I join the gym

This is not a first. There was a time when I could run 5km in 20 minutes. That's on a treadmill and I am 5 foot 1 and 3/4. That's quite fast. Anyway, 2 years, an engagement ring, and 3 and a half stone later, I have finally done it.... I've let myself go.

I have 282 days before I put on my Honeypie-esque dress and 'fatty bride' is not an option.

Enter Virgin Active. 'We don't do deals. We charge you extraordinary amounts of cash because we can, and because you will pay it.' The hook was the assurance by a tracksuited blonde (ha) that becoming a member would certainly help to increase my confidence. You what? You will be disappointed to hear that I let that one pass.

Today's schedule went like this:

- Powerplate warm-up (5 mins). Fuck me, that works.
- Punching bag (10 mins). Got knocked off my feet by My Loved One. Well into that he was.
- Rowing (10 mins).
- Cross-trainer (20 mins). "Come on honey, make it 25."   "No."
- Swimming (15mins). Maybe 8 laps....but mostly frolicking.

My back hurts and I'm hungry.

I don't want to

Let it be known that I do not want winter this year. I am not ready for it and it is not welcome. It will mean the purchasing of a winter coat. It will mean venturing out to be beaten up by rain and wind. It means darkness at the time of day when we should all be partaking in Afternoon Tea. It's also the 155 night bus home at freezing cold o'clock.

No to winter this year, you may keep it.

Priority # 1

Ordinarily, as ordinary days go, I feel a sense of pride about being a Londoner. A naturalised one, but one nonetheless. We rush around, cramming ourselves onto the tubes making our way to our very busy jobs whilst getting on with our very busy lives. Yet, in amongst that busyness we allow customers off the train first and we offer our seat to the old ones, the less able ones and the preggers ones (except the losers with 'Baby on Board' badges, I think twice about those.)

So because people I know behave this way, I allow myself to assume (and actually believe, as it turns out) that people in general behave this way. You will know by now that this isn't so, as I have led you along so nicely. Apparently the girl with the bad hair (black roots and platinum strands), checking out her nails whilst shrieking "NO WAY! SHE SAID WHAT?" into her phone, did not read the notes on seat etiquette.

Would you, seated on the 155, in a priority seat (the ones that they put big blue signs next to saying PRIORITY SEAT), continue to chat on your phone, whilst an elderly lady is standing in front of you, hanging on to the rail while the driver does what bus drivers do (speed, brake, speed, break, hang on!), and not get up? Not get up when you see her wince because she has had a knee replacement operation and has been in physiotherapy for a year? Would you, seated in a non-priority seat, watch the bad-hair girl not get up, tut-tut her, but not get up and offer your seat, presumably because it doesn't have a blue sign, so you're alright? Would you, a young man with a back-pack, elbow the elderly lady in order to get off the bus, when she too, quite clearly is also getting off the bus (she just can't move as fast as you can)?

Perhaps I only noticed all this because it was my mother-in-law to be swinging on that rail asking how many more stops? So what if it was.

Shame on you Londoners!