Category: Wellness

I was out by the old mill stream last Tuesday, trying to patch a section of dry stone wall that had given way after the heavy rains in November, when I realized my knees were protesting far more than they did back in my surveying days. It struck me then that most of the glossy […]

I was out near the old mill stone wall last Tuesday—the one that dates back to the mid-1840s, before the railway changed everything—when I found myself sitting there in a silence so thick you could almost lean against it. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of quiet you get after a heavy snowfall; it was that […]

I was standing in the aisle of the Co-op in Upper Slaughter last Tuesday, watching a young man stare at a punnet of organic raspberries as if they were gold bullion, when it hit me. We’ve been sold a lie that eating properly requires a specialist’s degree and a heavy wallet, but that’s just nonsense […]

I was sitting in the village hall last Tuesday, listening to a young man in a very sharp suit drone on about expensive wearable sensors and “bio-hacking” your way to health, and I nearly choked on my tea. It’s all a bit much, isn’t it? All this expensive gadgetry to tell you what your body […]

I was sitting in the Red Lion last Tuesday, watching a young man in a crisp linen shirt lecture his table about “mindful sobriety” and expensive, botanical-infused non-alcoholic spirits that cost more than a decent bottle of Bordeaux. It’s all a bit much, isn’t it? All that jargon and expensive kit doesn’t actually help when […]

I was out by the old flint wall behind the parish hall last Tuesday—the one we put up in ’84 after the frost took the previous boundary—when I felt that familiar, nagging itch in my chest. It wasn’t a medical emergency, just that old, hollow craving that makes you want to reach for a packet […]

I was standing in the changing rooms at the leisure centre last Tuesday—the same one built back in ’74, if memory serves—and I watched a man struggle with a brand-new, high-tech waterproof smartwatch that cost more than my first car. It struck me then how much nonsense is out there regarding how to start swimming […]

I was out by the old flint boundary wall last Tuesday—the one we put up back in ’94—trying to shift a few stones, when my right knee decided it had quite enough of my nonsense. It wasn’t a sharp pain, just that dull, heavy ache that tells you the weather is turning and your joints […]

I was out in the garden last Tuesday, trying to mend a section of the dry stone wall near the old granary—built, as I recall, around 1840—when I found myself squinting so hard at a loose coping stone that my head began to throb. It wasn’t the sun, though it was bright enough, and it […]

I was out near the old flint boundary on Sunday, trying to mend a section of wall that’s been leaning since the Great Storm of 1987, when I realized I’d made a right mess of things. My head was thumping like a hammer on a joist, and my joints felt like they’d been filled with […]