Ouch...the work starts here

It was session two of six today.

I knew we’d have to put in a bit more effort than last week but I hoped John might ease us in gently to this new routine. Wrong.

We did an hour in the torture chamber. Sorry, fitness suite (although I think it was more a lack-of-fitness suite for me today).

We started off with some kettlebell exercises. That wasn’t too hard.

A few squats and lunges later and I was ready for a sit down. It turned out, though, that there wasn’t an armchair in the fitness suite (bit of an oversight, I think; might have to flag that up with Armathwaite Hall) so I had to get on with the other half of the session.

Later we did some boxing. It was Clare’s idea, although I think she might have regretted suggesting it in the end.

Apparently I wasn’t trying hard enough with the boxing so John told me to imagine the pads Clare was wearing were my boss and she’d just given me a story to write five minutes before home time on a Friday night.

Now, I’m not normally a violent person but at that moment I was aching quite a bit, wanting a nice sit down, possibly a nap, and all I could think of was a conversation a few weeks ago that went something like this…”Sarah, Armathwaite Hall has launched a new boot camp for brides to be. I thought you might enjoy it. What do you think?” Apparently my boxing technique picked up a bit from there on in.

We finished of with some exercises on a mat.

They were a bit too much like hard work and I ended up flat on my face on the floor at one point but I think I managed to have a few seconds of snooze before John noticed.

It was a bit of an effort getting down the stairs to the changing room but somehow we managed to find out way home.

When I got there I found that the postman had delivered my latest wedding-related purchase.

Normally I’d be a bit excited about that. Today all I could think about was the effort involved in reaching down to the doormat to pick it up.

We’ve got some exercises to do as homework. Might just leave them a day or two though.