I have a new favourite word……………..’Coddiwomple’. Doesn’t that just sound lovely. Basically it’s a verb which means to ‘travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination’.
That’s just me! I’ve no idea where I’m going, but I’m purposefully marching on, laughing and smiling as I go! I’m ‘coddiwompling’ sounds so much more fun than I’m having a midlife crisis though doesn’t it. So this post is about this week’s coddiwompling and trying to achieve a better balance through exercise, sunshine and colour.
Even though in my head I’m still 21, I’ve been feeling exhausted and thought it was just too much running. I also keep waking up with the birds at 5:30am and can’t get back to sleep. But a blood test has revealed a very acute vitamin D deficiency. Quite common when you live in a place where it rains a lot, it’s dark in winter, you work all day in an office, and glorious sunshine is reserved for just 3 summer months…….despite the fact that when I’m not working I’m usually outside.
But every cloud has a silver lining, and in addition to my short-term medication to rectify this, the prescription is more sunshine, oily fish, and dairy. So I’ve interpreted that as book more holidays abroad where it’s sunny and eat unlimited ice cream and fish and chips…….all of which I won’t have a problem with.
So this weekend I’ve spent a lot of time in my garden getting my vitamin D as my garden is definitely one of my happy places when it’s sunny. I love this time of year and it got me thinking about colour and how that too can impact your actual balance. Now, when it comes to inside the house, I’m a bit of a believer in Feng Shui. I have lots of plants in the house (I love orchids), have a muted natural colour scheme, soft lighting, comfy furniture and I hate clutter.
But outside in the garden I just love colour and plants and it’s no surprise that my favourite colour is green, and this time of year the green is just so green when everything is new and fresh and just springing to life. I’ve been planting my pots, sorting my hanging baskets, growing my salad, herbs, potatoes, and doing some weeding (my least favourite bit). Now when it comes to flowers I like hot colours…..pink, orange and yellow and these colours, along with green, make me feel happy and vibrant. I must be naturally drawn to these bright, happy colours, and I do think colour influences how you feel, but I think it’s personal choice and is probably why we all have different favourite colours. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of blue in the house and garden…….it makes me feel cold and a bit sad even though I love the blue sky and sea. So I’m sure there is a right time and place for every colour in your life. Here are my favourite garden happy colours from this week.
Quite possibly my favourite plant in the whole of my garden this week, but it’s such a shame its flowers don’t last too long. The wisteria over my kitchen back door. I love it, and it smells gorgeous and makes hanging out my washing a pleasure.
Then this is possibly the prettiest corner of the garden this week, and I managed to sneak a little ‘on the way home from work’ trip to the garden centre to buy a new plant for my ever expanding collection!
Have you ever stopped to look at a flower in detail though? They are the most amazing things and some of them are just as pretty and amazing on the inside as they are on the outside. Just look at the inside of this Peony.
And then there are my pots and baskets, which all got their summer makeover last weekend. My basket and pots I get into trouble with every year by my Mother. They take quite a bit of watering and looking after. Every year, I do them, and then every year, I then disappear off for a large part of the summer delegating the watering duties to various family members! But at least when I’m here they look lovely!
It’s that time of year when you can start to be a little bit more self-sufficient too. I love to cook, and through the winter, I make do with those dried herb things in a jar as nothing grows in Yorkshire in the winter! But I’ve made use of some old white ceramic sinks and filled them with those herbs I use lots, and they taste so much better! You can grow them in absolutely anything that you can recycle.
I’d like to tell you I use the mint for cooking……..I do…….but it does find it’s way into the odd Mojito or two too!
So that’s what I’ve been busying myself with this week on a mission to increase my vitamin D intake. I’m sure there’s more to it scientifically, but in my simplistic terms, I definitely think that exercise, colour, and sunshine have a big impact on how you feel.
I do, however, still have an element of brain fog at the moment, and I’m doing some really stupid things, much to everyone’s amusement. Generally I am very efficient, organised and ‘with it’……..but not this week. On Tuesday morning I made my packed lunch for work, promptly put it in the kitchen fridge at home instead of my work bag and then spent 15 minutes of my lunch break at work looking for it when it was still at home. Then, on Thursday, I got a lovely message from my friend Kathryn, who was texting to check I was ok, because we’ve known each other since we were tiny and she knows how efficient I am. She said thanks for sending Oliver (her son) a birthday card, but it wasn’t his birthday, and I’d already sent him a card in March when it was. So poor Oliver S. whose birthday it was got no card and a grovelling apology 2 days after his birthday, and Oliver W has had two cards. We’ve had such a giggle about it, and I’m sure she’ll not let me forget, but at least I’m laughing about it.
I’ve even started a Monday night movement class for ladies of a certain age! Yes, seriously! I never thought it would come to this. I could do a whole post on this, and it really is a good laugh. Just picture it…..it’s a fantastic group of fun loving ladies around 50 years old, who do just over an hour of yoga and pilates aimed at women ‘coddiwompling’ along to their ‘second spring’ (as the yoga instructor calls it). I’m still stuck somewhere between autumn and winter at the moment, but nevermind, I’ll take her word for the fact that my second spring is on the way! We are all trying to balance our minds and bodies, avoid ‘bingo wings’ (Yorkshire for those flabby upper arms) and resist the urge to wee our pants when we laugh, so all our movements are tailored to achieving this. We have such a good laugh, and last Monday, I actually tied myself into a knot I could not get out of whilst getting cramp in my toes at the same time! So if you are young and reading this , this is what a night out looks like at 52! No, seriously, this is just Monday nights, there are still many nights that involve the odd tipple and other exciting things that would constitute growing old disgracefully, including a fast approaching Arctic Monkeys gig in two weeks which I’m so excited about but more on that later!
So if like me you are coddiwompling along and looking to boost your wellbeing I recommend rolling around on the floor at least one night a week tying yourself in a knot, gardening, sunshine, whatever colour takes your fancy and makes you feel good, fish and chips and ice cream. A little bit of them all, but not at the same time, and you will feel perfectly balanced.