Subframe issue

When we lived in Ryton - before the children - I read a Guardian article about gymless exercise. It featured a book called 'Combat Conditioning ' by the brilliantly named Matt Furey. I thought this sounded like a manual for my married life, so I bought the book. I did the exercises, used a punchbag and started running along the bank of the river on which my daughters now row. I was as fit as a flea.

I saw a video on YouTube a couple of months ago that brought back memories of that time. Some South Asian wrestlers were doing hindu pushups - the dand - as part of their training routine. The dand features prominently in 'Combat Conditioning' and I took this as a sign that I should give them another go. Also, my car had developed a fatal subframe issue* that meant it had been scrapped and I couldn't get to the gym.

A routine of 30-35 dands a day strengthened my subframe remarkably and saw me through the winter. Our friends Jim and Wendy called round for cocktails when my enthusiasm for 'Combat Conditioning ' was at its peak. Jim's text afterwards captured the evening's mood:

"Thank you for having us, your company was quite intoxicating. I particularly enjoyed the repressive Handmaid's Tale stories from Maude’s youth, which explain a lot, and, of course John’s startling Asian press ups."

I'm only just returning to the company of surly teenagers and middle-aged bigots at the gym.

*I wouldn't dream of suggesting that Maude occasionally commuting over speedbumps to Sunderland with her substantial carshare buddy hastened the decline in roadworthiness of my relatively low mileage Toyota Aygo.

Slipping in

A good story is always worth a second telling- a reworking, a recalibration for a new audience. I always find it saddening, however, when a friendship reaches the point at which a friend starts to repeat his or her best stories - especially if those stories were quite mediocre in the first place. It is often as though, when all avenues of new conversation have been exhausted, the default story is aired again. 

This phenomenon reminds me of the behaviour of 'Hal', the computer in 2001: a space odyssey. The first thing Hal was programmed with was 'Mary had a little lamb' and that's what Hal recites as he eventually begins to shut down. When a friend regresses like this I believe that they are no longer enjoying new experiences - or, at least, they are no longer absorbing anything novel or recountable. They are beginning to 'shut down.'

We had some slightly older married friends for a while - whose default story resolved around driving into a moose while on holiday in Canada some twenty years before we knew them. We knew this couple for about four years before they moved to a new town a couple of hours away and we lost touch. During those years of acquaintance I'm sure I heard the moose story at least three times, in its entirety, and it wasn't snappy. The husband, to his credit, did develop the story with each telling. 

I eventually realised why the moose story was their default story of choice - it was safe territory. I realised this on a night when a fateful extra bottle of red wine was opened. As the husband left the room to find a book he had been recommending over dinner, his wife thought she'd launch into a new story to, as she put it: 'mix things up a bit'. 

The new story took us back to her Tyneside childhood. She was in the habit of calling in to see her grandparents on her way home from school. A glass of milk and a biscuit was the norm as she recounted the events of her day to the seniors and played with their lovable mongrel Trixie. 

"So, on this particular day, my nan had popped to the corner shop to get some milk. She knew I'd come in and have a glassful and not leave enough for them to have a cup of tea. Kids are like that, aren't they? Selfish."

'It’s in here somewhere. Won't be a minute,' called our host from the next room.

A minute was all his wife needed to tell us why the 'particular day' of this story was significant. 

"They had an old-fashioned latch on their back door - it was more like something you'd see on a garden gate now. People were very trusting then and didn't go in for high-security. It didn't make much of a noise either - just a tiny rattle."

Her eyes really had that far-away look of a raconteur who had totally  transported themselves back to a time and place long ago. Our presence had, I'm sure, been forgotten.

"That was the fun bit. Slipping in and surprising them. 'Is that you slipping in again, you cheeky monkey!' my nan would say."

She paused and we could hear her husband closing the door of the adjacent room.

"In I skipped and there he was, grandad, giving Trixie one from behind - 'doggy-style' I suppose you'd have to say."

In the long, long pause that followed, I could see her husband's silhouetted figure framed and frozen in the doorway. I watched particles of household dust hover in the air as the man eventually entered the room, charged everyone's glasses, plumped up the cushions and said:

'You would not believe how much damage a moose can do to your bodywork - even when you're only in second gear!'