I hate gyms

Baking with the kids, and between us we produce a white cake with white chocolate buttercream icing. This is another one from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, but because everything is in American we mess it up the first time. Really, what is a stick of butter? But our real downfall was the misunderstanding over confectioner's sugar. This, my friends, is icing sugar. Not to be confused with any other kind,as we unfortunately did, thereby producing a hapless mess of congealed granulated sugar, butter, white chocolate and milk. Yuk. The kids are aghast as I throw away the whole lot but I explain to them that professional chefs do it all the time. They look at me with compassion.I hope their look does not mean, but Mum you aren't one and at this rate you never will be. Cake done, I head to my gym. I have been a member of this pretty sorry establishment for at least ten years and in all that time all that has happened is that the quality of the kit has gone down while membership fees have gone up. And up. And up again. As I contemplate the pool in which I need to do my one hour of brain-challenging physiotherapy, wondering how to create the space among the writhing mass of limbs and froth, I think pretty wryly that paying over the odds for the privilege of kicking someone in the teeth who has got in the wrong lane for the tenth time and doesn't care,seems like an odd motivation for spending my money. The truth is,that if I had half the chance I would stop going to this smelly, poorly maintained establishment with pissed off staff who are paid peanuts and bugger off after a few months to be personal trainers, and exercise outside. I read magazine articles about running buddies and boot camps and walking clubs and bicycle tracks, and think to myself, this is what it has to be about. But the problem is that this is a fantasy. There are two non negotiables for my exercise regime. Firstly, I need to exercise in water. But what about Hampstead pond, said a mate to me when I put this argument. Well let's see. Scuzzy as my gym pool often is, there are two things it isn't. It is not freezing bloody cold,which Hampstead pond is for eleven and a half months of the year. And it is not bogged down in olive coloured weed and suspicious looking plankton. And secondly, when I exercise, I like to be able to emerge without shivering or soaking my keks off. And let's face it, this is Britain. It's rained every day since the beginning of Spring for goodness sake. I would love to do a Boot Camp workout but it has to be on fluffy bright green, patch free grass, in dappled sunlight. Anything less is deeply unappetising because it involves involuntary discomfort. And biking? I am scared witless of cycling in London. Frankly driving isn't all that palatable - and if I have to duck, dive and swerve in my car, what must it be like on a bike? The upshot of all this is, that my third rate gym has me captive. I am doomed to share the sauna first thing in the morning with a posse of blokes who convene there after their workouts and shave. Yup, in the sauna. Or the changing room, with swimming class Mums who peel off the plastic blue pool safe covers for their shoes, and abandon them on the floor for the cleaner who is probably paid significantly less than a living wage, to be told off for not clearing up. Or the weights area, with paunchy blokes of a certain age who grunt so obscenely I could be forgiven for imagining I am either in the reception area of some Nevada brothel or I'm sharing a court with Monica Seles. I need to exercise, and I love to exercise. If anyone has a gym-free, weather-friendly suggestion let's hear it...