Wake-Up Call!

I was hunched over, dripping sweat, and literally thought I was going to throw up. What is this all about??

We’re housesitting for a friend in Sunnyvale, and while we’re here, we’re happy to do some general maintenance on the house, garden and cars. There’s an old raised-bed in the back of the garden, and our friend wanted it demolished and tidied-up. Chris took out the rotting support boards, and I said I’d dig out the earth and spread it around. It’s summer in California, and this isn’t earth, it’s rock hard concrete! Took a pickax to it, heaving, swinging, breaking up great clods of dirt! I’ve been at it for parts of two days now, and I keep having to take rests.

I’ve never been very sporty, bad hand/eye coordination, not much of a team player, not a runner. But I did get into weight-lifting in my twenties, long before it was trendy, and I’ve continued that (yeah ok, off and on!) until we sold up and left San Jose nearly two years ago. I used to do pretty heavy gardening, all day long. We do hike a bit, we walk around cities, I’ve borrowed bicycles in various places, but basically I’m a lazy sod, and I know it!

But getting back into hard gardening has shown me that in the immortal words of whoever first said it: “use it or lose it!!” I’m going to be 60 next birthday, and this has shown me that I really have to get my act together, and start walking regularly, and using the resistance band that is stuffed down in the bottom of my suitcase!

Wake up, get moving!

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