Knee class blues

I made my knee rehabilitation class debut last Friday morning and I'm fairly proud of the fact that my operation scar is far bigger than anyone else's.

I did have to haul my weary carcass out of bed nearly an hour before I usually have to get up which I wasn't too enamored with. I then had to walk twenty minutes to catch the bus full of over exuberant school kids that takes me near to Broadgreen Hospital, whereupon I have a 10 -15 minute walk to get to physiotherapy department. When I arrived I was already perspiring and slightly red in the face.

Luckily I managed to catch the bus with seconds to spare. Relief!

My joy at catching this bus was short lived was. I walked onto the bus behind the giddy schoolies and I noticed that I only had a tenner on me. I apologised to the driver for not having any better change. He looked at me through his despondent and possibly hung over eyes and seethed:
"I can't change that!"
"(SIGH) What time are you departing?"
"Right now- you better buy some'ink from der shop; I'll pick you up by the traffic lights."

I hobbled off the bus and with my bag weighing me down tried to get to the nearby newsagents as quickly as I could, knowing that the next bus was not for another 30 minutes. Because my bag was heavy my limp was more prominent than usual, and of course I slightly exaggerated it for the benefit of the unhelpful bus driver.

The shop- which is only a stone's throw away from the bus stop- was teeming with school children of a variety of different size and age in a multitude of different coloured uniforms. I fought my way to the counter with a bottle of water and paid and pushed my way back through the kids just as the bus was pulling up at the traffic lights. I paid the driver and thanked him for waiting though this was an insincere display of gratitude, but definitely not one laden with sarcasm. My MP3 player tossed out some tunes at random and included Jarvis' astutely witty 'Fat Children' , which I listened to with a wry smile on my face as I watched the lawless teens run amok on the bus scoffing their McCoys' crisp at 8.15am.

The class was good and I certainly felt the benefits from the knee exercises the two semi-attractive and fake tanned physios had prepared for us.

It was fairly evident from the start that I was the 'new boy' as everyone knew exactly what exercises to do. I looked on with wide eyed envy at the exercises I could only dream of doing i.e. shuttle runs and the trampoline. The vast majority of the fellow post operation classmates were attired fittingly and wouldn't have looked out of place in a gym or running a marathon perhaps. I on the other hand looked as if I hadn't done any exercise since the 1980s. My spurs shorts looked faded and probably showed too much flesh, my GAP hoodie was taken off within five minutes due to the perspiration revealing a cheap (but most adored) Gaudi tourist T-Shirt my folks brought back for me from Barcelona 6 years ago. I had black office socks rolled down my leg as far as I could and I tried my utmost to conceal them within my trainers with little success. The class reminded me of a Police Academy style group of misfits and as I warmed up on the exercise bike I looked around identifying the rich tapestry of character types. There was the loud mouth, the brute, the comic, the pretty boy, the old guy, the wacky one, the quiet one (also the only woman), the hippie, the token chap from an ethnic minority, the arse kisser, the rough neck, the over exuberant and generic extras who just faded into the background. I wondered which I could be considering that most of the positions I am usually associated with were already taken. I figured that I'll just see how it pans out before labelling myself to fill a character void.