What an extraordinary thing it was: to self-isolate for all those weeks; no exercise classes, no yoga and keeping 2 metres apart if one ventured beyond one’s own door.
I have never been fond of spending too much time within my own four walls and when I realised the Abbey Gardens were virtually deserted, I began to spend up to an hour each morning walking in that green and lovely place.
With no one to see me I could swing my arms around; do my squats and thrusts with the aid of the bridge rails and generally limber up in the fresh, pollution free air.
Ducks left the water to sun themselves on the grass. Robins, Jackdaws, pigeons and Squirrels reclaimed their lost world to roam freely about the gardens and I began to carry bags of seeds, raisins and cooked rice for the birds, with nuts for the Squirrels; very soon the latter were climbing all over me in search of a nutty breakfast.
This morning idyll came to an end with the easing of lockdown. I continued my morning walks but exercised, more or less successfully at home, until in some mysterious way I developed a frozen shoulder. Fortunately, Fate and the Internet led me to The Winchester Wellness Clinic, where the slender but mighty Lucy very soon got to work and unfroze my shoulder…Painless? umm… Soothing? umm…Successful? Oh, yes – 100%.
Which just proves that whether you are 19 or 90, with some hard work on both sides, those joints can still keep moving, even after the long weeks of lock-down.
Eve, 92.
