The fat-busting continues. I have religiously done all the prescribed workouts, and I AM getting better at them. Some exercises continue to defeat me though.
Back extensions: To do these you lie face down on the floor and then either lift your arms and chest off the ground or lift your legs off the ground. Well I can barely move. You try it!
In her instructional video Julia Buckley bows her back upwards in an alarming and unnatural fashion, and one’s first thought is “Phone an Exorcist, the woman’s been possessed!”
If however, anyone walked in on me attempting these moves they’d be more likely to think that I’d overdone the exercise, collapsed and was lying on the floor just twitching. Their first thought would be “Paramedic!” rather than Paranormal.
I’ve been quite alarmed at my lack of bendiness, and so I decided to try to do a ‘Crab’. Not being a follower of the Kama Sutra, this is a position my body has not been in since I was about 10 years old.
As I recalled, I used to lie on my back, feet on floor, and hands on floor behind my head and…… LIFT. Nothing! No movement. My spindly arms do not have the strength to lift my upper body. Something needs to be done.
To this end, we also use weights. I started with 2kg dumbbells which was difficult, but 2 weeks in I was proud to move up to 2.5kg dumbbells. I was devastated then to read a query on our secret Facebook page from another participant who is currently lifting 12.5 kg and needs a heavier set of weights because that’s too easy!
So, I have another goal.
By the end of this torture programme, my back needs to be bendy enough, and my arms strong enough to do a Crab!
In the meantime and on the very positive side, I’ve lost half an inch from my bust, my waist and my hips since I started, and although I haven’t lost much weight, that’s fine because I’m building muscle instead. Even I can see that I look slimmer round the middle, the muffin top is shrinking which is excellent, I really hate that bit!!
Last week, I went to Brighton with Mum and her Ladies Lunch Club. We went on a Coach! I have only been to Brighton once about 20 years ago, so I was looking forward to the trip.
After we arrived Mum and I went on the Brighton Ferris Wheel. It was a lovely sunny day and we could see for miles and there was an interesting commentary giving facts about Brighton. So, after finding out all we needed to know, we set off for a spot of shopping.
Something a visitor needs to know about Brighton which was not mentioned on the commentary is that along the pavement part of the promenade, between the sea wall, and the road, there is a painted-on bike lane.
Reasonably, the cyclists whizz up and down this as they’re allowed to do and stay safe from the traffic.
However, if you are a pedestrian and new to Brighton, and you are walking down the Prom on the pavement looking around you and at the sea, you do not know or see the painted cycle lane and so you innocently step onto it, in front of a cyclist on a racing bike sprinting down the Prom. If you are lucky like my mother, you have your darling daughter at your side, who yanks you out of harm’s way with a whisker to spare. If you are not, there must be accidents daily. It is not well thought out.
Another thing that visitors to Brighton need to know is that it is wise to always carry and use an umbrella even on the sunniest of days.
As we were crossing the main road, at a Pelican crossing something that must have been the size of a flaming Pelican pooped on me from out of the sky!!! My audience was three lanes of static traffic.
People say it is lucky if a bird poops on you. Idiots!
The only lucky thing about this was that I was wearing a leather jacket and I had wet wipes in my bag.
Poor Mum was given the task of wiping me down whilst I demanded that she check scrupulously that nothing had gone in my hair.
After this we finally hit the shops! Brighton has good shops. They also have a little area called The Lanes, which does actually comprise lots of little lanes with tiny boutiques and cafes. It’s not quite as quaint as I remember, but we found a fab little seafood restaurant for a snack as we hadn’t had breakfast and treated ourselves to Avocado with Prawns – Mum, and Crab – me, and of course a glass of crisp white wine to recover from the Pelican incident. (Someone said it might have been a Seagull, but a Seagull must be entirely filled with poop to pour that much out of the sky!)
Looking at the shops, many of them were second-hand jewellery shops. I have a particular aversion to second-hand jewellery.
To my mind, there can only be 5 reasons why jewellery has been sold and none of them are good.
1) A broken engagement
2) Divorce
3) Death
4) Someone is in such a bad way financially that they have to sell their jewellery because they need the money
5) It’s been stolen.
So as far as I’m concerned, unless it’s been passed down in the family. second-hand jewellery comes with bad luck and I don’t want any of it.
We did find a fab Kitchen gadgets shop called Steamer and spent probably an hour in there browsing the gadgets and yes, buying stuff we didn’t know we needed. I have secretly assimilated it into my kitchen at home without Mike noticing and giving me the “For Christ’s sake haven’t you got enough crap?” lecture.
We also found a super dress shop called Dollydagger selling retro 50’s dresses. They had the most beautiful red polka dot dress in the window which I don’t think I could get away with, but was a very cheery thing to see.
Afternoon Tea at The Grand Hotel finished the afternoon before we got on the coach for home.
An added bonus was that there were so many roadworks on the M25 on the way down, that the coach driver decided to go the other way round on the way back so we had a complete tour of the M25 thrown in for free. What Luck!
Slightly less lucky was that the junction for the M1 was closed due to an accident and the air ambulance being called.
I discovered later that this was because the idiot known as George Michael had fallen out of the passenger door of the car that he was travelling in and landed in the middle lane of the motorway in rush hour traffic.
How do you do that??????
I’m typing this on the plane on the way down to Alicante. (No, not online) We’ve left Buster at home with Frances his dog-sitter and are taking another week or so in the sun and to try to deal with our increasingly irritating, business interests in Spain.
As I’m typing this we’re actually just going over the Pyrenees. It’s quite fascinating to see the weather down below change from one side of the mountains to the other. It was cloudy down below when we were over France, now I can see down to the snow-capped mountains and looking ahead into Spain it’s just plain clear blue sky!
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High-Fiving Palm Trees 