded cell to do any further yoga acrobatics. And unfortunately, he had to re-decorate the whole living room, as trying to find the same colour paint again was like trying to find an orange Christmas tree.
So maybe along with the health warnings on exercise videos and DVDs they should have a house warning.
The S-Word and the Lady Garden
It was that time of year again when the dreaded S-word reared its ugly head. Yes, ladies, the horrible prodding and poking necessary for a smear test. I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t got used to it. Hell, why would I get used to someone wearing a head torch, looking like they’re about to dive into a huge cavern to explore, whilst clamping me open like I’m about to give birth to an elephant. Not my favourite pastime, I can tell you!
Anyway, this time I was in a bit of a rush. I think I’d been trying to put it off for so long in the hope it would slip my mind. Or, better yet, I’d turn into a man overnight and just not need one anymore. I think the shoe sale at Shoe World might’ve had a little something to do with my lateness, as well.
So I rushed into the doctor’s surgery, dying for a pee, wondering if it was possible for a bladder to spontaneously combust.
Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have had two gigantic Starbucks at lunchtime.
I quickly gave the receptionist my name and motioned towards the toilets with a flapping hand, hoping I’d be able to squeeze out a quickie before my torture: I mean, appointment.
I sat down, my bladder breathing an almost audible sigh of relief. But what do you know? No toilet paper in there. No toilet paper? In a doctor’s surgery? Come on, some people had genuine medical emergencies that required immediate use of the loo! Like a mochaccino overdose, for example.
Humph! There was no way I was going to drip dry before someone poked their explorer’s lamp near my lady garden, so I rummaged around in my bag for a tissue.
Why is it that women’s handbags resemble a black hole when you’re looking for something specific? I could find…
Two lipsticks.
A mobile phone.
A purse (now somewhat lighter after the shoe sale).
Three and a half toothpicks (not sure what
happened to the other half).
A dummy (if desperate I could use it as a no entry plug).
A dried and very manky-looking wishbone from a chicken (I know - what the hell?).
Ten pieces of sundry, scrappy paper (receipts and shopping lists).
Five pens (a girl has to be prepared).
A notepad (might be able to use that if all else fails).
Various coins.
A few headache tablets (good, I could feel a dull ache forming behind my right eye forming).
And at last! A packet of tissues that was…empty.
No!
Wait a sec, though, what’s that?
Stuffed right in the corner of my bag, with the fluff and a lone headache tablet that had wormed its way out of its blister pack, was a sad-looking, crumpled up tissue.
I pulled it out, careful not to rip it in the process, and blew a bit of fluff off it before using it.
There! With my bladder business concluded, I flew out of the toilet just as the doctor was calling my name.
So there I was, lying back on the couch, legs wide in the stirrups, in the most unflattering position a girl could be in, and the head-torch explorer was advancing like he was on a mission to win the National Potholing Championships. I briefly wondered if his wife ever asked him if he had a good day at the office, but then tried to shake that thought as quickly as it arrived.
Screwing my eyes shut, I waited for the, “Just relax, you won’t feel a thing,” routine.
Yeah, right!
Then I heard a loud gasp from him.
OK, that did it! How unprofessional to gasp at a lady’s…well, lady garden.
I unclamped one eye, staring at the look of horror on his face. What was with this man? Was he a pervert? A woman-hater? Maybe he wasn’t even the doctor, just some random patient who’d wandered into the examining room to get some cheap thrills.
I know, I know, highly unlikely, but surely a professional doctor wouldn’t just gasp at a poor woman’s exposed bits and bobs with a look of sheer disgust like that. He must see hundreds of lady gardens a week. Hollywoods, Brazilians, hairy 70s muffs, I bet he’d seen the lot. Mine couldn’t be that odd, could it?
He glanced slowly up at me, mouth open in shock, then back to my now rather embarrassed nether regions. In fact, I could feel my face and my fu-fu having a hot flush simultaneously.
Aagh! Maybe I was getting menopausal! Maybe it was something to do with that. I was sure I’d read somewhere that once you started going through the menopause unusual things started happening down below. Was that it? Could he see something weird? Had I gone bald overnight? Something worse? Had all my hair turned green down there? No, that couldn’t be it. I’d made sure my legs were shaved and had a trim up in preparation, and it all looked normal to me.
I sat up on the couch, craning my neck to look down at what he could see, but the stupid blanket covering my legs wasn’t see-through, and unless I was a cat or a contortionist, I had no chance of actually seeing what he could see from that angle.
‘Hmm,’ he said.
Hmm? What does that mean?
He picked up a huge pair of tweezers-looking thingies – that could NOT be a good sign.
Eeek!
He leant in for the kill with his pointy weapon of torture and I felt a quick jab.
‘Ow! What the hell are you doing?’ I yelled, then all the blood drained from my face and my jaw dropped open as I saw what was pinched in between the ends of the tweezers.
A Tic Tac!
Yep, that’s right, a Tic Tac, which had probably been stuck in my bag since the 80s, attached to the tissue.
It was my turn to gasp then. ‘Er…I was saving that for later.’
