Shift
7 January
Well, my car's been in and out of the garage to have its radiator replaced. So, I'm mobile again in the vehicular sense. I think there is movement elsewhere in my life also.
I've been aware that my yoga work has moved from loosening up my lower back to easing the tension out of my legs and hamstrings. I get the feeling that this has altered my posture completely. I seem to be leaning forward less and be far more centred over my lower centre of gravity in the pit of my stomach. So my head's up, my chest is out and there is much less strain in my thighs and calves. My feet too are not clenched, gripping the ground. They spread so that when I walk the flat of my foot is on the ground. It's the most grounded I think I've ever been.
These may seem small points over-laboured but I think they're significant. I think they show that all the work I've been doing over the past eighteen months is now bearing fruit and that there can be no going back to the old ways. Wednesday, I was in work. Everyone is dazed and low. I could feel the pain in my calves and I thought to myself "That's because this place is depressed. But that's their depression and not mine. I don't have to feel it". And by the end of the afternoon, the pain had gone.
That said it was just a week of getting back into the usual routines at work. The only
break in the general monotony was a couple of trips to the Sales. I managed the
Heal's sale on Wednesday and got away with an hermetically-sealable jar for my coffee
(the previous one just broke) and a couple of mugs - one with a large letter
D and the
other with a large letter
R on it.
Well, it gave me a moist moment anyway. 
The second excursion was a brief trip on Friday lunchtime with Chris to the sales at Harvey Nichols. We'd decided not to go wild but, in among the Moschino jeans, Helmut Lang shirts, Paul Smith suits, the temptations were there. I'd hoped for something for work - maybe some more Ted Baker shirts. But it was not to be.
Chris hovered over a very sheer Jean Paul Gaultier top which would have suited him but probably chaffed his nipples. I was struck by a light woollen top from Comme des Garçons which was a sort of dark brick red colour with six horizontal lines of gold thread across the chest. It was down from £140 to £70 but still didn't say £70 to me. More tempting yet was a suit in steel grey plush velvet from Katharine Hamnet. It was very me but even at £334.95 reduced from £670, I couldn't justify it for the six occasions in my life I would want to make that sort of impact entering a room (and it was also just the wrong size - I'm not yet quite a 36" waist).
So, it wasn't quite the shopping frenzy of yesteryear with young Phil. But it was fun.
Evening came and Ross was at Walthamstow
by the time I arrived. He liked the mugs and had a moist moment too.
We talked about times together of late. I have a theory that
we haven't actually been giving each other enough that is spiritually uplifting
of late. It's all been a bit stale and flat. But we had a nice evening, talked about
the coming weekend, bathed together and then I threw together a quick ricey thing from
among the meagre items in the fridge and cupboards.
And so it was time for bed at 9pm and straight into some uninhibited and spiritually
uplifting coitus. We were far gone on a rising wave of passion that was to break in a
monumental climax when the phone rang and, from the answer-machine, we heard the voice
of young Phil presuming that the reason we were not taking calls was because we were
having too much fun. Too right, Phil, too right.