The other day, me colleague and I were having a quick ‘departmental meeting’ round the back of the Leisure Centre. The agenda was proving difficult to get through as neither of us had thought to bring a lighter, but we are a resourceful pair and soon we were in deep analytical discussion about our recent failings.
As previously mentioned m’colleague is a badge wearing heard core metal bitch and as you know I am not given to anything wholesome by nature, yet recently we have both spent a considerable amount of time engaged in what can only be described as P.E.
M’colleague at least is on a promise in Peru come Yule, but I have no excuse. Peru? I hear you cry – surely it’s a bit of a trek for a birrov hows-yer-father? I have learnt not to question m’colleagues labyrinthine entanglements and suggest you follow suit and lets not forget, Peru isn't that far away relatively speaking. Or to look at it another way everywhere is a bloody long way away so you may as well push the boat out.
Anyway her quest for a bikini body notwithstanding, we are engaging in physical exercise in a way we both find faintly alarming and fascist. This is because we are English teachers and as such are repelled by the idea that the physical is more important than the metaphysical. We have read our Shakespeare, our Milton and ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin – we know we are but grains of sand destined to shine ever so briefly and pointlessly before guttering into the maw. Going for a PB on the free weights is something we consider both hideous hubris and faintly noxious.
As far as memory serves I have never worked with another English teacher who went at it with a Badminton racket or any other implement of anti-intellectual tomfoolery. The exception that proves the rule being of course me late lamented Guv’s affection for Aikido. This caused him some terrible attacks of gout, a broken collarbone and endless piss taking from yours truly. Never has a man so brazenly indulged his mid-life crisis. ‘Buy a sports car!’ I railed, ‘develop an addiction to online porn! But dear God, do not betray your calling with this nebulous approach to health and fitness’. My entreaties fell on deaf ears I fear. He is still, no doubt doing himself a frightful damage every week in his on-going attempts at the esoteric business of grading. Grim stuff indeed.
But now, I must eat my harsh words as three times a week I am attempting to better my PB of 50 lengths of the pool. Come pay day, I am actually going to part with £90 of my hard earned to get full membership of the leisure centre so I can use the gym, squash courts et al. M’colleague has already written her check and throws herself regularly into the fray wearing an odd assortment of Tour T- shirts some stuff with studs on – like me she is a stranger to the clothing section of JJB…
Behind the Leisure Centre she bemoaned this horror that has befallen us. ‘I’ve always hated the kind of people who join the gym,’ muttered she.
‘Ar! And me’ I agreed exhaling foul vapour towards the abattoir.
‘If I told my mother she’d die of shock. Don’t tell anyone I know, I ‘d never be able to show my face at the next Vaginal Croutons gig’
I concurred. Only I have the sort of friends who think this is a GOOD THING. Perhaps I need get away from my Miles Davis and embrace the world of scary noises. But the big question remains – WHY?
Well it’s not quantum theory. To be frank there is bugger all else to do. No TV, no cinema, no mall. You can only go to the pub so many times. We’ve done felting, candle making, spinners and weavers, huge evenings out, rover rally and piddling about looking for porpoise, but these are all one off things. Short of going home every evening and doing your marking, availing yourself of the facilities next to our classrooms is about it.
And so my bingo wings are disappearing, my chronic back ache is cured and I can actually walk upstairs without having an aneurysm. It’s an ill-wind I suppose and it does have its bonuses – the gym has a public viewing gallery. Ordinarily I would turn in disgust from such a gladiatorial affectation, but the other night having left the pool, I wandered up to poke fun at m’colleague while she sweated her cobs off on the treadmill. The smile was quickly wiped from me gob however when I was confronted by The Narrows Adonis wearing what can only be described as a body stocking lying prone over one of those ludicrous gym balls and rocking gently back and forth.
‘Why is he doing that, mommy?’ enquired the heir.
‘Who gives a fridge? Let’s go and get some cake,’ I snorted
Which we did as in life, all things must balance.
Borah out….
