Exercise! Me!

 

 15/7/22

In the last few years of my career, I returned to occupational therapy, working in the community advising people with impaired mobility on how to manage daily activities. Assessing sitting, standing and walking often involved crawling around the floor looking at a patient’s chair or bed and how they got out of it. Hauling myself up, by putting my hands on my knee to push myself off the ground, on too many occasions this elicited a response of ‘you alright love?’

Time to retire I thought and so I did. Then luxuriated for the best part of the following two years on the Costa Blanca enjoying the good life, followed by two years sitting on my backside knitting, during lockdown. All which did my back no good at all, walking up hills took way to much effort and my clothes were shrinking!

In those few years as an OT, my patients were mostly over 80. I observed that the seniors who responded best to rehab after a stroke or a fall were those who were slender and flexible, not just because they had the advantage of being fitter before their injury but also because they were much easier to handle by the therapists.

I realised that already I probably didn’t fall into this group and if I wanted to be an active octogenarian with a better chance recovery, if I did have a fall or stroke, I needed to take some action. Many of you know that I am not the slightest bit interested in sport, gyms are noisy smelly places, I believe dieting often does more harm than good and I love nothing more than baking a great cake and eating it. So, it is likely I would be resigned to life in my riser recliner watching back episodes of Pointless!

But… maybe not! I have always loved being outdoors, whether it be in my garden or in the countryside and I have managed to complete a few lengthy hikes not least, climbing Kilimanjaro when I was 50. I don’t think of walking in beautiful places as exercise but something that is awe inspiring and energising.  It was clear to me that this was my means to becoming fitter.

I had walked the last 100 km of the Portuguese Camino in 2018 with a friend, it was an immensely uplifting experience and left me wanting more. If I could do all of it, it would improve my physical health and it may be intensive enough to help me sustain some life changing practices which would enable me to walk into old age with my head held high and a rucksack on my back! Even better if I could also raise some money for MindSpace the charity where I volunteer.

 

You can find my Portuguese Caminho Go fund me page  at https://gofund.me/cac0e4d5

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