For many of us life is full of trials, each bringing its own challenges and each, in its own way, as difficult as the next. Whether it is getting yourself out of the door on time every morning, looking like something resembling a human being or trying to get three kids to school before the bell rings, we all face these challenges every day.
Life is a funny old thing, every morning just when I think I have managed to make it out the door looking like a presentable yet hungover scarecrow in a badly ironed shirt, Mother Nature decides to throw in a wee bit of rain or perhaps the odd touch of humidity so that my straight hair will now volumise to twice its size. One trial after and another!
I was lucky enough to be at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow the other night for a performance of The Magic Flute by Scottish Opera. A stunning version, with good guys, bad guys, boy meets girl, then girl tries to top herself and a happily ever after ending. All with fabulous scenery, a fantastic array of costumes and a cast who did justice to the words and music of Mr Mozart. During the opera Tamino, a prince, has to face trials of silence, fire and water to reach his end goal of ‘virtue and enlightenment’. Not easy stuff considering the silence must be maintained in the presence of three woman and Papageno. However he manages to overcome all the odds and succeeds with the help of course of lovely Pamina, through the fire and water. Fair enough, thinks I watching all this been sung out before me, but has our hero ever had to negotiate his way through the traffic at Charing Cross during rush hour, when it is blowing a gale and someone is chucking buckets of water from the skies. I think not!
Life can be cruel sometimes; it seems to like to add-on that one more wee trial just to make us work that wee bit harder.
I went back to the Gym at The Western Health and Racquets Club today for the first proper PT session in a while with GymGuyMark. The Gym was quiet as it was just about lunchtime so it was straight onto the treadmill to warm up. I immediately put the speed and incline up to my normal and then my legs yelled out “Oi, you haven’t been here for a wee while, slow down”, I listened for about 5 minutes then speeded up again. GGM decided that it would mainly be a session full of stretching and light weights to ease my poor old self back into the swing of things. So if anyone wants to know what effect not going to the Gym causes, just lie down on your back, put your right foot up onto your left knee and try to grab hold of the back of your left thigh. Ouch, ouch and double ouch! Trial by hamstrings and thigh muscles, they pronounced me guilty of not keeping up! Throughout the rest of the session I used weights lighter than I normally would but I have a feeling that is not going to last long, especially since I stupidly said “these weights don’t feel heavy enough”, like Tamino, it would probably have been better to remain silent!
So after the trials and tribulations of the last few weeks, I am back at the Gym. Ok, I admit it, my name is Geraldine and I really did miss my gym sessions but I am a firm believer that life’s trials are sent to teach us lessons. Whether it is the determination to succeed despite all that is chucked in our path or to overcome the hazards that the Gods of Nature deem necessary to inflict on us, enlightenment in whatever shape or size is just round the corner or perhaps a light bulb moment to show us where we went wrong.
G x