New studio

After missing two classes because I was away, and another because the new studio wasn't ready, I had my first Pilates class in the new studio today - and gosh, was I needing it! The new space is a joy compared to the windowless box at the holiday village which was our home all last year; this is an upstairs room in what used to be a residential home for children who were in trouble one way or the other (I taught several, the most memorable being two Glasgow boys who landed in the same English class; one of them was always asking me how to spell "Kalashnikov" ...)Now the house is the base of a new garden centre, with a cafe downstairs and this newly-kitted-out space with - joy - windows overlooking the sea and the hills to the north. (The views are my extras; the main photo was taken as class dispersed and the next lot - including Himself - was waiting outside. I think I must have been overdoing the stretches at one point; I was seized by a terrible cramp in - I think - my intercostal muscles and had to go outside and sit down, talked through some slow deep breathing by the sports therapist who, happily, was in the class today. Ouch!

The afternoon was filled by a jolly visit to my friends from the Rectory; they've just moved into the interim Rectory while we begin the process of building a new one and have transformed a very ordinary bungalow with wall after wall of vile green paint into a house that would grace an interior design magazine at the hairdressers. I made up for the lack of walking by parking my car on the front, which gave me a steep climb to reach the house...

Two interesting things on the arts side of my life: an email arrived from a Dutch singer who months ago bought copies of one of Himself's choral arrangements, having heard it on a CD. The email contained the programme of their Scottish-themed concert on Saturday - in Dutch - and a video recording of their performance of Comin' Through the Rye. And in my own sphere, I tracked down a few poems that I'd started - one in a notebook and two in rudimentary shape on the computer - and finished them off. I think.

I'll maybe post one for Remembrance Day.