Autumn is the time for activity, creativity and, of course, comfort eating. Currently Ryvita and honey sometimes at 2 a.m.!
New projects will be the only way to prepare for the real deep dark mists of winter that arrive at our window and block out the landscape, sometimes for days at a time!
There is of course a time and place for the joys of soft focus and misty landscapes!
Lumb Bank
However, I am not keen on the winter. SAD will be knocking discreetly on my door soon, demanding that I let it in. (SAD is seasonal sadness – it is a real condition honestly).
Plan A – the gym
I lash out for three sessions from a personal trainer at the gym. I’ve sold three poetry books this month. At least the money will presumably pay for 2o minutes of excitement. That of holding a heavy weight above my head, or running a mile in a minute on one of those awful exercise bikes! Or three lovely cream teas at the cafe outside the Pavilion. No, no, no!
I choose Nick as my personal trainer, he knows about NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and is the only trainer that looks older than 15!
Nick is bright eyed and personable and obviously healthy, as one would expect. He talks to me in an upbeat, friendly kind of way. I tell him his task if to “make me love the gym.” Currently I don’t and just slip into nice warm pool for aqua three times a week!
I am already focussed and determined as a result of my own NLP, so he takes me round a mini gym circuit with flashing lights that tell me to change machine every few minutes in an attempt to offer variety.
Nick shows me a warm-up on a bike and then I do the circuit thing, sitting on a padded contraption, doing squats, or some sort of arm muscle routine. I do two lots of the flashing lights on each one. We finish up on a machine that involves a lot of hip swaying as well as counting the calories used. So far so good.
When I try the whole thing out on my own later in the week, I forget to check the lights which change from a sort of eerie green to red like one of those 70s table lava lamps but without the swirls that leave one comatose, so must have done a lot more than strictly necessary. Yippee!
I’ve noticed ladies in this circuit on my way to aqua sitting on said machines motionless. Instead of moving, adding muscles and losing weight they are memerised no doubt guessing the outcome of ‘Cash in the Attic’ on the giant daytime TV in front of them.
Umm….this was just week one but I am optimistic about a flattened tummy in time…well a long time!
It’s pouring outside, I think about the lady at the shop in Hebden Bridge last month where I bought a brilliant skirt, she was on flood alert even then. (I was at Lumb Bank on a poetry course at Arvon and Hebden Bridge is the nearest station). Today they must be underwater again, poor devils!
Hebden Bridge
A guy is fitting us a new blind, he tells us his son has recently returned from Afghanistan, where his mates are still fighting for their lives and some are not sure why they are still out there. He tells us that what the guys value most is the camaraderie!
I think SAD is normal, perhaps we should pause a bit and look out from our consumer bubbles from time to time. Do one small thing a day for someone else?
A sign up in Hebden Bridge!
Meanwhile that’s enough angst… it must be time for another yummy Ryvita! Whoops perhaps not!
Lastly if you missed it my video diary at Arvon and Lumb Bank with a visit to Hebden Bridge this is the link.
Ann Perrin 