Aching for Britain

It's after 10pm on Tuesday and I'm aching. It might have something to do with the gym session this morning, but it's more likely to be tonight's life modelling session. After last night's life modelling session. It's a busy week.
Yesterday was one of my obscure village hall jobs - cash in hand so most welcome, and always an interesting bunch of usually retired village-dwellers. I've 'sat' at this venue, and for this group, before, but they've lost their tutor and are going it alone now. So I had one person phoning me to make sure I was coming, another person bringing the props, and a third arranging and timing the poses. There were 10 artists signed up and paid, but one or two couldn't make it this week.
We agreed that I would do a few ten minute poses 'to warm them up', followed by a longer one until the break, and an hour-long pose after that. It was sweet and easy. No probs. Basically I could do whatever I felt comfortable with and they were all most appreciative.
I was so chuffed I gave the son an extra fiver for sister-minding beyond the call of duty (all weekend, plus Monday and Tuesday evenings... even though I'd had a few panicked phone calls from her over the weekend when he was late back and it was dark).
But tonight was a different story. It was the inspirational tutor running her evening class - I called her 'inspirational' on the basis of her work with the Adult Art Foundation course, but I have to say she does very little actual teaching on a Tuesday evening, confining herself to sitting at the back of the room and occasionally wandering round to whisper a little to a student or two.
This evening we started with a couple of five minute poses, then it was onto a (hard, unpadded) table for a long sitting pose, 'with a break every half an hour' she promised. As soon as they'd started I knew I would regret the pose I'd assumed. And I did. It was one of those stoic evenings when I just had to count my breaths and watch the clock and wait for it all to be over.
Eventually it was. I remembered to ask for directions to my new group this Friday, the chap who'd booked me was a student at this one, and the tutor did at least praise me at the end for how still I'd been right through. Yes, I pride myself on keeping still - it's what I thought the job was about, after all.
I nearly forgot to mention all the little bunny rabbits nibbling the roadside verges on the way there, early evening. Makes me happy, that sort of thing.