Cold Showers, Kefir and Early Morning Walks

A new series of Michael Moseley's Just One Thing started on Radio 4 a few weeks ago, not long  before he met his tragic end on a Greek Island. I usually hear at least the beginning because it comes on straight after More or Less which we listen to before we get up (late rising Wednesday we call it) and then I get dressed to Just One Thing. I'd been thinking for  awhile that it might be fun to try and do some of the Just One Things; go back to the beginning, listen to the first one, see if I could incorporate it into my life and then after a week listen to the next one and try incorporating that one as well, and so on, I have often been heard to remark that if you did all the just one things you wouldn't have any time to live life, but it seemed like a Good and Fun Thing to Try so I did. 

The first one was early morning walks and I didn't do too badly with this. Early morning apparently means 'in the two hours after breakfast', so I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to do it and courtesy of a new audio book (Jodi Taylor's The Good The Bad and The History, which I absolutely forbade myself to listen to at any other time of day I got off to a flying start. This one was going to be a fixture I told myself. And then the rain came. And it didn't; go away. And while I am reasonably happy to walk in winds that aren't tornado speed, or the cold - it's not as though I don't have a ton of knitted accessories to keep me warm, I draw the line at walking in the wet. So I managed four days of that before Showerageddon, and I have fitted in the occasional one since. If the weather stays OK I shall pick it up again shortly. 

The second one was eating fermented foods and the easiest one seemed to be kefir, i.e. fermented yoghurt, although I was fairly convinced that  we weren't going to be able to source this in Orkney. However I was doing the place a disservice, because the Kirkwall Tesco not only had kefir but they even had it in an appealing flavour, mango and passionfruit. So we bought that, four tubs in a pack and the day after we bought it I ate a tub of it. The day after that was not nice. I don't want to be too graphic here, but if you Google something like 'side effects of kefir' and then bear in mind that I suffered all of them you will get the picture. Doctor Google did tell me that if I persevered the side effects would wear off, but I wasn't prepared to put up with them and how they made me feel for however long it took them to wear off for the doubtful health benefits that might ultimately accrue. 

Number three, which I must admit I haven't actually listened to yet is cold showers. I have seen that it is  cold showers and I honestly don't think I can go there. Having said that for my last three I have turned down the temperature at the end of the shower, not to cold exactly but certainly to 'gosh is there any warmth in this water?' levels for the last 30 or 40 seconds. Michael Moseley is not the first person I have heard extolling the benefits of the cold shower so I expect I will listen to the  program in a while  and then see if I am brave enough....

Meanwhile here are a few flower pictures that I took on yesterday's not-so-early-but-definitely-between-breakfast-and-lunch walk.