I have not felt this relaxed in what feels like years. Neither the incessant rain (we are now on day three - I know I go on about this, but it really is depressing!), nor the fact that I've once again missed my deadline, or that the new Madonna album is, ehrm, really but really, really, bad, or that I'm working on what should be a public holiday (I'll make up for it on Monday, don't worry!) ... None of it is fazing me at all. It's like water off a duck's back. I will probably suffer a bit tomorrow, when my muscles start to ache after a winter of couch potato-dom, but it's worth it.
Yesterday signalled my return to the only form of exercise I can really and truly say I enjoy - yoga. I have to be honest and admit, trying to bend down and touch my toes is not so easy now that the paunch that was once a little bump has become a regular fixture, and doubled in size to resemble a beer belly - which is odd considering I've never touched a drop of the damn thing. It doesn't help that in Bikram, the particular method that I do, the room temperature is raised to around 40ºC.
I'm telling you, even I, Mr Never-Take-My-Top-Off-Anywhere-Ever, get bare-chested within minutes of the one-and-a-half-hour session. By the end of it, I could have walked straight out into the rain and it wouldn't have made a difference!
In fact the whole week has been about being positive. Following the dramas of the week before, decisions have been taken in this household to be more active and get out more.
It's very easy, particularly in the winter months, to cut oneself off away from the world (which - let's face it - is never a good thing). You tend to get lazy and opt for another DVD, which after a while becomes, you know, boooring! Being Mediterranean, even after all this time here, staying home doesn't feel at all right.
So Saturday saw us out with friends for an Italian lunch al fresco, on the only day which looked like spring so far, and which had the whole city optimistically running around in T-shirts and flip-flops (and nursing coughs for the rest of the week).
Lunch flowed straight into a birthday party at which I lasted until about 10 p.m., which is when my knees couldn't take it any more and I practically had to be carried home.
Coming to think of it - I'm sure the sweat that came out of me yesterday still had traces of alcohol from the weekend.
Having nursed the mother of hangovers on Sunday, Monday night was movie night.
It was a choice between Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, and the animated Persepolis, with - it being all upbeat at the moment - the former winning.
I'm a big Mike Leigh fan, and loved both the film and the character played by Sally Hawkins-Poppy, a woman whose buoyancy and brightness I am sure I would find horribly irritating in real life, but is completely likable on film. Her never-a-down-moment personality is balanced by the anger and frustration of her driving instructor - who is by far the most negative character
I've seen on film in a long time.
And there I was thinking I was grumpy!
I also had a huge moment of patriotism this week when I bought my copy of Conde Nast Traveller to find a beautiful 12-page spread about Malta. The photographs show the island at its best - blue skies, honey-coloured stone, baroque palaces. I've been carrying a copy round with me and showing it to all and sundry, hoping of course, that when they do come visit, they'll stick to the route mentioned in Barnaby Rogerson's text, and as a result not see a crane or a building sight. Fat chance!
Yesterday signalled my return to the only form of exercise I can really and truly say I enjoy - yoga. I have to be honest and admit, trying to bend down and touch my toes is not so easy now that the paunch that was once a little bump has become a regular fixture, and doubled in size to resemble a beer belly - which is odd considering I've never touched a drop of the damn thing. It doesn't help that in Bikram, the particular method that I do, the room temperature is raised to around 40ºC.
I'm telling you, even I, Mr Never-Take-My-Top-Off-Anywhere-Ever, get bare-chested within minutes of the one-and-a-half-hour session. By the end of it, I could have walked straight out into the rain and it wouldn't have made a difference!
In fact the whole week has been about being positive. Following the dramas of the week before, decisions have been taken in this household to be more active and get out more.
It's very easy, particularly in the winter months, to cut oneself off away from the world (which - let's face it - is never a good thing). You tend to get lazy and opt for another DVD, which after a while becomes, you know, boooring! Being Mediterranean, even after all this time here, staying home doesn't feel at all right.
So Saturday saw us out with friends for an Italian lunch al fresco, on the only day which looked like spring so far, and which had the whole city optimistically running around in T-shirts and flip-flops (and nursing coughs for the rest of the week).
Lunch flowed straight into a birthday party at which I lasted until about 10 p.m., which is when my knees couldn't take it any more and I practically had to be carried home.
Coming to think of it - I'm sure the sweat that came out of me yesterday still had traces of alcohol from the weekend.
Having nursed the mother of hangovers on Sunday, Monday night was movie night.
It was a choice between Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, and the animated Persepolis, with - it being all upbeat at the moment - the former winning.
I'm a big Mike Leigh fan, and loved both the film and the character played by Sally Hawkins-Poppy, a woman whose buoyancy and brightness I am sure I would find horribly irritating in real life, but is completely likable on film. Her never-a-down-moment personality is balanced by the anger and frustration of her driving instructor - who is by far the most negative character
I've seen on film in a long time.
And there I was thinking I was grumpy!
I also had a huge moment of patriotism this week when I bought my copy of Conde Nast Traveller to find a beautiful 12-page spread about Malta. The photographs show the island at its best - blue skies, honey-coloured stone, baroque palaces. I've been carrying a copy round with me and showing it to all and sundry, hoping of course, that when they do come visit, they'll stick to the route mentioned in Barnaby Rogerson's text, and as a result not see a crane or a building sight. Fat chance!