In which our correspondent chronicles a massive, and utterly satisfactory, lack of progress in her woebegotten and ill-advised quest for fitness.

I'll admit it: progress has been satisfactorily slow. In my deviant (and devious) path towards what might pass for fitness, I've been using every trick in the book. Specialists (all right: psychologists) call it displacement activity. I'm very good at it, I'm told.

I'd hitched my star to Whitehall guidance issued earlier this year, when government (aka Mr Tony, who I'm sure has taken this very much to heart, and is, as I speak, swabbing out the loo at Number 10) issued a directive recommending housework as an acceptable substitute for exercise (As if? Does John Prescott bring the washing in?) It occurred to me that I could do a little plea bargaining - maybe I could hoover the Sunstone premises and rest on my 'how-clean-is your-house' laurels? Thus avoiding anything that might pass for organised exercise.

Didn't work. They wanted me there, down and dirty, and doing stuff like curls and pressups (which are what, exactly? Forms of pastry-cooking?). So, as a diversionary tactic, I tried a little lower back pain - always a good get-out. It's non-specific, you can wince a lot, no one can prove you wrong - and it worked a treat until a delightful and very gentle Sunstone physio sorted it. Clearly, I was dealing with masters of the fitness universe. They would not be denied. I phoned the gym. I lied about wanting to aspire to fitness and health - and I made an appointment.

This led to an appointment for a second appointment, and what was ominously called an assessment. Seemingly, they check you out to make sure you're fit enough to embark on a fitness regime. How mad is that? I already knew I couldn't qualify - which is why I'd hoped this entire venture would go nowhere. I wanted to fail at the first hurdle. If I crawled in with a class A habit and a can of lager they'd have to reject me, wouldn't they?

Plus there was a set of rules and regulations which offered what I thought might be several opt-out opportunities. Amongst (many) other things, it appeared that I had to wear trainers. Apparently, kitten heels don't function well in a gym setting. It's work, and it involves sensible shoes.

This trainer diktat was a style offence too far: I reckoned I could wing it on appeal. First, I was a stranger to trainers (which train you to do what, exactly? Go to the potty on your own?). And, from close acquaintance with young persons of the male persuasion, I knew that they were ugly, unflattering and invariably smelly. My dignity - and my status as a fashion victim - were at stake. 

Plus: Versace don't make trainers. I didn't even know what a trainer shop looked like. Sadly, it turned out that the wretched objects were all too conveniently available. In Stoke Newington. Even worse, it turned out that they were quite comfy. I could see sensible becoming the new black. Or the new rock and roll. Or something. So: I had the shoes, and I had the appointment. And I also had a sense of impending doom. Time was running out. Feigning death wasn't an option. The assessment loomed.

In the next moving and yet somehow inspirational instalment, our correspondent is hoping that she will report total failure to gain admission to the gym, preferably on health grounds..