Fat Woman and the little piece of magic

Personal Trainer is very good at encouraging Fat Woman. Personal Trainer knows that Fat Woman responds incredibly well to positive criticism. As Fat Woman once explained to Swimming Coach, whilst there may be people who react to being told they are useless at something by showing that they are not useless after all, this motivational technique does not work with Fat Woman. If you tell Fat Woman that she is useless and will never be good at something then Fat Woman writes you off as an utter cock and fails to see why she should care what you think about the weather, let alone her. Personal Trainer doesn't often take advantage of Fat Woman's reaction to encouragement but will occassionally say things like: "I know you can do it!" or "Come on, I believe in you." Personal Trainer hasn't yet managed to say these things with sincerity but Fat Woman is tolerant of his youth and lack of duplicity, and anyway, saying these things to Fat Woman somehow works, although Fat Woman reserves the right to roll her eyes as she continues struggling up an incline on the treadmill/lifting a big heavy weight/doing the nth set of some nasty exercise Personal Trainer has thought up just for her.

Personal Trainer isn't big on actual rewards, thinking that the results of the work are reward enough. What Personal Trainer does say quite often is "Well done. Ten points to Gryffindor." Personal Trainer is a film buff and has seen all the Harry Potter Movies. This has been the cause of some friction with Fat Woman who is not a film buff but a book lover. When Personal Trainer asks if Fat Woman has seen some movie or another the reply is usually that Fat Woman hasn't watched the movie but she has read the book. This has been the cause of misunderstandings when the plot or characters have undergone significant changes between page and screen but none more so than in regards to the Harry Potter saga. Fat Woman has read all the Harry Potter books but has only watched the first film. Fat Woman thinks films can't possibly include all the subtleties and details that you can get from a book and once she's seen the visual world on screen she isn't overly keen to invest time in finding out that what she knows is going to happen actually does (or doesn't) happen.

The major clash between Fat Woman and Personal Trainer is that Personal Trainer is your full-on classic Gryffindor type. Chivalry, nerve and daring are all qualities Personal Trainer has in spades. Fat Woman finds the whole Gryffindor type unsubtle and lacking in refinement and rather hot-headed and finds chivalry faintly offensive. Fat Woman might have made it into Ravenclaw with her wit, wisdom and love of learning, but actually would probably have ended up in Slytherin. Fat Woman is okay with this as she is rather Slytherin in many ways; she certainly doesn't care what other people think about her, she thinks before she acts (even when kicking Personal Trainer on the chin) and she has the traditional Slytherin characteristics of cunning, ambition and resourcefulness. Admittedly, Fat Woman only ever said that in fact it should be ten points to Slytherin in order to wind Personal Trainer up, but now it has been said she is happy to go with it because Fat Woman had no idea how actually wound up Personal Trainer would get about the idea of points going to Slytherin. Fat Woman puts this down to the movies being less balanced in their portrayl of the Slytherin house than the books, painting it as completely evil. Certainly it only adds to Fat Woman's amusement.

When meeting a chum at Kings Cross Station Fat Woman saw that you could have your photograph taken at Platform 9 3/4 wearing a house scarf of your choice. So Fat Woman donned a Slytherin scarf and had a snap taken in order to prove to Personal Trainer that any points she earned should go to Slytherin.



Personal Trainer looked at the photo and whilst shaking his head sorrowfully said that all he saw was a red coat, which meant Gryffindor.

Fat Woman thinks that Personal Trainer can be a bit of a steam roller about these things and she wasn't having it. Fat Woman thinks that if you are going to allow adults to associate themselves with houses in a fictional magical boarding school then you should jolly well respect their allegiences.

The next week Fat Woman had another photograph to show Personal Trainer. Fat Woman said that she couldn't let the honour of her house be besmirched.

Personal Trainer looked at the picture of Fat Woman in her Slytherin scarf and green coat and for the first time since Fat Woman has known him appeared to be lost for words. Personal Trainer then asked Fat Woman how she had changed the picture.

Fat Woman replied that it was with magic, of course.