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Housebound and Votes for Women

Sunday, 25 February, 2018

Its been a mad few weeks. I was housebound with either a  mild flu or a nasty chest virus. After a week, I went out to an event at the Hackney Museum — Making Her Mark: 100 years of women’s activism.  Not feeling as well as I’d hoped, I didn’t take a lot of time in the exhibition and managed to sit through a presentation called Radical Portraiture, which examined various portraits of women involved in the early days of feminism – a movement which has strong roots in Hackney. All of this led to women finally getting the vote. Apparently, there were many years before that where a large percentage of men couldn’t vote either – it was considered a privilege only for the upper classes of Britain. I plan to go back and look more closely at the exhibit and visit some of the other events during Women’s History Month (March 2018) – it’s the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave the vote to some women for the very first time.

Some of the exhibit at Hackney Museum
Some of the exhibit at Hackney Museum

I had booked a table at the new Brook vegan restaurant for Lisa and me. We ordered four dishes, two of which I quite liked. I’m not a keen fan of veganism – in this case there was a little bit too much deep frying. I think the brunch menu might be better, with some fresher, more salady options!

Our ‘tapas’ meal at Brook – my favourite was the squash crostini

I really wasn’t well enough to be out yet but it was a welcome change from my housebound existence since this started. I no sooner began to feel more myself than Krish got sick too. What a crazy month for the two of us!

Being sick did mean I was home a lot and I made a new doll and a Valentine’s heart for Krish.

Two sides of a Valentine's heart
Two sides of a Valentine’s heart
My newest doll is a study in orange and purple - love that combination
My newest doll is a study in orange and purple – love that combination

I had two events this month that I wanted to be well enough to attend. The first was an assessment day for a new volunteer position with Bump Buddies I’m considering becoming a mentor and, when trained, Ill be paired with a mother-to-be, who is in need of extra support. I’m not sure how I will feel during the training. My knowledge is pretty strong but needs a bit of brushing up. Also I have zero clue about the experience of pregnancy or childbirth in the UK. Localising what I already know will be my biggest challenge, and that includes finding some humility, as well as learning to listen and adapt what I know to this new environment.

The assessment day went pretty well and I’ll be going every Wednesday and Thursday until 15 March for a four to five hour session each day. A bit daunting. I was probably thirty years older than the oldest person in the new mentor group so fitting in will be the other challenge.

My other event was Esmeralda finally making it back to the UK after being away for fourteen years. We spent part of Thursday and part of Saturday together, exploring a little. I’ll save that for the next blog post.

 

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Walking resolution

Monday, 29 January, 2018

(Guess what? No photos!)

I love walking, especially if I can build in some new sights or I have a goal at the end. As an agoraphobic person, there were years I couldn’t get very far. I’m still far better if I take along my camera or phone for taking photos, or if I plug into the radio – I prefer talk radio over music, though. Best of all is radio drama! I wish I liked audiobooks more – I think it takes a while to get used to listening to a book rather than reading it but I may try that again soon.

Back in 1990 or so, I joined a class where we learned to eat less and move more – back then it was a bit novel to say that! We learned about food and we spent an hour exercising – it was mostly Latin dancing (our leader was a champion Latin dancer) and I loved it. I never missed a class. On our days off, we walked by ourselves. Half an hour of target heartrate walking, minimum. It was fantastic. Sometimes I’d get so energetic, I felt like running instead.

So a while later I took a running clinic at the Running Room in Toronto. I was very keen and went every week without fail. I wasn’t the fattest person in the class but I was certainly the oldest by many years. I didn’t give up. And then I had to.

They had a great system of one minute walk, one minute run, rinse and repeat, adding a minute or more run to each segment as we gained strength and experience. But it hurt. Every time. Nothing stopped the pain, not stretching, not time, nothing. As well, I’d overheat. I dressed as lightly as possible and even invested in one of those cooling gel headbands. These helped but didn’t elminate how hot I’d get – hot enough that occasionally I’d retch.

So I went to see a sports medicine therapist. She told me I had shin splints, acute tendonitis. Her advice? Don’t run. I was devastated. From now on walk, she said.

So I switched to the Walking Clinic. We eased up to 5k walks and then to 10. Then the pain and the heat smothered me again. Back to the sports medicine clinic. And again I was told not to walk either and to work up to a maximum of one kilometer.

Still, I walked. Five, ten, more kilometers. I rarely took a bus. If I knew where it was, I just walked there. And then I got arthritis in my knees. It started with feeling uncomfortable climbing up or down the stairs at Robin’s apartment. I didn’t think much of it until the doctor confirmed that I had arthritis and that it would continue to worsen.

On top of the arthritis, on a particularly tough walk one day I had even worse pain than usual. This continued for a few weeks until I was out with a friend and suddenly couldn’t step down from the coffee shop stall I was sitting on. An ambulance finally arrived to take me to the hospital A&E, where they told me I had torn my meniscus and gave me crutches.

I’m going to skip the details, although those are also clear in my mind.

My knee healed, I walked with a cane for ages. I had no confidence but one day I tossed it aside when another therapist suggested I try weaning myself of it. Now I can walk about 5k in all, as long as I have a nice break in there somewhere, sometimes two or three breaks 🙂

So starting with late last week I’m walking a minimum half an hour a day again. It’s a bit more casual than it was back in my Latin dance days and I stop to take a photo or ten along the way but it’s a good resolution! And it makes for a good photo walk blog entry too.