Oh winter you’re totally like that ex-life partner I’m still friends with because (a) we either share a child or (b) he’s now dating my best friend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying come back, I made a mistake - I really do love you or anything to that effect, but more thanks for the not so bad times & (with a deep sigh) I’ll see you again in a year or so (probably sooner, but preferably later if you can).
On reflection Winter 2010 wasn’t all bad, in fact it wasn’t half bad at all. Sure my favourite garden city mostly crumbled with one whooper of a earthquake & I spent a lot of time in head-to-toe heavily layered garb, rather than cut-offs and my growing collecting of outside/inside bralets. However, we can’t really blame winter for either of these unfortunate predicaments but rather over stimulated tectonics & an online obsession with shopping in other continents.
So as the cold subsides and winter casts the odd longing glance over its shoulder, I realize the biggest highlight for me was that I didn’t get sick – not once. I felt half a dozen tight throats, sore bones & light sniffles coming on but within a few hours of their initial detection, gone I tell you – GONE! Yet I still write this with superstitious caution. I’m not silly, I just don’t believe in tempting fate so I’ve taken the necessary precautions & nervously cuddle / kick / clutched random wooden surfaces about the house. I’ve even made sure I write this with my laptop on the dining table (excessive I know) but here's the thing I haven’t actually uttered these words aloud & I this is where I think it counts.
Superstition aside, I’m free to explore the science of the matter. You see, this winter I did things a little differently. I embraced known super-foods in search of Superhuman resistance to deadly disease, and or the common flu. What I found was this: olive leaf extract, fresh lemon juice, whole garlic cloves & organic honey really do work wonders. In addition I took the odd supplement, pretty much tripled my vitamin C dosage (not entirely recommended) and whilst spirulina smoothies & beetroot juice didn’t exactly replace my morning coffee, I failed to get the flu. Pretty much everything else was bad bad bad. I periodically binged on tequila, stayed out late now & then and developed a life threatening preoccupation with late night baking with consumption drastically disproportionate to the size of my hand. But whilst my partner got a shot of the flu vaccine & felt like crap for several days I dosed up daily on the above, smirked into my bowl of Chinese wolf berries & exercised.
Oh exercise, you seductive you! Until recently gyms were a foreign notion. But what the body wanted, the body got & need I mention the body wanted it baaad. After three dedicated weeks of Step classes, Combat (kick boxing & tai chi hybrid)/ Yoga & light weights my limbs were finally broken in & my heart, I believe, working mostly as it should. No more puffing as I approached the letterbox, conscious I’ve only taken forty odd steps on a subtle incline already pushed for breath.
At thirty something I have no more excuses. I’m not getting any younger but am attempting rather, to preserve what youth I have. Regular doses of bitter, mostly foul tasting lipids & group exercise (the only thing that motivates me) certainly hasn’t transformed me back into a teenage girl but nor has it aged me overnight. My skin (mostly) glows & my limbs don’t sound like an old screen door. I’m happy because for the first time in six years sex has less of that old haunted house soundtrack and winter, well winter has informed me he's moving out of town for a bit.
