This is home – Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, evening after a storm
The dawn of a New Year adds impetus to the good intentions of the past few months. Cupboards have been stripped and reordered leaving a skeleton wardrobe of clothes that as my newly found guru Marie Kondo, she of the obscenely tidy Japanese closet instructs: “bring me joy” Continue reading
I move.
I’m not naturally sporty, fitness doesn’t come easily. I sat in the ‘arty’ corner of the common room at school, not the ‘sporty’ one. As an adult however, no longer bound by once comforting school-time cliques, fitness is important. I run – I’m no ironman but I regularly run 12k and sometimes the occasional half marathon. I surf – I’m not very good at it but I have a lot of fun being tumbled in the waves whatever the weather. I walk – I love a good stomp over the cliffs when my legs ask me not to run.
The best advice I was given about parenting was ‘keep them moving’. Don’t tell them to exercise, just keep them moving: rolling, splashing, stomping, tumbling. Chase them, fly them, spin them and whatever you do, never, EVER tell them you’re going for a walk. An adventure, a hunt, an explore… but never a walk!
This has all become a given to me, balancing moving with working, parenting and drinking coffee with friends is life. And it’s a good life…. when the balance is right. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago why I exercise, I would have told you that it buys me the right to eat biscuits, to drink guilt free wine, it keeps me fit enough, and is a good example to the children. Truth. But not the whole truth. It’s taken me until now… 40 years into life’s crazy journey to really understand WHY I move, and what happens when I don’t. Three weeks ago I broke my ankle, not just broke but shattered it. An unfortunate accident with a skateboard and with the help of a hefty amount of metal, it will be fine. I try to keep perspective and remember how lucky I am – I don’t have to live with this forever.
I fight the guilt of feeling sorry for myself, guilt for my permanently disabled dad who lived and died with a body that didn’t work properly, guilt for the millions of people living with disability without hope of healing, guilt for people who suffer these injuries in parts of the world where they don’t have the medical care we have, who can’t get prescription painkillers to get through the day. But even with the voice in my ear telling me to be grateful JEEZ it’s hard! The reason it’s hard is not the pain, it’s not the inconvenience, it’s the NOT BEING ABLE TO MOVE! Of course I can hobble about and go out in the back of the car when somebody is kind enough to take me, but I can’t push my body until I feel it working hard. I can’t pull on a wetsuit and feel the freeze of the winter sea biting my face. I can’t get out of breath and feel my lungs burn. More than these physical sensations though are the emotional ones. I can’t escape when life/work/kids drives me crazy, I can’t step outside when I’m facing a problem and walk until I’ve confronted it, I can’t let the sea wash away my worries, I can’t run until that decision I have to make has been made and it’s hard. Suddenly the scales that keep me…well… me are wonky, the balance is wrong. My head is foggy, I’m more short tempered than normal, I can focus on nothing, working (I, conveniently, work from home) is like wading through PVA glue with skis on, I cry at the drop of a hat, laughing feels like quite hard work and things which normally don’t really matter to me suddenly matter too much.
My mental health has been affected by my accident as much, if not more than my body, and that has been a real shock and an amazing revelation in equal measure. Now I understand why I have to keep moving! Why I have to keep the small people moving! I am giving them (and myself) much more than a healthy body, I am giving them a healthy mind and the ability to cope. I suppose I’ve always known that, but now I REALLY know that, and I know too that I AM lucky. I have the luxury, even through my less-than-sharp brain, of perspective and of a future full of movement. Call me optimistic, but I’m expecting to swing back the other way in a few months and experience the mental agility of Einstein, and bounce and happiness the like of which is only experienced by Tigger.
Here’s hoping!
Guest Post by my lovely friend Abbie – wise words and I hope very much she is mended soon.
Compton Beach Isle of Wight
This wonderfully stylish online magazine suggests that Thalassotherapy – the ancient art of bathing in seaweed, is a remedy for all kinds of ills, aches and pains, sports injuries and softens the skin in the process. Toast Travels: Bathing in Seaweed has inspired me to harvest some of our local bounty, dry it and give it a try – before and after pictures to follow……
My daily work involves contact with many ground level food producers, farmers who farm well, produce a quality product in an ecologically sustainable and welfare friendly system. I’m constantly appalled by how little we English value our food and how negative our food culture. It’s a huge up hill battle to change these kinds of ingrained attitudes but it was heartening to discover the excellent Campaign For Real Farming website.
“We need a true food culture – people who truly appreciate what good food is, and are prepared to seek it out.”
Absolutely….
Finally something to dance to….. Johnny Flynn is one of my favourite artists. His folk inspired very English music echoes country life in times gone by and with this mix it catapults it very much into the present day. Country Mile is the song of the moment in my house.
Apple and Blackberry Cake (Image Courtesty of Anula’s Kitchen)
The English obsession with the weather is something of of a standing joke.
Wherever us British natives travel in the world, however halting our attempts to communicate, very often when our nationality is confirmed, the conversation changes to the weather, to descriptions of a country enveloped in Victorian London smog with grey, rain washed pavements and long days spent sitting forlorn staring through raindrop smeared glass.
Being woken this morning by the insistent thrum of heavy rain, it’s a reminder that summer is waning, giving way to Autumn. The hedges are thick with blackberries and there’s a certain joy in hunting out the waterproofs, collecting logs and starting to prepare for winter, cooking and eating with friends and slowing down after the frantic excitement of the Summer Holidays.
The weekend is a precious time – and a reminder that in slowing down a notch or two, it’s possible for even the most mundane trip to become something of an adventure Continue reading
The wry, wise humour of British Philosopher Alan Watts shines bright in this short film on the fruitlessness of striving to “get somewhere” and the beauty to be found in experiencing life as a dance rather than a race or a competition. Continue reading
The long summer holidays are drawing to a close and the countryside is changing, bathed in a soft, fading light and a certain still, calm, quiet lingers. Continue reading
Surfing I Surf Isle of Wight
For the last year or so, we’ve hosted travellers from all over the world, offering the use of the garden as a campsite, a warm shower or a spare bed if there happens to be one. It’s a kind of touring cyclist version of couch surfing – a reciprocal arrangement where you are invited to act as both host and guest, giver and recipient. Continue reading
I fight a constant battle, in my house, prising the children away from their preferred screen based entertainment and making some attempt to let them really experience life first hand. Continue reading
The Summer holidays in these parts bring evenings and early mornings spent on the beach, children wetsuit clad dipping in and out of the sea or wallowing in the muddy reed lined pools scattered through the lunar landscape of gradually subsiding grassland that clothes the lower cliff slopes. Continue reading
With Only One Life 