Since we last spoke I haven't been to the gym, I haven't been on my bike, I haven't braved any of the hybrid aerobo-martial-art-yogalites classes that are still on my list of things to pull a muscle doing. I haven't even been swimming, though I had a bikini wax in preparation two weeks ago (without anaesthesia - still wake up screaming).
Yet I feel better than I have done since this tedious getting fit and healthy thing began. Not incidentally, I have also received two separate gifts of those four little words that - however heavily armed we keep our psyches against the sociocultural mores that would seek to destroy our mental health - still mean so much: "Have you lost weight?"
How has this feat been achieved? By spending a fortnight rushing around like, as my family vernacular has it, a blue arse fly. For various reasons, mostly to do with the innate vagaries of the freelance life and my talent for disorganisation and time mismanagement, the days have been characterised by rushing from one side of London to another, trips to far-flung bits of the countryside, desperate searches for internet connections and much furious marching in the cold between bus stops, broken-down bits of public transport and broken-down bits of National Rail employees, one of whom I keep hoping will hold the information about how to get to Wadhurst when the entire southeastern rolling stock is holed up for repairs in Charing Cross.
The evenings have been spent stripping wallpaper, washing, cleaning, vacuuming the carpets with a machine that weighs more than the house and all the 101 other things required to bring the house up to code when a visit from your mother's friends is imminent (and joyfully anticipated, George and Maureen, joyfully anticipated!).
All of which means I have not been following my customary routine of stumbling between laptop, fridge, TV and biscuit drawer all day, then attempting to undo 12 hours' damage with a bike ride to the gym and 60 minutes' resentful exercise therein. I hope the world is ready for a book entitled The Blue Arse Fly Path to Health and Fitness, because that's what's coming next.
· Next week: Tim Dowling joins the army
