The past week has not been great for fitness as I went out to the pub on Tuesday with Jiving Friend whom I have known for over 20 years. We met at a jive class, and used to go all over the place jiving. I still do jive but she has long since given up. It was her birthday and despite living in London she always gets a voucher from a local Hitchin pub, The Angels for a free bottle of wine with a meal. We live just around the corner and don’t get one, I’m not sure how she manages it from South London. Anyway, she came up from London and we went out for a lovely meal, made even nicer with the free bottle of wine! To make up for Tuesday, we were booked to go for a day of exercise at Bannatyne as it was National Fitness Day, the pass was free too, there’s a bit of theme here.
This Bannatyne is at Fairfields which used to be a psychiatric hospital and the buildings are gothic and look like the kind you’d read about in a Dickens’ novel which would have been labelled an asylum. There was a very odd feel about the place and although I enjoyed going there for swimming and an aqua class I’m not sure I would go again because the pool was in subdued lighting in a basement and it just felt a bit too creepy and oppressive for my liking. We couldn’t stay all day as Feisty Daughter decided to be unwell with a heavy cold so we didn’t want to leave her for too long. When we got back she was fast asleep and didn’t notice we had been gone. We made sure she had some food and then went off for a walk up by the Lavender Farm just to get a bit more fitness in.
By Thursday I too had developed the rather unwelcome cold and didn’t feel well enough to go to Zumba with Annie or go swimming, which I was really fed up about.
I did however feel much better on Saturday and managed a personal best of 93 lengths (counted by my FitBit Flex) and have now done over four miles of the Aspire challenge – only another 18 to go – I’ll be as fit as a butcher’s dog if I manage to do it! Then it was out to the Granello Lounge for Pina Colada with supportive husband as Feisty Daughter was doing her Duke of Edinburgh expedition and was away for the weekend walking 25 miles (good luck with that!) as well as camping out on Saturday night.
Won’t be able to do much swimming at the beginning of next week as I’m on a press tour of biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands but hope to swim on Thursday and next weekend as there’s still quite a bit of the channel left to swim!
Dr Sue Pearson 