{"id":12954,"date":"2026-05-18T15:47:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T03:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=12954"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T04:02:09","slug":"into-the-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/into-the-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Into the valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had this earworm all week, so now I\u2019m giving it to you: you\u2019re welcome! It\u2019s a song by The Skids, dating back to 1979 ( so I realise probably not an earworm for many of you).<\/p>\n

The reason it\u2019s been going around in my head is that my yoga instructor Asher has written a book called The Valley.\u00a0<\/em>No, it\u2019s not 101 yoga poses for the beginner; The compleat guide to aligning your chakras;\u00a0<\/em>or even\u00a0Sanskrit for yogis.\u00a0<\/em>It turns out Asher is actually a lawyer and all round over achiever.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After excelling at school and flying through law at uni, rather than making a metric shit ton of money and retiring early to somewhere sunny like a normal person, he\u2019s been doing legal aide stuff and writing this book about people who are poorly served by the justice system and society in general. Also, clearly, training to be a yogi, although that didn\u2019t come up in the newspaper article I read. He had long flowing blonde hair when I first met him. Who\u2019d have thought the young man in the short shorts who has been critiquing my downward dog has such depths?<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen him since his book came out. I got dragged to a degustation dinner last week, and I suppose he\u2019s been busy going to book launches and things. Not sure whether it would be appropriate for me to tell him my mum was a prison psychiatrist and a member of the Howard League for prison reform, or if that would count as unprofessional fangirling? He\u2019s quite handsome as you can see but is also fairly strict in class. He never looks that impressed when I have a fit of giggles after inadvertently farting during Reclining Hero Pose (Supta Virasana<\/em>), for example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had this earworm all week, so now I\u2019m giving it to you: you\u2019re welcome! It\u2019s a song by The Skids, dating back to 1979 ( so I realise probably not an earworm for many of you).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3mW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5458,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/15\/earworm\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":0},"title":"Earworm","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been humming \u201cDo you know the way to San Jose?\u201d to myself since my last jigsaw puzzle session. It was a big hit for Dionne Warwick back in the late sixties, another of Burt Bacharach\u2019s ouvre of fabulousness. I say \u2018humming to myself\u2019 but actually I\u2019ve been catching myself\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/D812148E-18AE-4709-B506-C39826E9961C-298x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12965,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/yoga-update-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":1},"title":"Yoga update","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 21, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Went to my first class last night since the instructor released his book, and swore to myself I wouldn\u2019t say anything dumb. Of course, that lasted five minutes. I am congenitally incapable of shutting up. \u201cThought you\u2019d be off on a book tour!\u201d Apparently book tours are no longer a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13031,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/perspective-9\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":2},"title":"Perspective","author":"Interloper11","date":"June 24, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"First of all, a disclaimer: I\u2019m currently on holiday in Fiji, so any complaints from me should be taken with a grain of (sea) salt. It\u2019s Wednesday already, and we arrived on Friday, so I can\u2019t figure out why this is the first post I\u2019ve written. I used to diligently\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_6359-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6402,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/22\/existential-threats-of-our-time-number-37-yoga\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":3},"title":"Existential threats of our time Number 37: yoga","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe I felt a little concerned last night when my yoga instructor told me she\u2019d like to put her knee between my shoulder blades, but I don\u2019t think this is the threat that has American conservative Christians worried: According to this article in the Guardian, Christian groups in the bonkers\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/D828F465-9B7A-4031-83D2-E39C093A2923-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/D828F465-9B7A-4031-83D2-E39C093A2923-1024x768.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/D828F465-9B7A-4031-83D2-E39C093A2923-1024x768.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11976,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/equanimity\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":4},"title":"Equanimity","author":"Interloper11","date":"July 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"My surgeon this morning has told me of a revelation he had yesterday that he reckons is going to make an enormous difference to his mental wellbeing. Leaving his juniors to stitch the first patient closed, he left the hospital completely, walked down the road to the nearest shops, bought\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_3074-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_3074-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_3074-768x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9996,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/19\/bookish\/","url_meta":{"origin":12954,"position":5},"title":"Bookish","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"There\u2019s a new locum surgeon starting at my hospital, and I heard on the grapevine this week that he writes books. Apparently it\u2019s a series about a surgeon who gets up to sexual hijinks whilst investigating murders. Hopefully it\u2019s fictional. An old friend of my husbands has also recently published\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_7762-300x286.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}