The Eye of the Tiger

...Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a girl and her will to survive…

I am the girl in the class with the gym bag.
I am the girl with wet hair straight from the gym.
I am the girl who never takes the lift.
I am the girl who can’t make appointments earlier than noon on a Sunday,
As I have to run.

I am not the girl who looks down on others for not going to the gym.
I am not the girl who feels superior because I do some exercise.

I am the girl that needs to run to survive.

Running for me isn’t about being slim (though I have to admit that is where it all started and an undoubted benefit). Running for me isn’t a way to make others feel bad. It’s the way I’ve found that I like myself. It’s also the way I’ve found to stop taking the handful of pills twice a day to keep my moods stable and seizures at bay.

Running is me responsibly looking after my body, mind and finances. I can't afford medication. I can't afford to lose years more of my life to depression. I can't afford to keep buying clothes in larger and larger sizes. I can't afford to keel over from a heart attack. I can't afford to stop liking myself.

Most of the time running isn’t fun or easy, sometimes the weather isn’t nice and I don’t feel like getting out of bed. Often I have other things I need or want to do instead. But I still run and I do it because I have to.

Sometimes it seems like a lot of people split the world up into two groups, those that exercise and those who don’t. Those who don't seem like they're on the defence all the time like somehow those that do are judging you. We're not. We're just doing what we have to. Or at least I am. I often feel attacked by those who don't for running. How dare I work so hard to conform to the male stereotype of the female figure? How dare I look after my mind, body and finances...?

There's also the idea that those that don’t “just aren’t sporty people”. Guess what? Very few exercisers (if any) are. I was the girl picked last for every PE team in school you could imagine. I was the girl that hid in the music room rather than do the annual “Cross Country” run around the streets of Ealing. Even now I’d probably rather lie at home on the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Radiohead while eating icecream. Unfortunately this natural tendency makes me a nightmare to live with both for myself and other people.

I don’t run for the fun of it. I don’t run for the superiority of it. I run because I have to. Because it’s the responsible thing for me to do.

We Don't Do Duvets!!

This is Iggy. Many people that come to visit us may come to wonder whether or not we actually have two cats. Rufus is all up in your face begging for love and attention and this ellusive cat called Iggy is nowhere to be seen. Well rest assured people, I have photographic proof, and not just your bog standard here-is-my-cat-asleep proof but Iggy being the cheeky monkey that you never get to see proof.

This is Iggy at the beginning of his monkey escapade. He has dug himself into the duvet cover and is purring. A lot.

















"Iggy! Where are you?!"

"Here I am!"

I am apparently a floating head.

Mmmm.... Cat heads.... (the biscuit and gravy sort, not an actual cat head, that would be gross)









"Peekaboo!"
















"I'm here! Look! Look at me!"











"I'm so cool. Just hanging. In my duvet."