Going Gym…

So recently, I've joined the gym. I'm about a month in and I must say I'm enjoying it (apart from the process of getting there, which involves a sojourn on the dreaded 207 – see previous post). It's a continuation of a workout habit that developed when I was in the States this spring; I'd always disliked gyms until I started going with my mother. My previous workout experiences had been tragic: weight room circuits in middle school gym class presided over by teachers not inspirational in their personal fitness levels and hyper body-conscious trips to the Villanova gyms where getting on a cardio machine involved joining queue of scarily orange girls who didn't really look like they needed to be there. I think I've always been slightly uncomfortable in the gym because my physical activity vocabulary (badminton, figure skating and ballet) don't translate particularly well to running and pumping iron. Also, there's no music, apart from icky techno that I don't like. The gym isn't beautiful or artistic, but in my rediscovery I forgive it what it lacks because of the stress relief it provides. And, living in London, I certainly need that!

My gym, located on an out of the way street in Acton, is chilled out and pleasant, with a nice timetable of classes and a delightfully friendly staff. At least the men are friendly. The women, by contrast, appear not to understand me. Yesterday, I stopped by to do 30 minutes on the cross-trainers and had to wait 5 minutes to buy a bottle of water from the receptionist, who was busy showing two Polish girls around the gym. "May I have a bottle of water, please?" I asked, when she finally noticed me. "What?" she said. "Water," I replied. "Oh, wata" – is the American pronunciation of water (that rogue voiced final r!) that challenging for Brits? Today, I called in because, after a week off from yoga class, I couldn't remember what time it started. A girl answered the phone. "Hi, could you please tell what time today's yoga class starts?" "What?" I tried again: "What time is yoga today?" Success! "11.30."

Looking back over these exchanges it strikes me that perhaps it's not my accent, but rather my sentence structure. I've just engaged in the guilty pleasure of "Wife Swap" on Channel4 Catchup (it is Saturday morning after all…and the newsagents opened late, delaying my Guardian consumption) and it's striking the number of words that reasonably respectable and normal people in this country omit from their speech: "Let's go bed", "Like bacon?", "We're going Westfield, laters", etc. Perhaps if I'd just grunted "Water?" and "Time yoga start?" I would have avoided these communication problems.

Perhaps not, though. I've recently had to apply for a European Health Insurance Card, a nifty little thing that allows me to receive medical treatment free of charge anywhere in the EU. As I'm not an EU national, I had to call up to find out what additional info I needed to send. I got an automated menu, which understood none of my responses. This wasn't tough stuff: "Apply for new card," I said. "Apply for new card!...APPLY FOR NEW CARD!" I switched accents and did my best mockney – presto! It worked!

Fellow expats, respond! Does this happen to you? Do you feel occasionally that while you believe yourself to be enunciating clearly, the reactions of those around you imply that you are speaking with a mouthful of marbles? Or occasionally not at all? Are we really harder to understand than West Londoners, innit?

And on that note, going gym now. Laters!*

*Pronounced in RP, of course.