Being a Director of a company that has to Carry On Regardless whatever global issue befalls us, I have just returned home from a difficult day at the office.
Like the Eye of Sauron, the Covid-19 pandemic is turning its gaze and attention towards us, exhaling deeply it’s fetid breath of daily death in our direction. As we glove, gown and mask up, scrubbing-in with many washings and purifications, nay, veritably bathing as did Cleopatra of old, but in sanitiser, we make our own attempt to thwart the Coronavirus disease advance. I waft along the corridors of power, trailing a burgeoning redolence of that well-known brand of cologne, Eau d’Alcohol Parfum.
The strengthening springtime April sun has yet to set upon the western horizon, which is a bonus, but an easterly chill breeze is blowing in from across the North Sea, pegging down the temperature, causing me to shiver. Having always personally and individually maintained, (I am surely unanimous in my belief), that in the style of Confucius, ‘He who has less coverage upon the bones, feels more profoundly the cold’.
Unusually, tonight I park the car facing north, placing the passenger side of the vehicle against the roadside. As the road is somewhat cambered, dipping to a low point in the gutter and rising to its zenith at the centre of the road, before dipping once more to the far side, this makes any attempt to extricate myself from the confines of my car’s sport seat, somewhat comical viewing to any casual bystander. With social distancing measures in place, unless the curtain-twitcher from across the road is that desperate to watch my plight, tonight I am safe from prying eyes in performing such physical jerks as are needed as I rise from the depths of the leather-hugging, electrically-heated comfort, to an almost vertical stance at the summit of the road’s curvature. Having hoisted my frame into something resembling homoerectus instead of homoquasimodi, I negotiate my way past the ferocious guard dog and make it indoors to the relative calm and peaceful tranquillity that, as usual, awaits my return from a day’s labour.
Tonight, Charlotte decrees that instead of watching television, we will engage in something that involves moving just that little bit more than succumbing to the usual sedentary position on the sofa. Having this very morning witnessed my attempts in gay nakedity, to stand with one foot waving in the air to make the bathroom scales read more favourably, I fear that this sudden enthusiasm to see me moving more and eating less is in response to seeing in fact, the scales exhibiting a number that is less than desirable to her and, naturally of course by default, to me. A wise man (more than likely a woman) once said that there are two golden rules to a happy marriage, 1. Your wife is always right and 2. When she is wrong, slap yourself and read rule number 1 again!
So with this in mind, Charlotte suggests that we take part in a Yoga Class. Fortunately, this will not involve going to a gymnasium, filled with the stale odour of other people’s sweat, but simply by taking part in a Youtube video of Boho Beautiful Yoga. Be my guest, check it out. If you look for the Beginners Class, you will undoubtedly find as I did, a lycra-clad twenty-something on a beach setting, extolling the virtues of the session you are just about to become engaged in. Not being one to back down from a challenge, in the most dignified way possible for someone of my years and physique, I manfully lower myself to floor level, rest my aching bones on the plush carpet we have recently fitted and imagine myself on a mat of golden sand, about to be gently instructed how to perform the first easy steps for a beginner’s foray into Yoga.
The young slip of a girl, who incidentally can place herself in all manner of poses, calmly shows us positions and breathing exercises that are supposed to instil wellbeing and fitness to all who can copy her.
Well! How very dare she! At what point does she think that this is a class for beginners? Am I able to touch my toes? Am I able to ‘stack my knees’? Can I arch my back first concave then convex? No to all the above!
“Twist round to look behind you” she engagingly whispers while looking dreamily into the middle distance, striking a cross-legged pose that I haven’t been able to muster since primary school age. The session ends with her clinging on to her rugged, surfer-dude companion, gazing across the bay into a tropical sunset. My session ends with me clinging onto the wreckage, by the fingernails, for dear life itself!
Turning to Charlotte I mutter, “My dear, I think you need to find a Yoga tutor more suitable to my age and deportment”.
“They do wheelchair Yoga” she cackles!
Until this moment I was quite unaware Charlotte needed a wheelchair…… “Nurse, the screens!”
Carry on regardless!
DJ
Carry On Regardless 
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