Post gym awesomesauce (part one)

As I was at work through the day and then had to dash straight to ASDA to grab the ingredients for Christmas cake (because it isn't Christmas without spicy fruit cake!)  I really didn't have time to get het up about the gym, but sat on the bus stop with my gym kit clutched awkwardly in my hand and people going too and fro with their own bags of sport gear I began to feel pretty self conscious.

I met Ben outside St. Anthony's (a lovely big church, must remember to have a nosey around there some time) and we past down the little alleyway that cuts between it and the Throstles Nest, the same alleyway which I've cut down every Tuesday since August to get to ChildLine, and onto Great Homer Street. It's not a bad area by comparison to some areas of Liverpool; all big shady deciduous trees starting to loose their leaves now that autumn is here, but still leafy enough to provide me (who went out sans raincoat or umbrella...) with some shelter from the drizzle which was now steadily falling. It was twilight, and the trees were casting all kinds of crazy shadows, and the sky was a cornucopia of purple rainclouds of all sorts of textures.

Ok, yes, very pretty, what has this got to do with the gym? Well I was taking a lot of notice of all of this trying not to think about the fact that there were a lot of young, fit looking folk going into the sports centre at which the gym is based with their tennis rackets and football kits (they have all weather football pitches, you see).

Ben was obviously feeling pretty ill at ease over this too, commenting that it was a lot busier than he thought it would be at seven in the evening. I wondered if it should be common sense...younger folk playing football will have been at school all day, older folk in the gym or attending Zumba would have been at work all day. This was exactly the time that we should have expected it to be busy.

We passed a lot of young folk hanging around, eyeing us up. I had hoped to see just one other larger person, but everyone here was fit as a fiddle and I really felt like we were standing out like big sore thumbs. Queuing up at reception was a horrific experience, and I played it down by trying to encourage Ben and banter with him, as he looked even more horrified than me.

The receptionist was lovely and showed us around, before letting us get changed and informing the instructor who would be doing our induction know we were here. When we finally entered the gym to find it full to bursting with a lot of fit, well built men everywhere we turned, I think both of our hearts sunk.

But since I now have to head off to work, you shall have to wait and see how we got on :)