Retirement activity and the great outdoors have always gone hand in hand for us. Well, that’s slightly over-egging the pudding, as they say, but it’s true in the sense that we walk the dogs every day. Two walks that is for a total of between an hour and a half and two hours. Prior to our retiring we had cats because they didn’t mind being left in the house all day. Our sense was they positively preferred it.
So not in the sense of striding out across the hills and valleys muttering Heathcliffe, with the wind blowing in our hair, not that I have any hair to blow in but Mrs Summerhouse has some but, as I say, not much blowing of hair in our walks.
So modest walks or perhaps more properly described as strolls (at least that’s how my diabetic nurse (the one who went to Alaska and came back to help out) disparagingly describes them. So, although we don’t set out to try and raise our heart rates, as is supposedly necessary, we do keep moving.
And in fact I heard the other day that just moving was enough without the raised heart rate. I knew if I waited long enough contradictory research would come along. It always does. But then recently two sources from the media reinforced my view that physically we were doing OK where out of doors exercise was concerned.
And then there’s the mental side of things. I’m not sure I’d describe dog-walking as relaxing or even anxiety-reducing, not with our two anyway. Constantly throwing and retrieving (i.e finding the bloody thing in the under-growth) the ball isn’t easy going but it certainly takes our minds of any worries we might have that day. But back to the good side of mental and those media sources
The first media source was a TV programme entitled Winter Walks. We obviously missed the first series but stumbled across the second series when looking at what was available on our Sky Box. It’s a great idea for a late afternoon TV watch, one that you don’t feel too moronic watching it. Not quite educational but close.
It’s simply one person walking through Yorkshire country landscapes in the winter (although the picture above is clearly taken in summer). They have a 360 degree camera (obvious what it does I suppose) and a drone camera (it’s not however at all obvious how the drone is operating) for some fabulous aerial shots. Simple.
Anyway that’s not the point. What is, is that all the walkers (we’ve watched about 5 so far), ramble on a bit and spend a lot of their time talking about the benefits of walking on their mental health. The first programme we watched was of Alistair Campbell (Tony Blair’s press secretary / adviser back in the day) and a man who suffers greatly from depression.
Whether they’ve been told to emphasise these benefits I don’t know but they make a very good case for getting outdoors and walking, admittedly through some magnificent scenery, although I confess we’re a bit biased when it comes to the Yorkshire Dales where our vineyard / barn is located. I don’t know whether they’re all set in Yorkshire but if we keep watching no doubt we will find out.
The second media source was this weekend’s newspapers. In this case The Guardian and an article about the benefits to a person’s mental health again, this time of walking among trees. The headline was, Mental health benefits of a walk in woods saves the NHS and the economy millions.
I wouldn’t say that the whole of any of our several walks is totally in the woods but each one has some woodland element. So for us walking in the wood works well – mostly. Well, providing we don’t trip over the roots hidden by the now soggy autumn leaves or get set upon by a pack of rabid squirrels.
Even so we must save the country a few quid with our efforts. Unless we break our silly, elderly necks of course. And the downside of woods is that they’re made up of trees and the air ambulance can’t land. Given that they’re helicopters they don’t seem to do hovering, too difficult to winch the patient up. But then in a financial context that may be as well. I suppose from a financial point of view breaking our necks would be much cheaper than say breaking a leg. And the winching up would be easier I suppose. But I digress.
I’m never quite sure how they get these figures (about the savings to be made) but never mind it must be true if it’s in the Guardian. Unlike politicians they don’t lie. So when I read a little later in the article that ‘the government is committed to increase tree planting to 30,000 hectares a year by 2024’, I’m deeply suspicious. And sure enough a little further on it says that ‘last year only 13,300 hectares were planted’, then the natural order of political truths is restored.
But then this retirement blog is about the more positive side of retirement on this planet so I’ll return to the benefits of walking to both physical and mental health. Although not the nation’s finances if we should have an accident. But looking on the bright side again there is no doubt that walking has been good for our retirement. True with accidents always possible it’s debatable whether it extends or shortens our retirement lives. Watch this space.
Retirement activity blog summary
I’m doing this again to see what happens to my SEO ranking. As always the retirement blog is difficult to summarise. It started out as being about physical and mental health and ended up as referencing the financial pros and cons of the Air Ambulance service but then we did raise money for them when we gave our wine away and asked for a donation in our local Dales pub. So…