this and that.......

well.......finally my washing machine has been fixed so i'm having a lovely time catching up on all that.....some of it had actually turned green so I had to throw it out!! so anyway.....I've been feeling a bit stressed and down lately so I decided that the best remedy for that would be to get some exercise.Up in Nazareth Illit there is a public indoor swimming pool open on wednesday evenings from 7.30 to 9.30 so i told my husband i was going out and thats it.His response was .......ooohhh....ok.It's not like a 5star pool or anything but that doesn't bother me.just to have a couple of hours on my own is so precious. There were quite a few people waiting at the door for it to open.All men.Russian men.I suddenly thought,"ooohh no,it's not all mens night is it??" But then i was relieved to see a small group of women as well! They were all yabbering on in russian,and of course they all assume that I am russian so they all start speaking to me in Russian! thats ok I'm used to that now! So in the changing rooms all the women are so uninhibited....they all just walk around naked as though it's all perfectly normal. I on the otherhand, being the repressed Brit that I am, was writhing and squirming under my towel trying not to show any of my bits! after about 10 minutes of this I realised how ridiculous i was being and just took the towel off and stood their.....gasp.......NAKED! It was actually quite liberating.It really felt great to be me and feel comfortable with that. Twenty years ago I would have been totally paranoid and self-conscious, probably checking myself in the mirror every five minutes to see if my mascara had run! I went and sat in he sauna and I could just feel all the tension melting away. It's quite a small sauna with really dim lighting so you almost feel like you are in this womb-like cocoon.The other womens voices are murmuring in the background and even though it's Russian, I think womens language is pretty universal. You kind of bond with these strangers for that short time. anyway my 'self-therapy'! worked and driving home I felt really relaxed and energized!! So that's where I'm going to be on wednesday nights from now on!!!!!!