It's a new day.......

Today just reminded me of the song that has the line "it's a new day, it's a new life....and I'm feeling good".  I am feeling great today; not that I am usually maudlin or anything you understand, but it is such a beautiful day that I feel that I need to acknowledge it in some small way.

I always say that I hate autumn and winter, but now, when I come to actually analyse my thought processes, I discover that "hate" is probably too strong a word. Autumn has such diversity of colour that it is breathtaking, and being fortunate enough to live in the Garden of England, I see the beauty and majesty of the Lord's hand in the changing of summer into autumn.  Less than a mile from my humble abode there is a huge park that is just open space, trees and a lake.  The trees are good at the best of times; some of the trunk barks are gnarled and massive whilst others are still in their youth, but come the autumn and the leaves are like an artist's palette. Everywhere you look there is a tree with a different colour of leaf.  Each day brings a new colour scheme into the mix.  Autumn truly is a sight to behold.  However with every up you must invariably have a down, and the downside to autumn is the changing weather, the dropping temperatures and the frosty mornings.  Don't know about you but I hate having to scrape my car early in the morning and then freeze whilst waiting patiently for the car to heat up.  Usually I am at my destination before I begin to feel the benefits, but I need to be grateful that I have a car and don't have to walk.  Having over the years fractured my ankle, torn ligaments in my hand, gashed my nose and given myself black eyes by falling flat on my face, you can appreciate why I am so reticent about cold weather and icy paths.  I would like to blame my clumsiness on genes, but I don't think I can swing that one!  However, because I am a tad accident prone, I feel at a distinct disadvantage during the colder six months of the year.

I was talking to a friend recently who hails from New Zealand and she told me that in North New Zealand the temperature ranges from ten degrees upwards so it is like spring/summer all year.  I am already starting to save my pennies!  Whilst ten degrees is not exactly camping weather it is not freezing either, so I could live with weather like that. Oh well, I can dream that someone, somewhere is willing to come riding along on his white charger and say "let me take you away from all this".  In the meanwhile I think it is time to buy some wellies before they are all sold out, in the feeble notion that if I am fully prepared for snow and ice it will not happen. Dream on Sister.....

Changing the subject completely because thinking about cold weather is not doing my equilibrium any good at all; I have decided that I need to do two things in this life.  One is to design a bicycle saddle that doesn't kill me and actually stops me from sliding off, and the other thing is to design clothes especially for pear-shaped women.  Let me elaborate a little more.

For weeks in the gym I was happy to sit on the recumbent bike and peddle away; that is until I told my trainer, Rob.  I was told in no uncertain terms that in doing so it was not good for me.  As he quite rightly said, our bodies are not meant to use just leg and back muscles in a sitting position. All our muscles are designed for optimum use; i.e. when you walk you keep your back straight and swing your arms as well, thus using more energy/calories in the process.  I understood all this but wasn't entirely happy as I had tried (and continue to try) to sit on a static bike (woe is me, as I have never learned to ride the real thing and I have no intention to start now!) and although I can do the peddling well enough, I keep slipping off the saddle.  Am I the only one to suffer from this indignity?  I don't notice anyone else having to keep hitching themselves up to stop falling off altogether.  Am I the wrong shape (don't answer that!), am I just assuming that I will fall off when in reality I won't?  I don't have the answers to these questions but I feel sure that I can come up with some sort of recumbent bike "bucket" seat that can be modified for the static bike so that I can comfortably sit on the dratted thing.  Thus all I need is a manufacturer that is willing to convert my idea into reality and make me pots of money into the bargain.

We women (in this country at least) are always being told that the majority of us are pear-shaped.  If that is the case, then why the dickens can't I buy a skirt or pair of trousers that fit me properly?  My waist is a size smaller than my hips (I know - what an admission to make but 'tis true) and thus I cannot buy a skirt that fits around the waist properly and so can never wear a blouse tucked into it, and the same applies to trousers but the other way round.  If I buy trousers the right waist size I am constricting the blood flow in my legs and am scared to sit down, and yet if I buy the next size I need belt or braces to hold them up! Am I asking too much here?  Surely it can't be impossible to have a little more give in the sizing (how about gathers or darts?) to allow for more room to accommodate my shape.  In fact I can remember a pair of jeans I had once had that were waisted and with pleats so the waist fitted perfectly and I had enough leg room for the rest of my larger frame (and how lovely that memory is; I haven't been able to find a pair of jeans that fit for years).  So again I need to find a  manufacturer (of garments this time), to help me in this respect, and make me rich beyond my wildest dreams.  There is a catalogue out there on the market that supposedly deals with things like long legs  or long/short bodies but I still can't find anything to fit me properly.  Maybe I should start a petition?   Or I could perhaps campaign on the Internet?  I could even run for parliament on the strength of it.........  Okay, so maybe I won't do any of those things but I get so frustrated sometimes when I can never seem to find what I want.  Of course if I was good at crafts and needlework I could make my own clothes - but I am not, and there is no use pretending I am.  My talents lie in a completely different direction.

That's all for now; I am off to practice The Messiah in the vain hope that I can master it in time for next weekend.  I will write again about that as soon as it is over, or as soon as I gain my breath back, whichever is the soonest.

Until then - take care out there.......