The key to weight loss

It's January, and like half the women in the world, I want to lose a bit of weight. So I promised myself that I'd start exercising again as soon as my son went back to school.

Yesterday the morning disappeared as I caught up with housework. When I still hadn't managed a walk by eleven, I got cross with myself, grabbed my keys, and dashed out.

The sun shone, it was pleasantly warm, and I had a really nice walk. Right up to the moment when I got home and realised that I hadn't picked up my own keys. Nope, they were my husband's.

So one of them had to unlock the front door, right?

Wrong.

I went through them again. Only two would go into the lock and neither would turn.

I went around the house and down to the back door. (The house is built on a hill, so that the back entrance is a storey lower.) I couldn't get in there either. Nor into the garage.

We leave a spare key with Esperanza next door for just this sort of thing, seeing as the whole family is a bit ditzy, but she was out. I started to get really worried.

Well, I couldn't do any of the stuff I'd planned to do, but hey, the garden needed attention, and here I was. So I pulled up weeds for an hour and a half.

Boy was I pleased to see Esperanza when she came home.

She said, "But I haven't got your key. You never gave it back after the last time."

I said something very unladylike. Seeing as I said it in English, Esperanza couldn't have understood the words, but I expect she understood anyway.

I mentioned that the French windows to the balcony were open. Such a pity we didn't have a long enough ladder.

Esperanza said that she also had the key to the flat on the other side of the semi. You could probably get from one balcony to the other if you really tried.

So we borrowed a stepladder from another neighbour and we all trooped up to the balcony.

Esperanza said she couldn't go over, because she had vertigo. I hadn't expected her to. This was my screw-up, not hers.

The neighbour announced that he had vertigo too. I had rather hoped he'd be the one to do it, but it was still my screw up. Besides, I want equal privileges with the men, so logically I have equal responsibilities, dammit. And my legs were a little longer.

So I climbed up the stepladder and onto the balcony balustrade. I was careful not to look down at the three-storey drop below. Once on the balustrade I swung one leg over the 45º wall between the balconies, onto my own balustrade. I swung the other leg over and jumped onto the balcony. After that it was easy.

I just had time to wash my hands (after all that gardening) and give Esperanza the spare key, before I had to fetch my son from school.

Maybe I won't bother with a walk tomorrow.