Oops, I split it again....

Oh for god's sake. Why am I such a div?

I am currently in bed, in pain and am mentally beating myself up for being such a prize fool. In fact, I believe I may currently be in the running for the finals of "idiot factor" in my village.

It is only 18 days since I had surgery so will someone please explain to me why I thought it would b a good idea to not only go to the gym today but also to do 4 hours of gardening with my parents (and about a million frogs).

I am now drugged up on painkillers tonight as I feel as if someone has attacked me with a set of garden shears, I'm bleeding again and am thoroughly cross with myself.

It all started fairly innocently this morning. Tom (sorry, Colin Firth) got up at 5 to go to some 10 hour cycling endurance thing down in Cheddar Gorge - which is obviously once again linked to his temporary madness as why, after a week of 5am starts at work, would you willingly get up at the crack of dawn, swallow gallons of energy jellies from spaceman style sachets, and drive for 2 hours to stay in a caravan and ride a bike round a dirt track for ten hours??? The mind boggles and I am holding "Colin" partly responsible as he left me unattended and unsupervised and a bored Emmy always seems to land herself in some sort of pickle. I need the same sort of supervision as a two year old child, or at the very least some sort of ASBO style criminal tagging thing.

I decided, in my sleep deprived state, that a little trip to the gym may be in order. And, seeing as Tom, sorry "Colin's" neighbours had some early morning hedge trimming action going on right outside my bedroom window, I couldn't sleep anyway. So, I dusted the cobwebs off my gym leggings, let the moths out of my trainers and skipped off down to the gym.

I wired myself up to the treadmill next to some very glam middle aged lady who was doing some sort of strange "arms twice as fast as your legs" power walk and I was so busy gawping at her in the mirrors that I almost strangled myself with my ipod headphones again. Am I the only person in the world who seems to get in an almighty tangle with these damn things or does everyone end up ravelled up in lengths of stereo cabling?

I decided not to overdo it so began with a gentle power walk up an incline. I decided against my fellow walker's mad arm flailing technique and settled for the normal number of arm swings and so began watching MTV and humming along to myself. I managed 25 minutes and the little voices in my head were going something like this....

" All the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies... hey, check me out, I was in hospital less than three weeks ago and now i'm power walking. I am like some kind of gym wonder woman.... If you like it then you should have put a ring on it, if you like it then you should have put a ring on it..... hey, you know what lady, you may have those crazy arm moves, put I'm about to crank this baby up and bit and start running, you watch me bust my funky running shapes... don't need no permission, did I mention, don't pay him any attention.... yeah, that's right Beyonce, I'm not paying any attention either. I'm gonna ratchet up this machine and burn some treadmill. Watch me fly baby!!! Now, if I can just unravel these damn headphones and find that button to turn it up. Oops, hang on, cable round my neck again, wahey, here we go.... cause you had your turn and now you're gonna learn what it really feels like to miss me.... oh shit, my insides feel as if they're made of one of Tom's energy jellies. I wonder, if i breathe too deeply would my pancreas actually shoot out? oh well, might just be teething trouble. Gonna keep on running. Don't want to look like a div in front of arm lady, Jesus, she looks like she's gonna take off! ... if you like it then you should have put a ring on it, if you like it then you should have put a ring on it... Wahey - I'm a runnin! I feel like crap but I'm running once again. Hey you! Yes you with the very sweaty back on the cross trainer, check me out, I'm running! You see this? This whole one foot in front of the other thing? Well, I've got this baby nailed. Oh shit, not good, think I might walk again for a bit. Think my navel has detached itself from its moorings... All the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies.... Oh and you can shut up as well Beyonce; standing there with your whole wriggly booty shaking, chicken flap, dance in a circle thing going on. I'd like to see you do that when you've been kebabed by an over enthusiastic gynaecological surgeon. Shit. If i could get this bloody cable unravelled then I might be able to get off and have a nice sit down. Oh, and mind your flippin arms woman, you almost had my eye out...

So, the treadmill was sort of OK but not for running, so I decided upon that odd stepper machine where your legs go sideways instead of up and down. I plugged myself into paolo nutini's "sunny side up" (bloomin good album if you haven't already got it!) and side stepped away. I spent a happy ten minutes on this, watching the sweatiest man I have ever seen go mental on a cross trainer. He obviously knew he had a problem as he had laid down towels all around the machine to catch the drips. unfortunately, this only succeeded in making the floor into some kind of major trip hazard with almost everyone in the gym being so transfixed at how one human could be so sweaty that they didn't see the towels in the floor and so did these kind of "dancing on ice" style triple salkos on the bloke's sweaty towel rugs. It was a very amusing way to pass a little time and it was even better as it didn't hurt my tummy one bit.

It was this that gave me the confidence to go on one of those "armchair" bikes. I thought it a little unwise to sit on one of the bikes that had the proper saddle as after gynae surgery, you would have been more successful trying to get me to sit on a red hot gas ring than on a bike saddle. So, i opted for the sit down bike and plugged myself in once more to Paolo and began to pedal away.

