Bikini vs Burkhini

If anyone's interested, the Gods of Weather read my blog yesterday and decided to grant my wish for consistent weather. Sadly, they did this by crying with laughter at such a request, which resulted in pissing rain. All day long. Accompanied first by grey cloud, then in the early evening (when I escaped the office) by swirling mist. Very atmospheric and that, but not really what I was after, in the way of cheering up.

Oh well, I have been balancing up this lack of the new and exciting, weather-wise, by continuing my programme of Inaugural Experiences. Yes, here at Purple Towers, I have been throwing myself at New Things with what might be termed gay abandon. Undeterred by my giant Fail at the step class (my bum still hurts if I sit for too long on it, or on too hard a surface, which is, in itself, a good reason for moving around more, rather than slumping in front of the telly), I have tried not one but TWO new exercise things recently.

First up: boxing. Cheerful James decided that I needed to do something different, and in his great wisdom produced a pair of electric blue boxing gloves, and velcro-ed me in. I had visions of myself as Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. Minus the horrifying chewing-your-own-tongue-off-to-kill-yourself denouement, obviously. Nipping about, punching things in a way that suggested I was really good at exercise. After all these months in the gym, I thought I could probably manage that. How hard can it be, it's just hitting stuff. I mean, I hit the printer in the office at least once a day. Let's get started! Turns out, I was more Hillary Clinton than Hilary Swank. Trying to co-ordinate hitting something with moving my feet simply wasn't going to happen. Trying to hit a pad at the right angle and the right speed is way trickier than it looks. After about a minute, my inner pacifist became my outer wimp and I wanted never to hit anything ever again. After twenty minutes of valiant flailing around, I complained that my wrists were hurting (they really were; anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that my wrists look like they were hastily assembled from pipe cleaners. It's a wonder they hold up my hands at all, frankly). I waved them at Cheerful James, wheedling, 'Look at my wrists! They're not built for this!' and he took pity on me, telling me he'd 'strap me up' next time. Crikey, there's an offer. No wonder I'm paying him by the hour.

Having been quite enthusiastic about the idea of boxing making me a bionically buff Hilary Swankenstein, I'm now hoping that it goes the way of kettlebells, which I've tried twice. The first time I just about got the technique (it's to do with your legs and hips -  not your arms, which would seem more logical) and the second time I failed miserably. Haven't been near 'em since. So, we shall see about boxing; maybe a few goes and I'll get the hang of it and be punching my way round Edinburgh, running up and down Arthur's Seat like Rocky.

Second new exercisey thing: kayaking. Whooh, outdoors exercise! Revolutionary. Having dreaded a Zambesi-style white water rafting expedition, I was assured that a/ a child would be doing it with us, so it was going to be pretty tame and b/ I could be in a double one, so a large man could do most of the work instead of me. This turned out not to be the case, as chaps were in short supply (and most of them were married, so palled up with their partners), so I palled up with a very nice girl who looked like a sporty, efficient type. We somehow ended up at the front of the queue for kayaks - in for a penny, I thought, as I merrily suggested that we set off and show everyone how it was done. We'd had a five minute demo from a man with a paddle, so I reckoned we should just get on with it. As is usual in any situation where there are more than two people involved and there is something to prove, I then got insanely competitive and pretty much insisted on being at the front of the pack at all times and took some actual pride in getting all co-ordinated with my paddling partner (I was in the back seat, as it were). Despite this, it was proper fun (we saw cormorants, herons and shipwrecks, it being Cornwall and us being up muddy creeks); we got quite wet, but it was sunny and we ended up at a pub. With a large pack of men dressed up for a stag do to look at. Not sure I'd rush to do it again, but it's a nice way of traversing a river, and certainly less hard on the shoulders and the stress level than trying to steer a barge.

Now, the third thing is a proper turn up for the books. I have been shopping for a bikini. Not only have I been shopping for one, but I tried some on. And then bought the cheapest one I could find, as I will never wear it. Bikinis are for supermodels and mental people. Supermodels must of course show off as much flesh as possible on holiday - they're pretty much getting paid by the yard, given how tall everyone insists they have to be, so you might as well get your money's worth. But for everyone else, it's wearing your bra and pants in front of everyone. Why do people want to do this? If you said to your average woman, 'Here, wear a bra and pants - in lycra, but still, it's a bra and pants - down the high street', they'd all say no. Stick a pool or a beach in front of them, however and, brilliant! Here I am in my bra and pants! What could be more natural? Then you can have three months' worth of articles, from about May onwards, in women's magazines exhorting you to acquire a 'beach body' and giving you punitive diet and exercise regimes in order to achieve this nebulous goal. (Over the last five years or so, they have added an extra three pages per issue telling you how to do a flawless fake tan).

I, of course, have always merrily skipped past these articles, believing firmly in the Nigella-style 'burkhini' approach to summer holidays: take one swimming costume, layer it with an ankle-length sarong, top off with a shirt (possibly) and a very large hat. Then place yourself under an enormous umbrella. Read book until friends have tired of frying themselves in the sun in their ill-advised bikinis. Repeat for a week to ten days.

But now I am going to Ibiza (another first) and I have apparently got a new, bikini-worthy body (ha ha), I feel obliged to join in. We are going to have a private pool, after all. My friend has told me I have to have a bikini. I battled my way into the offending item in a strip-lit changing room and surveyed myself. This was weird. Why would I want anyone to see me in this little clothing? It's a nightmare. Everything looks pallid and wobbly. There is too much exposed. I'm not going to be sunbathing: I fry like a vampire at the mere sight of sunlight and am violently opposed to both ageing prematurely and skin cancer. Ergo, what's the point of this? You can't swim in it, the whole thing would fall off in seconds. I'm not confident enough to parade around, inwardly thinking, 'Look at my GREAT FIGURE!' I'm just a slightly smaller version of the rubbish-at-summer person I've always been. What I should really have been buying was a sarong, but I couldn't find one of those for love nor money. So, a bikini it is. I now have four days of manically reading articles on lunges and broccoli and trying to be a woman who 'does' holidays instead of merely tolerating them.

Wish me luck. But don't ask to see the photos - there won't be any. Have I ever shown you a photo of me in my bra and pants? Exactly.