posted by Neil
It's snowing again. We've had a foot of snow so far today. This is the kind of thing we would regard as a Real Snowstorm if we hadn't the 22 inch snowfall in 24 hours in December. I just went out at midnight and shovelled the path to my house, then I galumphed through the snowdrifts with the dogs and shovelled next door, because I was feeling virtuous.The dogs have done their part by sitting exactly wherever I needed to shovel next.
I figured the exercise was a good thing, too.
A few people wrote in and asked whether the fact that I have a wife now who is 15 years younger than me has anything to do with the exercise/eating healthy/shedding weight thing. And of course it does, but not in the way you might imagine.
She liked me just fine the way I was. (We'd been together for two years, after all.)
But definitely one of the factors involved was that while I was in Australia I started thinking a lot about how I really like this being married, and how much I like being with Amanda, and how I want it to go on as long as possible. Which took me to the point of realising that I owe it to her and to me to be in the best shape I can be in twenty five years' time. As I said in that last post, my grandfathers were both infirm old men when they died. And they were in their early seventies. My father was in great shape when he died in his mid-seventies (well, in great shape up until his heart stopped beating, anyway). He exercised. They didn't. They would have stared at you, puzzled, if you'd suggested it.
When I got back from Australia I read a bunch of books on living better longer, which all said pretty much the same thing (Eat more vegetables! Exercise! Eat less rubbish and did we mention the vegetables? And honestly, we weren't kidding about the exercise!) And it became very apparent from all the reading that being in good shape in twenty-five years from today has to start with changing things now, and that there was no magic pill I could take that would do any of it for me.
I figure it's an investment in quality of life. And while I could obviously still spontaneously combust, crash a car or be eaten by space-goats in that time, I cannot see any downside to getting as healthy as I can right now and staying that way as long as I can.
Also, as a side-effect of exercising, I'm getting to listen to Hugh Dickson read Bleak House, which is keeping me listening, and, more importantly, keeping me exercising. (It's interesting: I realised that I listen to things in a different way to the way I would read them. I was listening to Chapter Ten today when I noticed that the alternate, third person chapters are all in the present tense, something I would have spotted long time ago if I were looking at the words on the paper.)
And as a secondary side-effect, I get to wear jeans that have been too small for me and unworn for so long that they have now become Vintage Clothing.
While out exercising (well, walking the dogs. I tried running in the snow, but it was over ice, and I fell down a lot)I tried to get a photo of the lamppost, shining in the woods in a snowstorm, but the cameraphone camera was not quite up to it, and the wind was whipping the snow around. So the best I got was this:
0 Comments on Snow. And the Holly Naming Conversation Redux as of 2/21/2011 2:09:00 AM
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