Not good.

i don't know if it was the angle of the bike, the nature of the exercise, or the fact i had just overdone it by now but I ended up in agony. I yelped over Paolo and limped off the machine doubled up in pain. I managed a "yes, I'm fine thanks" to the concerned gym attendant, grabbed my stuff and was so busy trying to get out of the gym that I tripped over sweat man who was lying face down on the floor doing something unspeakable with a weighted ball. (serves me right for laughing at everyone else I guess).

i went back to Tom's and found that the interntional hedge trimming championships looked in no danger of winding up soon so began chatting to the hedge man. I told him about my problems with my own overgrown hedge. (now, don't be smutty here ladies, i am of course referring to my privet). I've been trying to get someone to quote me less than the price of a Citroen Saxo for the job of trimming it but noone has come up trumps yet so I chanced my arm and asked this particular hedge man if he fancied the job. I did wonder what he might have made of me later, as I was talking to him whilst covered in sweat, bright red and doubled up. Poor bloke didn't mention my odd stance so I guess he just thought I had some weird physical defect where i couldn't stand up straight but enjoyed wearing gym gear.

I also decided that i'd call in on my parents to say hi, so I drove back to our village and settled myself in for a nice cup of tea and toasted cheese sarnie at mum's. I'd only been there five minutes though and was just admiring mum's birthday cards when I ended up smashing one of mum's prized decorative clarice cliff teacups. i had pulled a card off the mantlepiece to read it, but a cup was inbetween it. I'm no juggler either and so my attempt to catch it only boinged it into the fruit bowl and the handle shot off somewhere down the back of the sideboard. Mum was not best pleased and I felt like a right cak handed wazark. No change there then. I'd only been there a few moments and already i was destroying the place.

Mum sent me out to sit in the garden which was good really as it gave us two a chance to really talk about the IVF. I'd brought along all the paperwork and info the hospital had sent so far and we had a very open discussion about it all. I felt loads better afterwards and mum and dad said that they'd do absolutely anything to ensure that it went smoothly and that i didn't get up to my usual tricks of dashing about and thinking I'm superwoman.

i then said I was going to do my gardening as by this time my tummy felt better. It's amazing what one of your mum's cups of tea and a toasted cheese sandwich can sort out.

So, mum and I raided dad's shed for gardening stuff and we set about trying to turn my garden from the jungles of borneo into porn for Alan Titchmarsh.

it wasn't long before i was screaming my head off again. Luckily, this time it was not from pain. My garden has been invaded by sodding frogs again and the pond is just a seething mass of green legs and blinking black eyes staring at me. However, they do not confine themselves to the pond but prefer to treat my garden like some kind of Costa del Frog package holiday resort. This means that under every leaf, branch, shrub and bush is a sodding frog waiting to leap up at you and try to ferret under your trouser leg. I had wisely pulled on some more trusty leggings for the task so I wouldn't get the "frog up the trouser leg suprise" that I have previously been party to, but they still made me squeal all the same.

I also had a massive fight with a bramble bush and it was when i had actually wedged myself into a corner with all the clippings from it that Mum decided reinforcements were needed so phoned dad.

dad arrived with some electric hedge trimmers and after much mountaineering over left over car boot sale merchandise in the garage, i managed to locate a plug socket and we were away.

Except we weren't.

dad managed, in less than the first five seconds, to cut through the wire on the Flymo strimmer.

Mum began yelping that he could have killed himself and was doing some sort of crazy "you've cheated death" hopping dance and dad just gazed rather bemused at the sawn off end of his Flymo cable. Cue dad, sitting at the kitchen table for the next hour reconnecting the wires and mum getting in a fluster about dad's near death strimmer incident.

Luckily, she calmed herself by making me repeatedly climb into the brown wheelie bin to jump up and down on the cuttings. she was obvlivious to my shouts of "but i'm in leggings! I've got no ankles! I'm reporting you to childline!" (I know, the ankles comment didn' t really make sense to me either but I knew what I meant. Bramble anklets are so not going to catch on, if you'll pardon the pun).

We battled valiently against the forces of shrubbery for the next few hours but I was beginning to flag. My tummy was getting sore again so rather than admit defeat, I began making teas and doing just a bit of light weeding on the drive instead. Mum must have twigged that i wasn't feeling too great as she made dad wind everything up soon after that and left me to have bit of a rest.

I've therefore spent the last couple of hours watching x factor and wondering why I'm so bloomin stupid. I knew I wasn't meant to do anything for at least another week and I've gone and been to the gym as well as a few hours of wheelie bin gymnastics and frog hurdling.

I am so daft.

Anyway, hopefully it won't last too long and it looks as if we'll be off to the NHS walk in centre tomorrow anyway as Tom's apparently fallen off his bike and probably needs stitches in his knee according to the St John's people at the race. The daft sod carried on for 8 hours after the accident so he's apparently in a right mess but didn't want to give up. Now, I wonder who else that sounds like.....

So, I'll keep you posted. I have a meeting with the hedge man at 12 tomorrow for a quote so hopefully he'll see me upright and realise I am not a hunched and incoherent dwarf. I then have an afternoon of hanging around in the walk in centre but am quite excited as for once it won't be me in need of treatment. yay!!!!!

anway, will sign off for now. Back on soon. Thanks again for all your lovely comments and emails.

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P.S WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay for Runningbird! Just read your comment my gorgeous little scrumplet and am so thrilled for you I just can't tell you!!! I've been thinking about you loads lately and was actually talking to Mum about you today. I'm so so so so so so so happy for you. That's made my day that has. Big hug to you my gorgeous preggers runningbird. good on you!!!! XXXXXXXXXXX