I've been incredibly lucky. Over a year ago, my GP referred me to the Live Active programme and off I trotted twice a week to a gym in Perth where I had a personal trainer qualified to help people with injuries and disabililties (my back was smashed up in a car accident when I was 20). 24 sessions later the pain had eased substantially and I was able to get in and out of zodiacs when I went to South Georgia and Antarctica!
I've continued going ate least twice a week but it's getting more expensive all the time. So I bit the bullet and purchased an exercise bike. One neighbour gave me an exercise mat and another is donating a cross trainer (I think I've mentioned before that I live in a super place with lovely neighbours). Now I've got what most people would call a summer house but I refer to as "The Shed". Here's a photo of it:
As you can see - I live in the woods! So yet another neighbour came round and helped clear the clutter in the shed to make room for above-mentioned equipment. The bike arrived - flat pack. Now, you need to understand that me and flat packs simply don't understand each other. In fact it must have been a complicated procedure because it took two engineers (admittedly more at ease with steam trains than exercise bikes) two hours to put the thing together. Needless to say, one was a neighbour and the other stays up here regularly and often and almost falls into that category.
With all this effort and expense, it seems a shame to keep it to myself so the shed is open to all-comers as and when they feel like a bit of exercise. There's an honesty box where people can contribute to the electricity costs and we're calling the whole operation "Shed a Pound". Good, eh? 50% of contributions will be mine and the other 50% will go to Bumblebee Square - a village project to buy the square in the middle of the village to prevent developers runing the place.
As an aside, I've just been writing the copy for a new section of our Polar Regions part of the website. The tour is called the Antarctic Odyssey and it goes from South America to New Zealand or vice versa via the Antarctic Peninsula, the Ross Sea and Ice Shelf and Macquarrie Island, to name but a few. should be up on the site by the middle of next week but if you can't wait till then give me a call and I'll send you more information.
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