The girls have tripped off to school now and the house is quiet, which means I can get me teeth into another entry.

I resumed my kickboxing class last night, and I have to say that it felt really good to punch away the cobwebs. My partner this week was a mother whom I have seen in the playground, but have never spoken to. It turns out this is because we share a deep loathing for the bear pit, and opt instead to remain aloof. There's something about the idle gossip and small talk of the playground that I find deeply unsettling. So far I haven't been asked to join the Christian mothers in their morning prayer group, but I think perhaps this has something to do with the fact that they think I'm a bad woman, with nary a Godly thought in my head. I am Ozzy Ozbourne in an a-line skirt. I am the devil incarnate. I'm bad and I know it. Thing is, I like to keep my faith private. I don't parade what I believe before other people; I don't go to church because I feel that our lady vicar would benefit from a loudhailer and a couple of tabs of benzadrine, and anyway, since Charlie's death I have experienced spiritual phenomenon so startling that if I shared it with the village God botherers I would probably be dragged from my seat and burned at the stake.

That is why I remain alone and aloof, and it was nice to find out that I'm not alone in wanting to be alone. My kickboxing partner is a powerfully-built woman and proved to be a well-matched opponent, although she did think that she was going to expire after the first ten minutes of the class, which is exactly how I felt after my first session. I'm pleased to see that my level of fitness has improved to such a degree that I now attack each new exercise with energetic zeal, and finish wanting more, whereas in my first session, after sixty minutes of agonising torture I would happily have staggered to the abattoir and let myself be dispatched with a captured bold.

When I got home from the class my babysitter chastised me for opening a tin of Guinness. She said that it was wrong to spend an hour exercising and then drink stout, but she's young, and innocent and doesn't really appreciate the efficacy of the black stuff. God meant all people to drink it. It's lovely.

I read a survey in the Telegraph last week, which stated that exercise wasn't really that good for you. The scientists who carried out the survey had concluded that the human body has only a finite capacity for extreme cardio-vascular workouts, and that when the capacity is exhausted, the body is spent, and you're history. I have to say that I think the survey applied not to all exercise, but more specifically to cycling on a Sunday. Sunday morning cycling is for people with miserable lives who don't have sex any more. Men who no longer climb aboard their sleepy-eyed wives whilst the church bells are calling the devout to prayer, now climb aboard a razor-thin racing bike and punish themselves. It's not right. It's not normal and it's definitely not good for you. I see them, pedalling along in the drizzle, trying to look like they're having a good time, but I know they're not. They long to be in bed, snuggled up beside a plumptious paramour, lost in a somnolent post-coital haze. It's what Sunday morning was made for, and when I see a man pedalling grimly along, puffing and wheezing, straining and struggling, I think to myself, he's not got long for this world if this is what he does to have a good time. And now I know I'm right, because the scientists have told me so. And you know I'm only jealous because I don't have a husband to lie beside, and that what I really want to do is wind down the window as I drive past in my nice, warm car, and shout, 'Get back home, get into bed with your wife and show her a good time. The end of the world is nigh.'

See, I am an evangelist, of sorts, but I'm still not going to join the morning prayer group.

The other survey I read last week concerned the efficacy of laughter. I have always believed that laughter is the very best way of making yourself feel better, and that people who suppress joy usually end up on a bicycle. Many people comment on my laugh. Some say it's filthy; some say it's too loud, and some say it makes me sound like I need to be put in a secure unit for a few days. But I know that when I laugh the joy in me is being expressed in a way that is free and completely uninhibited. My laugh cannot be ignored; it makes other people feel happy, they say they love it, and I know that what they love is the fact that they can hear exactly what I'm feeling. When I hear people with stifled, sniggering laughs, or shrugging choked guffaws, I imagine happiness tumbling around inside them, trying to escape. But they won't let it escape, because it's almost certainly being swamped with lots of petty problems and minor annoyances, which restrict the throat and choke the laugh before it's had a chance to escape them. But I laugh loud. I have so much joy inside me, I feel such happiness and derive so much pleasure from the company of my friends that I want to laugh all of the time. My laugh comes from deep within me, from the very core of me, from where the light inside me emanates. I do believe that laughter makes you live longer; I believe that your laugh is the very best indicator of your state of mind, and also of the strength of your life-force. The force is strong within me, be in no doubt about that, and the day I stop laughing my big, both-lungs-and-then-a-bit, laugh, is that day I'll turn up my toes, or go for a Sunday morning bike ride..


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