Kneed and the city

Kung fu has left me with an injured ligament in my knee. In fact, I have a proper sports injury: runner's knee. It hurts – a sharp, stabbing sensation – when I move in certain ways, and, as you can imagine, kung fu demands plenty of moves. The solution? Rub with tiger balm and rest. Argh.

I feel frustrated at yet again having something wrong with me that stops me from going for it, all guns blazing (well, fists). One of my classmates is up for a competition and I would have liked to have started training for the one after. Instead, I have to mainly do stuff that involves standing on the spot. It's driving me mad. Well, at least I had the chance to hit pads at the end of class.

I'm not a violent person. It's funny when people say: "Ooh, you do kung fu, you must be sooo violent." Er, no. It's not quite like that. We sure as heck don't go out as a mob, duffing up members of the public as we are so pumped up. Sure, some of us could do serious damage, but when you can, you tend to be able to keep a lid on it. You couldn't be any good at kung fu without learning self-control. Also, once you have taken a martial arts class – just one – you'll find the police will automatically assume that you mean business if you get into a fracas. Silly, but true.

But, having said that, it is deeply cathartic. When I've had a stressful day, or have been dealing with things that have been rather heavy (such as those that pertain to the reasons I have suffered from insomnia for so long), kung fu is brilliant. If you can do it properly... I was doing some fairly easy moves at the end of class but nevertheless felt a sharp pain – back to square one with the knee. Damn.

Anyway, I tried a couple of classes, which I found frustrating, and then came home, still not quite warm enough. S was at a football match, so I stuck a pizza in the oven, poured myself a glass of some award-winning chardonnay I'd bought from Marks and Spencer (now 20 per cent off all wines and spirits, if anyone's interested), and waited for Sex and the City to start on one of the satellite channels. Not the healthiest meal in the world. Oh well...


Ah, Sex and the City. I love it. I have said it before: it isn't worthy (and why on earth should it be?) and it sure isn't dull. It made me laugh and I coveted some of the clothes. I have no idea which series I was watching but I recalled parts of some of the episodes from seeing them years ago. Still, the lines were sharp. They won't appeal to everyone but for me and my friends the programme was a must-watch when it first came out, and I have fond memories of discussing what had happened, interlacing chat with stories from real life. We laughed and laughed, on the phone or at restaurant tables, inevitably with a glass of wine or mojito in our hands, as we chatted about the escapades of four fictitious women (as well as our own, much more sensible lives).

The combination of exercise and relaxing afterwards was a good one and I slept well until the alarm clock went off just over an hour early, the dratted thing. My leg aches today and I have a snuffly cold... if I had my way, I'd sit on the sofa and watch SATC all day. I could order the DVDs... Online shopping is such a temptation when you're working at home and can't walk around the shops. What's a girl to do?