Lovely day

What a lovely day. Woke up early to the sunrise and set off to the gym. I joined a couple of days ago and am so so thankful for the exercise, especially after the mountain of carbohydrates I am consuming in this country! I decided to get in with the locals and attempt to find my "inner being" through the art of yoga and meditation. It was quite frankly, hilarious. Well, no one else was laughing as your not supposed to make a sound, but inside I was cracking up at how appalling I am at bending my body into shapes and angles that at first glance do not seem physically possible. Even at second and third glance it still seemed that the instructors body was made out of rubber. How out of place I felt when everyone around me started positioning their own bodies into these awkward angles with such graceful elegance it made me look like a elephant. However, I persevered and made a vow there and then to continue with this horrendous "exercise" until my own body looks like it is made out of rubber. It could be a while...

So after the gym session today Mary, PJ, Tom and I met Will and Lillina in Walking street for a coffee and a sandwich. Oh how refreshing it is to have just a sandwich for lunch! We then took a stroll down the street and ventured into Wall Mart. The aim of the Wall Mart venture was to get my boots polished as a while ago we walked past a stall of men polishing people's shoes and I realised that the snow and ice had deterioated my once, beautful black shiny boots. So Mary and I plonked our backsides down on the stools ready to get a thorough polishing. And, as we anticipated two eager young men came over and started frantically scrubbing our boots. They seemed to be as pleased with the results as we were; continually showing us the polished bits, comparing them to the unpolished bits. And then showing us the polish they use. Again and again. We acknowledged the results with smiles and thumbs up until eventually the constant reassurance got a bit wearing. It then dawned on us that they werent just friendly people polishing our boots for a couple of quai. They were selling a product, and we HAD to buy it. 80 quai for a black polish and a brown polish they said. Our smiles instantly dropped and we went into haggling mode, eventually managing to get 50% discount. As we left, clutching out polish all we could do was laugh.

We then went for a stroll by the river which is still frozen. We came across a playground for senior citizens which was so much fun! The senior citizens here are brilliant. They spend their days playing table tennis in the snow and running around an adventure park swinging from monkey bars and clambouring up climbing frames. Well, I say running, it's more like a fast paced walk, but in all fairness they are 70 odd. What a great way to spend retired life, so much better than my old age pensioner plan of hoarding cats and talking to gnomes; these folks seem to have it sussed. They let us join in with their games, and we all danced around the playground as if we were 5, or 105 depending on which country your from.  A couple of men were walking around singing opera at the top of their voices, not a care in the world. We stood and admired one Pavoritti- wannabe for a while. When he stopped mid-song and hocked loudly before spitting on the cobbles we decided it was time for home.

So there we are. A lovely day.

Thats all folks xx