Boobs!

It was a peculiar weekend. Andy worked on Saturday morning, and then Heather went off to a party with her 'Mum-approved' friend Elliot before heading back to uni. Then Sunday seemed to shoot by with allotment work and Jean visiting. And before we knew it, it was Sunday evening.

'I'm going to try the nettle beer,' Andy announced. 'Want a sip?'
I had a sip. It was okay, but it's not going to become a habit. Andy drank a pint and became bizarrely hyperactive for the rest of the evening.
I settled on the sofa to read about running. It's a complex business, you know. You might think it's just putting one foot in front of the other faster and faster, which basically it is, but there are CONSIDERATIONS to be er, considered. Like footwear.

Now, I choose footwear like I choose most things - by colour and texture. So, on those criteria, I shall be running in a nice pair of deep burgundy velvet pumps with possibly a trim of tiny purple feathers and a dash of pink satin ribbon. I'm not a great fan of shoes, I have to admit, mostly because I have short wide feet and until the fashion industry woke up a few years ago and livened up their short fat foot range, I was pretty much consigned to the kind of style my granny would have worn in her dotage. I much prefer bare feet. But I appreciate I am going to be running where there is likely to be all manner of delights like chewing gum, broken glass and dog poo, so I need to get decent trainers. I considered wellies because sometimes I run in wellies at the allotment but it always makes me laugh and, quite frankly, I don't think my pelvic floor muscles are up to a 5k run in wellies.

I have a pair of leggings. They make my legs look like blue parsnips - all chunky and lumpy at the top, tapering to skinny ankles at the bottom. I plan to even out this imbalance by wearing large cover-your-bum T-shirts. There is a lot of talk in running clobber fashion about 'sweat-wicking' fabrics and 'breathable' fabrics and fabrics that make you feel cool even if you are puffing like a train and purple in the face with exertion. However, until I discover what 'sweat-wicking' is I'm going nowhere near these items. A nice cotton t-shirt will do for now.

And when you are running, there are bits of you that go up whilst other bits are going down and heaven help you if the two should meet if you make a sudden stop. And this is where I had the most startling discovery of the evening. Not only to boobs go up and down in running mode, they go in and out and round and round too! Good grief, I thought, they sound like completely independent entities. I must find suitable control so they don't go off and run their own marathon.

On the advice of the fitness magazine I had bought last week, I visited www.shockabsorber.co.uk which contains a useful tool called the 'Bounce-ometer'. I read the information on the site then followed the instructions to enter my cup size into the 'Bounce-ometer' and wait for the download to do its stuff. Two minutes later I am staring open-mouthed at the computer screen.
'Look at this!' I shrieked to Andy, who was over half-way through his pint of nettle beer.
Andy looked.
'Eeeeeeekkkkk!!!' he shrieked back.

Go on, ladies. Check it out, if you dare. And be prepared to be amazed/ amused and/or startled.

Anyway, once we'd both gone through the stages of shock and hysteria and stopped laughing, I set about designing an 'Activity chart' for myself and Andy.
'It's to track our daily activity level,' I explained, once Andy had finished his pint of nettle beer and was nicely agreeable to any plans I wanted to implement. 'Suitable activities are walking, running, jogging, gyming, swimming, Wii-fitting, dancing and allotmenteering.'
'What about sitting and slumping?' said Andy.
'No,' I said. 'Definitely no sitting and slumping. 'Look, there is a column for you and a column for me...'
'And the third column?' asked Andy.
'For my boobs. In case the 'Bounce-ometer turns out to be true,' I said.