Our new cross trainer

We've been dedicated gym members many years now, since well before the children were born, but of course it has been shut for most of the last year. Even when it reopened over the summer we only actually returned in October for a month or so, and it has been closed ever since. 

I feel bad because I know that businesses like this, even a large national chain like our gym, are going to struggle with the  loss of income. But we have paid them a huge amount in membership fees over many years, and the truth is that not only have we saved a fortune this year, we've also realised that we can manage extremely well at keeping ourselves fit without it. So we have handed in our notice, and unless they are able to offer us a good incentive to stay then we will be leaving once we've worked through the notice period.

We decided to put some of the money that we have saved towards buying ourselves a cross trainer. We placed the order back in January when it was darker and colder than it is now, but due to supply issues we only actually took delivery of it this week. It was very exciting!

Thanks to having cleared and decorated one of our top rooms as a good sized office for Ram, we had plenty of space to fit it. It means that he can use it while he's working, and if I do feel the urge to exercise during his working day he can usually take calls in another room. 

We've only had it a few days but we are really pleased with it so far, and I'm planning to share a full review when we've been using for a couple of weeks. A big benefit is that I can prop my phone up and watch my own videos while I'm working out, instead of relying on the gym televisions, and it's nice and quiet so I don't need headphones. I haven't used a cross trainer much before so it's still quite new to me and I'm finding it very hard work. I can manage twenty minutes on the lowest setting before I wobble back down the stairs and collapse. 

Ram has been eyeing up those fancy sheds that you can install in the garden to use as a home gym. Probably with the amount that we'll be saving on gym membership it won't be long before we can afford one!