Jeni Barnett

I went back to Yoga yesterday.
The bliss of it.
I couldn’t make the day sessions so drove to the 5.00 p.m. class.
I had been up since before 7.00 organising my new regime. It meant shopping in ASDA, forgive me, which opened at 7.00. Except it didn’t open until 7.30. So I drove on an empty tank to fill my car up with petrol and fill my tyres up with air.
I complained to the garage man that it comes to something when we have to pay for air.
‘AIR IS FREE.’ I complained.
He didn’t understand a word I was saying as he took my 50p
The fact is that nothing is free anymore not even air.
The old song says ‘The moon belongs to everyone, the best things in life are free.’
But we know that the super powers are battling to buy bits of the moon. Lunacy if you ask me.

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The old git started up the car, I loaded one wash bag into the boot, and off we went. After twenty minutes sitting in a traffic jam on Battersea Bridge, and a further fifteen minutes filling up the petrol tank, we set off for Stratford-On-Avon.
The sky felt huge and low as we drove past the Art deco buildings on the A4. By 11.30 we were driving into Shakespeares streets.
The wind was cold, the clouds grey and the parking attendants were out in force. So we stopped and made friends with one who looked like my best friends ex-husband. I didn’t trust him one little bit.

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Is it six days since I blogged! Blimey doesn’t time fly when you’re being Vanessa.
The week flew. My nephew Dan’s postie listened to the weeks broadcasts his verdict thus:
Monday she was ropey.
Tuesday she was better.
Wednesday she started getting it right.
And by the end of the week she filled Vanessa’s very difficult shoes.
Telling me. The thing about sitting in for somebody is that they have a loyal audience – thank goodness – and nobody wants to nick anybody elses fans.
So a big thank you for your generosity.
Let me tell you playing impartial, not being opinionated, finding humility, and learning the Beeb’s way, was intensely tiring.
If it hadn’t been for the team, from Esther to Charlotte, I would have choked on my syntax.

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Have just come in from yoga.
Arrived a little early in Balham so I bought some provisions from a Halal meat shop. I love the blokes in there. Its like a club in Karachi, not that I’ve ever been to Karachi but had I been I think it would be like a club in Karachi high street.
I bought fresh spinach and massive tomatoes. Huge avocados and two handfuls of ochre. I’ll make something spicy with them tonight.
The washing is in, I’ve had a lovely salty bath and this evening I shall settle down to do something other than the television.
Its that time when the old git wants to be here, I want to be there, we both want to be together but we are playing the waiting game. I think we’re both too old for it.
Maybe we should cut our losses and just retire. We could walk the front in Worthing
Maybe not….

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You must read Kate Hardy’s blog. She is a terrific writer . Makes me laugh and cry. You will love her.
So how have you dealt with the biggest, most furious full moon this side of sanity.
I have been up there, out of it, under the radar and over the moon.
Good time to have your haircut I was told by Pierrepoint’s Dan. Apparently, and he should know his salon is a spit from China town, a lot of his Chinese clients won’t have their hair cut straight (or curly for that matter) after Chinese New Year as they don’t want to cut away any good luck.
I left my flat at 8.00 a.m. to do just the opposite. I wanted Dan to prune away every last bit of bad karma that had got tangled up in me follicles.

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It’s 16.51. We have just come up from the cottage.
I hate saying ‘coming up from the country’ makes me sound SOOOOO POSH. However, Jim drove me, for reasons I will explain later.
I drove home on Monday and the last three days have felt like an eternity.
The cottage is quiet, no traffic noises, no lamp posts outside. The cat purrs on the back of the armchair.
I have to go upstairs to bed. The bath room is carpeted and very warm. The shower soooper doooper, and the bed much softer and more inviting.
But time takes on a different quality.
The nights feel longer. The moon ( which is nearly full ) shines in through our bedroom window. Getting up for the bathroom in the dark is easy as the moon lights the way….

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Thank you all for your comments about the ‘O’ word.
I have been giving it a lot of thought.
I am like a reformed smoker who can smell smoke three streets away. Because I was so huge – not pleasingly plump, or mildly chunky, because I was SO huge and in big, fat denial, I now have that awful sanctimonious, holier than though smugness that all reformed sinners have.
When I was attacked for being fat, which I was from LWT to the BBC from magazines to proper newspapers, I know what its like to be at the receiving end of fattist barbs. I know what it’s like to pretend to be happy in your ever increasing skin; I know what it feels like to be the one pointed at, talked about and used as the jolly japer at the end of the table.
I do know what its like to eat secretly, to cover up embarrassment with baggy sweaters and even bigger buns.

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