The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step.........

Thursday 4th of Jan; Today was to be the day of reckoning where all the effort I had put in over the last three months dieting was to be cemented into place by fixing up a regular exercise routine at our local gymnasium which is housed in the council's flagship leisure centre. Our council are quite good at finding ways to amuse us with quaintly named facilities, there's the tautological learning college and the sweat driven muscle straining oxymoron that is the leisure centre. It was to this latter mentioned pantheon of the gymnastic arts that I trudged today for my assessment and induction. It was much as had I feared, full of bright fit young things, all shiny lycra and lactic acid with more mirrors than I thought strictly necessary and everything and everyone moving to some overly loud inane bass thumping musac. My erstwhile personal trainer in waiting Mark tried to explain about the assessment but struggled due to the fact that he had been shouting so much that his voice had all but gone which somehow did little for my fragile confidence. In the end he gave up and shoved a bit of paper at me to complete. Basically it said please let us know if you are about to drop down dead or if any of the excercises, about which you know nothing, are likely to kill you. Being scrupulously honest and following numerous instructions from Mrs Norman I did mention that my blood pressure might be a bit high. This was the signal mute Mark had been waiting for and straight away out came his trainee doctor's kit. With a device that looked like it had been purchased with special muesli box top vouchers he proceeded to take my blood pressure whilst all around me the bright young things were jigging about in their shiny lycra and smiling their smug self satisfied smiles. Mute Mark looked at the read out and immediately went into dodgy mechanic mode with much tutting and deep whistly intakes of breath. He showed me the read out as if I were supposed to understand it, shook his head and whispered "put both your feet flat on the ground and wait there calmly." Of course this response and instruction was all I needed to put me in a calm and serene frame of mind. Mark then wandered off for a while and left me to contemplate what had just happened as I listened to the head banging musac and watched the flailing Lycra clad limbs. After a wait of several minutes he came back and repeated the blood pressure test with exactly the same result, not one to give up easily he had a third bash then whispered to me "if I were you I'd see a GP as soon as possible" I was a little upset that whilst Mark's medical prowess was sufficient for him to scare me shitless, it did not seem comprehensive enough for him to explain what the problem might be. Needless to say I high tailed it round to the doctor's surgery, explained that I believed I was in mortal and imminent danger of expiry and solicited an emergency appointment. My doctor took my blood pressure three times using two different methods and convinced me that it was in fact normal but that my potential personal trainer might be in need of some help especially in the area of medical knowledge.

My human contacts today included the avuncular doctor and mad mute Mark the misguided mentor. My deed was to attempt a fitness regime and my thoughts were on the need for specialists in given professions and why doctors have to take exams.