Claire with an 'i'

Claire with an 'i' has itchy feet again, I don't think she's that keen on England either, generally speaking she is somewhere else. Either way, she has randomly booked herself in for a trek up a Ugandan mountain in January. She may have done it on a whim I think because now she's panicking. She "...can't even get up the stairs without having a heart attack", obviously a lie because her bedroom is upstairs. But, she has convinced herself that she'll never make it if the Gorrillas are at the top (of the mountain, not the stairs)she is praying they will be 'going local' and hanging out near the bottom so the trek isn't life-threatening. Claire with an 'i' is as over dramatic when she puts on a few pounds as I am. I must remember ask her if she has the same relationship with Muesli and Porridge oats as I do. She swears she has put on so much weight that she can hardly walk, which is another blantant lie. I, on the other hand really am such a lard-arse that getting out of the front door is significant challenge. Especially since the onset of the crescent-shaped fetish.
So we thought we might get fit together. She is going to join a gym, she says. No, I scream, don't do it. You are right she says instantly. She'll hate it she says, its a waste of money I say, its boring she says. The ladies waiting to book a wedding join in, those treadmills they say, try walking they say. Silence. Walking? Thats a good idea we say.
Where shall we walk, we say, when will we have time, we say. Try walking to work they say. Tricky for me, that one. Tricky for Claire with an 'i' too, unless she had those weird leg extensions and she's taller than she'd choose already. Where shall we walk then? Up Parson's Hill they say. I don't know if you've ever walked up Parson's Hill but I'd rather be on a tread mill with a blindfold personally. Its not the French Riviera or a Ugandan mountain put it that way.
Sensing a dead end, the bride to be intervenes, perhaps out of a sense of public duty. Try a class she says with a classic, unpretensious, smile from her smooth, young, cheek-boned face. She didn't judge us, you could see that, but she reallly wanted to help. Yes, says her Mum, in an encouraging tone, Salsa, Becky does Salsa. I know for a fact that Salsa is dull. I try being willing and have harboured a secret desire to return to Ballet but the floor to ceiling wall to wall mirrors make me look like Dawn French in the Darcy Bussell sketch and if you haven't seen it lets keep it that way. Ballet? I say tentatively. Claire with an 'i' almost ruptures her unwanted stomach laughing and I realise that my ballet days really are over. Jogging and cycling are out for me because my gargantuan arse makes me unstable. We have a good canal network locally, most jogging and cycling takes place around those because they are our most attractive landscape feature round here. You get the picture.
I am unashamed to be an avid Woman's Hour fan. There was a horrifying account this morning which made me want to eat crescent shaped indulgences without shame and turn down all offers of humiliating exercise regimes. Research now shows that women now face increasing pressure to have attractive bumps during pregnancy. The despicable magazine people air-brush them into an acceptable shape. Furthermore women are expected to be thin all over, gain no weight but still have an perfect shaped baby bump. The radio piece was about the horrifying fact that an estimated 1 in 20 pregnant women are currently suffering from an eating disorder. It is worse than this of course because eating disorders demand secrecy. Women, whatever their cravings are denying them so that they can be thin all over but still have perfect bumps. Is their no end to this nonsense? It is all blamed on Demi Moore and an extraordinary photographer. Because Annie Leibovitz took a photo of Demi nude complete with bump. At the time of its release the magazine had to sell copies covered with paper because it was so controversial. These powerful women made it acceptable to show our womanhood in all its glory. What I do know of these women is fabulously feminist. They are doubtless mortified to be associated with a change in culture which forces us into an unatural shape literally and metaphorically.
I'm off to buy something life-affirming to eat