Only as old as you feel.......

The Cottage....... it is small, as is the manner of most cottages. It is not an ancient cottage, but nevertheless quite old, and built for long ago people who were much smaller in stature than us folk of today, and therein lies a difficulty with certain parts of the house.

We have stairs in the cottage. I haven't 'done' stairs for thirteen years, because the French farmhouse we were renovating remained unrenovated upstairs because the downstairs was big enough to live in. A loo, of course, was the first thing we included in the renovation. But over the years my legs forgot that they could climb stairs, and became lazy.

The loo is upstairs in the cottage.  We don't have a handy downstairs loo, for when things are of an urgent nature. Instead we have to climb quite steep stairs, therefore we can't linger until the last moment but must be alert to the warning signals of an imminent 'call of nature'.

So......what would you do if you were me, and your legs have become lazy?

Well, you could always get a porta potty and put it in the downstairs larder, but it is quite a small space, and the brooms and boots underfoot, and the coats hanging over head, would make it impossible to be comfortable.
Or you could see the stairs as a challenge, and put it to your legs that this is something which will benefit them, even if at first they don't agree, after all it is easier to be lazy is it not?

The good thing is that the stairs have two hand rails, one each side of the staircase, therefore the arms can also be put into use, which is a good thing as the upper arms in particular also need to be pulled out of their laziness and put to useful purpose. 

My legs, my arms, and myself, were not much of a team in the beginning, and if had not been for the need of that loo I would have probably let the Stair Project be put on hold until my next lifetime came around. It was the call of that loo, and even the urgency when I had dallied too long downstairs that kept me engaged with the Stair Project.

Four weeks on and today I have just managed to go up those stairs with a good stride, and no need to hold on to the banisters, and with not much heavy breathing.  Coming down, I still hold on because of the steepness of the stairs but my legs feel more secure in themselves.

Hooray! I'm on the move again! Now the next Project is getting me walking again. I have just had a look at the 'Shropshire's Great Outdoors'  and the 'Ordnance Survey Maps' websites and I have been filled with an enthusiasm to get some walking boots and 'let's go do'........ France doesn't have footpath trails, and they were the first things I missed when I arrived at the farm.

But I wouldn't be able to do much mileage on my legs as they are at the moment, but I can do a 'round the village' circuit, although I do have to stop now and again when my body complains. I have only just started the 'Walk the Village Project' because I needed the Stair Project to get my legs moving again. I also have another project on the go, which is getting up and down off the floor, but that is for another day.

France was a lovely place to live in, and the experience of living a farm life for a while was the best ever, but after the 2017 health blip I had I seemed to not have recovered as much as I should have. It would seem that changing my life direction has woken me up to the fact that you are as old as you feel, no matter how old you actually are.

Bye for now,
Vx