I breathe.

I think: in the cells of my body oxygen and glucose react and make adenine triphosphate, the charge that keeps my body and brain alert.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

This was my training.

To follow the breath.

I sit alone, seiza style, on a blue zafu and zabuton. (Derek is very particular about these terms. The zafu is the small, firm, round cushion that is placed on the larger, softer, rectangular, pillow-like zabuton, which the knees and ankles rest on. Seiza is a kneeling position for those who can’t sit in the lotus or half-lotus.)

Derek has made a small meditation room and equipped it with mats and cushions. (Derek is a mystery to me. I asked him about it and he just said: “In the Japanese tradition the samurai meditated. It helped them to develop composure and self-restraint.”)

 It has made me resume something I gave up long ago.

The meditation timer chimes. I have had it for years. I brought it along.

There is a pale light. The rooks clatter up from the treetops.

Outside his gym Derek has added a hot tub in a cedar-wood gazebo with a turreted roof and a stepping stone path leading to it.

Yesterday we sat together in the tub. Derek talked to me about energy drinks.

“Your body fluids are like salt water”, he said. “When you exercise strenuously, you sweat out salts that are needed to maintain the electrical activity in your muscles and nerves.”

He is keen on one sports drink called Nectar which is a concentrate. A pump accessory measures the correct dose for mixing with water in a 500ml bottle.

He really likes the product. I think he knows and admires the owner of the company that makes it.

I don’t know what’s happening with Jess and Tina.

I hoped he might talk about them but he didn’t.