This is hell. (Should be a lovely pic, still having upload issues; think ‘beach, sun, gorgeous’) Ok, not very hellish, long as you don’t mind heat. Intense heat of the tropical variety. Soothed only by the intake of copious drinks. But man can’t live on sunshine and rum-based cocktails alone. Though thinking about that… hmmmm…

And woman can’t survive on that, for sure. We eat too much. The guilt is too great. And the days can be long, in a wonderful, relaxed, download me another 6 books onto me kindle, per-lease, NOW, kind a way.

So we swim, when ears allow. And we take out little kayaks and play Hiawatha across the bay, and we even pop into the gym every day before lunch, before pigging out. And then there’s the classes. They have lots of them here. Ranging from ‘Relaxation and Meditation’ (not really for me, I can sleep in my own bed, thank you very much) to ‘boot camp’, which is jumping up and down waving arms around for 40 minutes, which I also don’t need.

Its the ones in the middle that are more interesting. Yoga. Pilates. And tai chi. All done on a little shaded platform on the beach about 5 metres from the sea. I mean really? Tai Chi? On the beach?? Its just wrong. Tai Chi needs to be done in a windowless room in a gym in North Finchley, or not at all. When the Chinese invented it, just after the ming vase, in 1427, they didn’t use the Dim Sum Lloyd, they used special dojos. In… er… North Finchley.

I can’t bring myself to do yoga. Too spiritual. Too limp. Too pointless. I like pilates. Good stretching, easing muscles, hyper-extending everything that already hurts before you started. And then was tai chi. Which I did out of curiosity. Because I’m a battle-hardened expert of two-and-a-half years of near total incompetence in the discipline.

It was different. It was non-violent. Which was a shame because there was a 75 year-old South African woman with 2 new kneecaps that I’m pretty sure I could have hurt pretty badly, given the chance. But I wasn’t. This was all about energy (the ‘chi’ component) and balance, controlled movement and posture. And it was really good. Taken by ‘Ian’, the same dude who instructs in all the other ‘health’ activities. All the other dudes here are more ‘barmen’ than ‘instructors’, as such. I wouldn’t fancy Ian’s chances in a fair fight against Guru Larry, but I wouldn’t fancy the SAS’s chances against Larry either. Unless they brought their guns.

Tia chi on the beach? Oh, alright then. At least it keeps me out of the bar for an hour.

Happy Wednesday. Unless you’re a Man City fan and watched Vincent Kompany (aka: YOUR ONLY HOPE) limp off last night against Leicester. With Aguero currently ‘somewhere else’ at the moment, things not looking great there.

A xxxx