Every year since I started growing sideways instead of upwards, just after I stuff myself so full of Easter chocolate that my double chin threatens to develop a third one just to save my skin from cracking, I realise that summer is on the doorstep. And with it, bikini season. So I start working out in a desperate attempt to get rid of all the extra fat I've saved up since I gave up last year's diet.
 

It’s become a tradition. I start off eagerly, first of all motivating myself by buying new workout clothes and exercise equipment. Then I'm off to the gym, the swimming pool, karate practice, or whatever seems more fun at the moment. ‘Fun’ is the key word.

Unfortunately, before I learn to see the ‘fun’ in sweating, aching and my breath being so heavy it makes an asthmatic peeping noise in my throat when I run, I've already given up. From the pain in my sides biking up that first steep hill, it’s easy to realise that, even should summer come to the northernmost part of Norway and Europe where I've spent all my summers, I'll be hearing about it from the radio at work. So I never even buy a bikini, unless I'm going somewhere warm on holiday - which I last did in 1996.

This year's different, however. I’ve been sticking to my plan for so long I actually like exercise. Nothing beats the feeling of coming home all sweaty to take a shower and sit down, feeling that I've used my body. Of course the "candy on Saturdays only" rule has been a bit harder to stick to, especially when it's twenty plus degrees and you need an ice cream to cool down, but mostly I've been a good girl.

The reason I’ve managed this year is that I'm spending summer in Oulu, where, perhaps surprisingly, most of my friends from home have spent one or more beach holidays. In Norway, Oulu is known as a place where temperatures rise and stay above twenty-five for several days in a row. You must have noticed the hordes of Norwegian tourists on Nallikari beach; even my mom and dad have been flashing their milky whites there in the early seventies. So the actual possibility that I might need a bikini this year feels almost unreal.

I’m in the north of Finland, but in a place where going to the beach is a common thing to do on a Saturday.

So why do I say “oh no already" to summer? Well, if you've ever tried loosing weight in a healthy way, by changing your eating and exercise habits, rather than popping diet pills or buying an electric tummy trimmer, you might have noticed it takes a while. A long while.

I might have started to get rid of chocolate, crisps and beer after Easter, but the love-handles, double cheeks, jello arms and big butt have stuck around for so long you'd think I was saving up for decades of hunger and poverty.

Now I realise my original goal to stroll, run, and generally catch attention at the beach with a body like Halle Berry's might have been slightly too ambitious. However, along the endless road of aerobics, swimming and rollerblading, I’ve managed to taste the benefits of having a healthy body. So I've decided to go for that instead. I’d've been a short-legged, extremely pale version of Halle Berry anyway. With yellow teeth and no elegance.