HOT FLASH!! Hot workout

From now on, some blog posts will be in the form of a HOT FLASH! This will be a very brief description of a finite event without any purple prose or ironic juxtaposition. So there!

This morning I attending a "neighborhood coffee" with about 10 other American School moms all from about a 1/4 mile radius in the neighborhood. Many of these women are also brand-new to London and I had not yet met them at school functions as our children are different ages.

Everyone was very nice, with different backgrounds, ages, experiences and expectations from their time here. There was much talk of the market meltdowns here and in the US, as many of the spouses/fathers are in the banking industry and quite a few are in fear of their jobs. People who just got here may be yanked back to the US by their employers, or worse, fired. This is why it is extra-good that our family has applied for visa status that does not depend on employment by one particular employer. With the other kind of visa, if the job ends, the family has six weeks to pack it up, and move back to the US.

ASL is a very coffee-oriented culture. I have three ASL parent-coffees on my calendar this week. This is great, but each coffee features one or more of the following: chocolate croissants, iced blueberry cake, chocolate chip muffins. (Not a scone in sight...) It is hard to walk off all of those calories.

Accordingly, we are on a hunt for a suitable gym/workout club. Last week I discovered "London's best kept secret", a private gym at the Marylebone Cricket Club, aka Lord's Cricket Ground, a 10-minute walk from A Flat on Abbey Road.

I went down there today to get the "orientation to the machines" tour on a free pass.
If I wish to avoid the heavy traffic going by on Wellington Road, I can go south on Abbey Rd through and past the crosswalk, turn left onto Circus Road, and take a shortcut to the gym that takes me right past You-Know-Who's house (hint: my first crush at age 12). Popping through the north gate of Lord's brings me past the Nursery Pavillion. Today there was a crowd of wine-swilling adults, perhaps at at tasting event, AND a game of cricket being played on the "Practice Pitch".

I wound up doing a mini-workout on the rowing machine and feeling capable of kicking some a** when I was done, despite not having been to the gym since March.

I am informed by one of the Moms I met last week that You-Know-Who works out at this gym. A mom that I met this week has been on the treadmill next to him and told me what time of day he's usually there. She said he is very nice and chatted with her. I live in hope.