It’s actually stopped raining today. First day without any rain this week. Sort of explains really why yours truly has not ventured out much until today. It was like wuthering heights yesterday, rain, wind, fences blowing down, and on our way down to exercise class, I noted that one tree next to Hamish’s bungalow (well, its not his bungalow of course, seeing as he is a Westie dog, its where he lives with his owners) had been felled. In fact, they felled it this morning. I could hear the racket going on, but couldn’t nosey to see what was happening as the crab apple trees were obscuring my view from K’s bedroom window, so I had to be patient and wait until we ventured out down to exercise class later.
Enquiring in my usual nosey fashion of Hamish’s owner (don’t know his name) who just happened to be ‘loitering’ in the garden as we walked past, I learned that they ( they being the council) had considered the overhanging tree to be dangerous and therefore its had all of its branches removed. I will take a photo tomorrow as we pass by on our journey down to the doctors for K to have some blood taken to check her thyroid. I did take a photo of it some time back if I remember rightly, when I was focusing on the bird feeder in their garden. Hmm, must see if its still available in my collection, then you will see a ‘before and after’. It really looks quite bare now.
Exercise class was a very quiet affair, there were only eight of us this morning and that included the trainer herself. Most seem to be off on holiday, though I learned that one member had suffered a mild heart attack after exercising on the cross trainer in the corner, and I was told this news as I was using it, so I’ll give it a wide berth in future. Maybe we should place a ‘ use this cross trainer at your own risk’ notice across it. It always makes my legs ache anyway, I only have to be on it for a few minutes and I am beggared. Still, this exercise class is supposedly to help us all avoid having a heart attack by keeping ourselves fit, not giving us one!
And on that very subject, have any of my readers been watching ‘The Young One’s’ currently showing on BBC 1 and BBC HD? I have been recording it and it has given me much food for thought. The ‘experiment’ for that is exactly what it is, is to take several well known celebrities and ‘plunge’ them back into the seventies when they were obviously in their prime of fitness and agility in both mind and body, and to prove that age and growing old and feeble can truly be ‘all in the mind’ because the premise is that once they have ‘turned the clock back’ to that previous time, their lack of agility and mind will once again revert back to how it used to be, or that certainly they will become far more able at the end of the experiment compared to what they were when they began.
So far, it really has made a difference, and as a viewer I have been amazed at the change that has come over them during just a few days. The whole house has been decorated as it would be in the 70’s, to the last detail, they have to do everything for themselves, no one is carrying or fetching for them, and it really has been an absolute eye opener. As someone who feels that she has to fight and battle against the ever increasing tide of aging, arthritic knees, back ache, keeping my heart healthy by exercising etc, I am eager to see how they fare when the experiment ends at the end of this week.
If you haven’t had chance to watch it yet, do try and view it, it should be available via the BBC iPlayer at some time, and it really will give you food for thought about how we all treat our elderly population and how you yourself might tend to react to getting older. Which brings me smartly to the title of this blog post. Thirsty Thursday? What has that got to do with trees being felled, cross trainers and a television program? Well, we have planned to down a bottle of wine tonight as we settle down to watch ALIEN on my personal video recorder in glorious high definition and writing this blog post is very thirsty work!
TG
My physical therapy center has a machine similar to that one. I'm convinced it's there to ensure repeat customers.
ReplyDeleteThink ours is there to slowly wipe us all out! Either that, or keep the Cardiac Care unit busy...... (only joking Rocket Man)
ReplyDelete