An accidental resolution

New Year's Eve - we've just finished watching Kung Fu Panda and polished off the last of the 'Party In for a Tenner' offer from Marks and Spencer. Andy has drunk a whole bottle of Cava and is being highly entertaining. We decide to watch the extras on the Kung Fu Panda DVD one of which involves learning basic Kung Fu moves. Now, given that this is a film for children I should have known better than to try any of the moves myself. I am at least 30 years too old for most of them and lack the required elements of agility and flexibility. At one point I tried a high kick which was okay and didn't hurt too much but it got me thinking about whether I could do the splits. So I had a go, like you do.

'Which way are you going to do it?' asks Heather. 'Back and forward or side to side?' I hadn't considered there were options. I try both. The backward/forward style works best and I get to within 6 inches of the ground. All I can say about the side to side method is that I am glad I do my pelvic floor exercises fairly regularly and had popped to the loo ten minutes beforehand, because by now we are all laughing so much it could have gone horribly, and damply, wrong. Andy tries next and proves himself even less limber than me but a lot funnier. Heather is in danger of asphyxiation by this point. And she makes a comment that there is no way I am ever going to be able to do the splits, i.e implying I am way too old for such malarkey.

'Ha!' I say and in doing so reveal my fatal flaw. I do not like to be told I can't do something (in that respect I am still a bit of a child). 'I shall prove you wrong! This time next year, I shall perform, on New Year's Eve, a full splits and then you'll be sorry!'

Andy and Heather agree they probably will be and thus is born my New Year's Resolution - to practise doing the splits for grand performance at teh end of 2009. Now, my only dilemma is shall I try to achieve both methods? Heck, might as well give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, least of all a hernia.

So now it's all high kicks in the kitchen, stretches on the stairs and bending in the bathroom. I've got 365 days to try and persuade my ligaments they can reach that little bit further. Mrs Pumphrey has offered to train me. 'Come to dance class with me,' she said. 'Once Tango Pete gets you on the barre you'll loosen up like a dose of diarrhoea.' I'm not sure I like the analogy but I'm secretly pleased I spelt it correctly without having to look it up in the dictionary!