Follow That Goat!
My hubby and I were on holiday in North Cyprus about five years ago and looking forward to having a relaxing day checking out the local sights. We grabbed our map and headed off into the sunshine in our rental car.
Big mistake!
It started off great. We wandered around ancient ruins and cities. Had a leisurely lunch. All the nice, touristy things to do. Until it came to the journey back, and then we got a bit more sightseeing then we bargained for.
‘Oh, look,’ I pointed to a secondary road on the map before I drove back towards our rental apartment. ‘We can save loads of time if we take this shortcut across the top of the mountains.’
So we did.
We came to a junction with six different turnings in a tiny Cypriot village that time had forgotten. The mountains were straight in front of us, but none of the roads led to them. There were no signposts, so it was a case of eenie meenie minie mo, which one shall we take?
‘Let’s go right,’ I said.
‘Left,’ my husband said.
Since I was driving, driver trumps passenger. Right it was.
We drove around in a complete circle and ended back at the crossroads.
‘Told you we should’ve gone left.’ My husband gave me a superior smile.
One left turn later, we ended up back at the crossroads. We did this four more times, in case we’d missed some really big clue, like an arrow pointing the way, but no. We tried each junction, and every time we were miraculously transported back to the crossroads. It was like Groundhog Day.
A group of young kids stood watching us by then, so I asked them the way to the village we were staying in. All of the boys pointed in the same direction to a small tarmac road that zig-zagged over towards the mountains in the distance.
OK, I was game. It was already starting to get dark, and we needed to get a move on, so off we drove up this road that was just about wide enough for two cars.
As we headed up the steep mountain, the tarmac disappeared and was replaced by an old, rubble mountain track. It started narrowing, too. Slowly at first, then after we’d been driving for ten minutes it became just a little wider than the car, with the mountain on one side and a sheer drop on the other. By this point, my hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles had turned white, and we were getting bounced around as we drove over rocks and rubble. Not a good idea, really, when you’re that close to the edge. The only spot of good news was that as I was driving, I was closest to the mountainside, so I’d be the last one to see it coming if we suddenly shot off over the edge.
‘Whose stupid idea was this?!’ I said.
‘Yours!’ My husband said.
Oops.
Since the track wasn’t wide enough to turn around, we had no choice but to carry on going. And then…
BANG!
I heard a horrible noise from under the car as I drove over a large rock.
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.
‘Be careful you don’t take the sump out!’ My husband yelled. ‘Let me drive! I’m an experience off-road driver.’
‘Fine!’ I yelled back (I was slightly panicky by then).
I’d heard of a sump before. I knew it was something under the car that leaked out all the oil if it got damaged. Not a particularly good position to be in: halfway up a mountain with no one around, really. I got out and scrambled around the small gap between the car and the drop below, and jumped in the passenger seat. But now I was on the side of the sheer drop, and I rated that about as high on my bucket list of things to do before I died as skydiving naked.
Off we go, again. Then…
HUMONGOUS BANG!
Glad it wasn’t me that time. ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I think you need a bit more experience.’ Then a few heated exchanges took place over who was the better driver.
Endless jagged-looking mountainside with this thin track dragged on in the distance, and slightly panicky turned into panic overload. It was getting dark (what if they had wolves on the mountain? Or worse, werewolves). My husband was diabetic (knew I should’ve packed some chocolate for him). What if the car broke down? (the sump was taking quite a beating –not my fault, honestly!) What if the tyre exploded, and we didn’t have a spare? (jagged rocks are so not good for tyres!)
Eventually, we came to a wider ledge where the track either carried on straight up to the tip of the mountain, or veered off to the left. A herd of goats milled around at what was obviously the local goat-meeting place. Bleating away, they looked up at us in surprise, and I imagined their conversation in goat language.
‘Hey, do you see that?’ one goat said to the other. ‘A couple of nutters are on the mountain with a death wish.’
‘Baa,’ another one said (that means yes in goat-speak). ‘How did they get that car up that track? Stupid humans. They think they own the whole mountain!’
As we came closer to them, one of the goats hurried off on the track to the left, and the others followed.
‘Follow that goat!’ I said, desperately hoping that they knew their way down for some chow and were feeling a bit peckish after a brisk mountain jaunt. ‘Maybe they’ll lead us back onto a main road.’
More rubble, rocks, bangs, and swear words later, we ended up in a tiny mountain village with the local shepherd. Luckily, he had a car, and we followed him back onto the same main road we’d come off an hour before.
So much for the short cut!
So if you ever get stuck on a mountain in the middle of nowhere…if in doubt, follow that goat!
Kismet
I’ve never really believed in fate…kismet – whatever you want to call it. So when a new guy moved in next door, I didn’t really think much of it.
At first.
A few months after he’d settled in, I was in the garden, trowel in hand, trying to decide how to tell the difference between a weed and a perennial.
I frowned and scratched my head. I didn’t have a clue. This was the first garden I’d had to look after myself. I’d always left it up to Adam. But, of course, he was no longer here.
“What a nicely trimmed bush you’ve got,” a male voice drifted over the fence.
