WHO ATE ALL THE PIES?
I’m off to Mud Island on Tuesday night for a wedding on Friday at which I am doing joint-best man duty. I decided over the weekend that I had better dig out my wedding kit in preparation – check for holes etc. I last wore this kit for my own wedding 3 ½ years ago, since when many things have changed. Apart from now being married, I have also somehow managed to move from the UK to HK, and along the way pick up 1 ¾ children and 2 dogs (the 3/4 part is the reason Mrs C won't be joining me on this jaunt). I thought, however, that one thing had remained unchanged – my waist size. How cruelly I was disabused of that notion.
On Friday night I put on, or tried to put on, the trousers of my morning suit. Big mistake. There was a good 1 ½ inches of stomach still showing at the point where the clip is supposed to meet the clasp. I did get them closed but there’s certainly no way I could sit down with them in that state.
How did this happen?? I blame made-to-measure clothing. Since coming here every new suit or shirt I have bought has been made-to-measure, mostly by Mr. William Cheng of Kowloon. Clearly he has been lying! Every time I go over I say “Ithink I’m abut the same size as before” and he says “I’ll just check”, then, haing done the measurements again, says “yes, about the same”. Obviously, in the interest of not losing a customer, he omits the rest of the sentence, which would be “in your dreams fatso”.
Now I don’t blame him. I’d do the same. And his suits and shirts are great. But it has left me with a bit of a problem. There are two solutions. Either get a new pair of trousers, or lose 1 ½ inches off my gut.
Not yet having made the big Four Oh I am still subject to the belief that I am a young, fit, healthy individual in the prime of life, so on Saturday morning set out to lose said 1 ½ inches (I should add here that I played squash on Friday lunchtime so I had already done a bit of exercise on Friday)
So Friday night – sit-ups, press-ups, dig out the weights that had been propping a door open for the last 2 years.
Saturday morning - 2 ½ hours of jogging / hiking (depending on the slope) round Pok Fu Lam country park, , up to High West, round The Peak and back home.
Saturday afternoon – Ploughing up and down the pool for a bit (embarrassingly short time before I was in danger of drowning) followed by sit-ups, press-ups and the weights again.
Sunday morning – 20 mins or so up and down the pool while the little charioteer is asleep.
Sunday afternoon – 45 mins “brisk walking” with the dogs followed by another 20 mins in the pool. Then back to sit-ups, press-ups and the weights.
Result this morning?
I am still 1 ½ inches away from closing the trousers comfortably, but I am now in so much pain, and so weakened by the frenzied activity of the weekend, that I can’t take them off the hanger without wincing in pain and then barely have the strength to hold them. In fact I have seen glaciers move more quickly than I did this morning when the alarm went off. I wanted to get out of bed but it took a while for the message to reach muscles that were still in shock from the previous days.
Still – I won’t give up. Off for a swim at lunch today, a jog tonight and hopefully a game of squash tomorrow lunchtime before I leave.
Just in case I don’t make it however, anyone know if there’s a Moss Bros in Cambridge?
