I’m not very good at meeting new people.  I’d rather Norman gouged my eyes out than have to walk into a room of people that I don’t know on my own.  If I don’t stutter when I try talking, I say something inappropriate, or I get the giggles when I really shouldn’t.

So I was really quite proud of myself for going to a Beachville yoga class all on my own this week.  Not only that, but I had to drive there (and it’s not a straight line) and park (which is the most complicated thing to do in Beachville as it involves an app – if you can actually find a spot that you can parallel park in.  Which I can’t do at the best of times).

I cheated a little in that my Bumpkinsville teacher knows the Beachville teacher and promised me she was a proper human being and everything.  And she did seem to be.  And apart from a couple of ‘breathers’ (Why do some people feel the need to sigh the entire way through a class rather than breathe normally, or use their nose like the rest of us?) and a couple who seemed to be of the opinion that the entire class needed to know every time they couldn’t do a full position because something hurt and why it hurt and how much it hurt and how much it hurt yesterday and…you get the picture, it was a really lovely class.

I tried not to talk.  Even when I realised that the studio was rather toasty and I only had a long sleeved thermal vest under my jumper and might melt before the 90 minutes was up.  And I didn’t laugh when someone farted.  I was so proud of my grown up self (see Bumpkinsville yoga people?  It wasn’t me that was the naughty one).  But then we had to do happy baby pose, roll onto one side and then use the weight of the leg we weren’t lying on to roll back up.  Despite the hefty weight of my substantial calves, that was never going to happen and I got stuck, like a geriatric Humpty Dumpty.  And I got the giggles.  A lot.  The teacher had to leaver me back.  Well, it was going too well really, wasn’t it?

I wasn’t told not to go back though (I was once when I did a class at uni, so it wouldn’t have been the first time).  And it’s not the same as my Bumpkinsville class with my lovely, patient Bumpkinsville teacher and lovely yoga friends, but it’s a start at building something different.  I just have to try not to giggle quite so much next week :o)

As cool as a cow in sunglasses. (The bell is on our kitchen wall for some reason. Himself uses it to store his sunglasses…)