keep fit

Friday Flash Fiction 900 -Morning Jog

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 28 Comments

Gabriella tied back her springy blond hair and trotted down the stairs.

‘Gabby, surely you are not going out dressed like that, you’ll freeze.’

‘Muuum, this is my jogging outfit, I’ll soon warm up running.’

‘Do be careful and don’t go into the woods.’

‘But the woods will be perfect on a morning like this, sunny and frosty.’

‘Not now they have started that new scheme.’

‘Don’t believe everything you read on Facebook.’

‘… and I do wish you would have breakfast before going out on a cold morning.’

It was a beautiful morning as Gabby trotted off down the road and took the footpath into the National Trust woodland. They were so lucky to live near a forest. She waved to a couple of joggers she knew by sight as they passed by.

‘Lovely morning, happy new year.’

‘Same to you…’

Further along Gabby glanced at her Fit Bit, she was doing a good time, maybe she would go in for the local half marathon and then who knew what next. She took the right fork for the first time to increase the length of her circuit. It was a pretty path but more challenging with an incline and rougher going. Gabby began to wonder how much further this was than her normal route. Then she began to wonder when she would come across a familiar path. After a while she began to feel hungry and a bit light headed. Perhaps she should have had a yoghurt or banana before setting out. Still, she must keep going and not lose her rhythm. Her aim now was not preparing for a marathon but to get home and persuade her mother to cook her a nice breakfast.

In the distance she could see a shape, a cottage, a run down cottage? Strange, nobody was supposed to live in these woods, that’s why they were perfect for the rewilding project. Probably abandoned decades ago, but why could she detect the delightful scent of wood smoke? As Gabby drew closer she could see smoke gently spiralling up in the cold air. Must be some poor homeless person, sensible to make a cosy home for himself, better than sleeping on the pavement.

The path led close by the ramshackle cottage and she felt like an intruder. Should she rush past or take a diversion? No she must stick to the path, the trees were really thick here and she didn’t want to get further lost than she was already. As she ran round to the other side, she noticed the door was open and there was the unmistakeable smell of porridge. She realised just how hungry she was now and wished she was back home eating porridge and watching breakfast TV. But despite her misgivings she could not resist having a peep inside.

To her surprise it looked clean and homely and on a wooden table stood three bowls of steaming porridge. There was no sign of the occupants. Now she was so hungry she thought if she took a spoonful out of each bowl, nobody would notice. It tasted divine, the fresh cold morning air had given her an appetite.

The cottage was silent, she took a few more spoonfuls, just enough to boost her energy so she could get away before the mystery occupants returned. But as she took her phone off her belt, thinking of looking at Google maps to get her location, she had an idea. She must take a few quick snaps to show her friends and put on Instagram and it would be a shame not to take a quick shot upstairs.

The old worn wooden steps creaked as she crept up and came straight out into a single room with a sloping roof, just big enough for three beds. With their clean fresh duvets it all looked unlikely to be a hidey hole for a homeless person or someone on the run from the police. As Gabby stared she realised how cold she had become since she stopped running. It would  be a sensible idea to climb under the duvet and warm her limbs up for a few minutes, as long as she did not fall asleep.

The next thing she knew she was startled by a noise, a lot of noises, loud men’s voices in a strange language. All she could do was hide under the duvet and hope they would sit down and eat their porridge and not come upstairs. Her hands were shaking as she tried to look at her phone, but who should she call?

At that moment she felt a heavy hand press down on her shoulder. She let out a muffled scream and somehow managed to scramble out of the bed and stumble down the stairs. Her nimbleness getting out of the door was her only advantage against the two very large figures downstairs.

At the Reursinement headquarters several people were observing all the monitors.

‘Any sign of them?’

‘No, but that’s only to be expected, we can’t have CCTV all over the forest.’

‘What about the tracking devices?’

‘They stopped working days ago.’

‘So are you saying we have no idea where they are?’

‘Yes, no, surely the idea of rewilding is just that, letting them get on with their own lives, looking after their young without us intruding and they should be hibernating by now.’

‘Hopefully, but do rescued circus bears actually know how to hibernate?’

Beds to Boogie Bounce

~ tidalscribe.com ~ 2 Comments

 

One of my early memories when there was just me, was of my mother taking me round to visit her friend who had three sons, a livelier household than ours and I was especially excited when the boys said we were allowed to jump on the settee. It was great fun until their mother walked in the room and told them off, followed by mother who of course told me off.

With the advent of garden trampolines perhaps children don’t jump on beds anymore, but for most of us that is the first introduction to trampolining. At this point I should add that there was plenty of fun and exercise to be had at our flat as Dad had built me a miracle of carpentry and engineering; a rocking horse that was a small scale version of the ones in the park.  By the time we had a house with a garden and I had a brother, sister and a friend round the corner with a big family, the two dads had built us everything from Wendy houses to climbing frames. Plenty of play, but no bouncing.

My first opportunity to go on a real trampoline came in first year high school in Australia; a girls’ camp where the trampoline was the lure to come on a  Christian holiday in the lovely Darling Ranges. A week that inspired Jenny’s school trip in my novel Quarter Acre Block.

I never mastered a somersault and we returned to the boredom of softball, netball and PE at school until a new Phys-ed teacher arrived from England. He had floppy blonde hair, reminded us of  Illya Kuryakin from The Man From Uncle and we all wanted to be in his class. He taught us fun things like Jujitsu and using a ‘trampette’ to leap over the wooden horse. Then he moved on to another school.

Forward a good few years and at the local sports centre Popmobility classes started two evenings a week, very addictive, followed by a new Ladies’ Leisure Morning complete with crèche. At last we could have a go on the big trampolines we had looked at enviously when we took our children to classes. There was also roller skating at weekends to which children were allowed to bring an adult. If you’re enjoying something it usually doesn’t last, classes get cancelled, buildings close and line dancing went the same way as the other activities.

We then belonged to various leisure clubs with pools, Jacuzzis and gyms, ranging from fantastically smart and too expensive to cheap and dire. When we moved I discovered Aquarobics. It was great fun and exercised the parts swimming didn’t reach, but the local hotels and council pools lost teachers and closed classes at regular intervals. By the time the water dried up I had missed the Zumba craze and avoided Yoga and Pilates as too serious. When I read on Facebook about  Boogie Bounce with Mel above our Sainsbury’s Local on a Monday morning, it sounded too handy to be missed.  We each have a little round trampoline of the sort children used to have till the giant garden types appeared. Like any exercise class you get out of it according to the effort put in, but bouncing around is more fun than circuits of the gym and every part gets stretched. It is like Aquarobics without the water and your brain also gets exercise as you try to follow the routine. It’s always good for writers to have an antidote to sitting at the computer, but don’t think of new ideas for the plot of your novel as you are exercising; you are bound to lose concentration on the routine and get your legs and arms in a  tangle.