The instructor was dressed head to toe in lemon lycra and had a matching fluorescent headset. She shouted to me a lot through the mouthpiece.  She bellowed stuff like ‘Not to worry!’, ‘Keep Going!’, ‘Never Mind!’ and’It’s OK, really‘ and in the short break she stood behind me and raised my arms one after the other four times and said “Left, Right, Left, Right’ and added helpfully ‘Same for your legs. love.” It struck me that as I am such a brilliant dancer that perhaps it was  all 29 of them that had it wrong and couldn’t keep up with my moves.

So I decided to get fit on Ebay. I bought a DVD called Gym Dance for £5.99 which is helpfully divided into Latin, African and Classical sections. Perfect - according to my mood I can dance with fruit or water or a baton balanced on my head.

I limbered up by the toaster and had three slices in anticipation of a good workout. I drew the front room curtains, cleared the ‘dance’ floor and filled my pink bottle with iced water. I was wearing my gym-dancing outfit of pyjama bottoms with a piglet print, my husband’s string vest and had put my hair up in bunches in preparation for a bit of exertion.I studied the photograph of a pregnant elephant pinned on my fridge door for inspiration. I was mentally and physically ready. In went the disc into my computer  – AND THE DVD WAS BLANK.

So I changed my clothes, released my hair from the grip of bunches and power walked to the postbox humming ‘My Boy Lollipop’ .  ‘Gym Dance’  has been sent back in disgrace  for a full refund. Shame. I was so close to the body beautiful.