The tender ministrations of Anna

It being a while since I had set foot inside the gym (the hip issues of last week were enough to make me cancel), it was time for me once again to entrust my body to my personal trainer. She, you will remember, is from Ukraine, and operates with an internal, ongoing metatext, through which she drives me to improve my flexibility and core strength through a series of casual jibes, mostly pertaining to the fact that if I think this is difficult, then I should try being in Kyiv or somewhere else. This, I totally understand; I am fully aware that osteoarthritis – and having the means to try various things to improve it – are minor problems compared with ongoing barrages of missiles. Quite frankly, I am very grateful to be where I am and have nothing but admiration and sympathy for those who are undergoing appalling deprivations and constant threat. But these are my problems and the only ones I have. Well, other than a predilection for supergluing parts of my body to other parts of my body (or light switches) every time I am asked to do some DIY, but we won’t go into that here. As I started to say before sidetracking myself, it’s been a while and I am not doing well physically. So, I was not looking forward to today’s session. In the end, it was worse than I had anticipated. And primarily, I think, because Anna was in a good mood.
 
I hadn’t seen Anna in a good mood before, but today she was positively cheerful. She even laughed when I completely failed to get my knees into the required position to stretch my hamstring, and went to get a couple of blocks on which I could rest my hands so the stretch wouldn’t be too painful. Normally, she would just have hit me over the head with a dumb bell. Talking of dumb bells, surely three reps of 15 is too much for a man of my age to be doing? I’m supposed to be building up shoulder muscles, but here she was, pushing me as if I were in the Olympics. Up and down I went onto boxes, lifting my legs to 90 degrees on chairs and holding, pulling myself up into a “hips forward, chest forward” pose. It was agony. At the end of the hour, I crawled to the door, while Anna mopped up the trail of sweat I had left in my wake. “Next week, we’ll do 5lb dumb bells, not the 2lb ones,” she shouted after me as I left (rather unnecessarily, I thought).
 
The whole session had been so difficult that I booked myself in to see a physio. I should have done this months/years/a decade ago – but I, of course, knew best. So, tomorrow I am going to see the physio who will hopefully target the areas I can improve and work in tandem with Anna. I am kind of hoping he’s not from a war-torn area – I don’t think I could cope with two lots of scorn – but, even if worst comes to worst, I may well have a better understanding of why my hips are so painfully after the slightest exercise.
 
I staggered home, sat in front of the blank computer screen for 45 minutes, then went and had a hot shower for 15 minutes. Having filled out the various insurance forms for tomorrow’s physio, I staggered over to the office. Mrs. Ottawacker then helped me put on my socks, and I drove Ottawacker Jr. to his soccer practice out at Sieveright Park.

In the evening, I managed to watch the second part of Becoming Frida Kahlo, in which I learned that Diego Rivera was a complete shit.