Women talk a lot about the menopause lately, which is good, I guess. However, I am noticing a distinct pathologising of a biological process which doesn’t need to be much more than ‘now you can’t naturally have a baby’. And ‘hurrah, no more periods to deal with!’ I went into menopause when I was 39 or 40, so I’ve been menopausal for nigh on a decade. After the initial shock of mortality, I can’t say I have experienced any particular issues as a part of menopause. Aside from the cessation of my periods, I have never had any of the symptoms listed on the NHS page for menopause. (Or, to be more specific, I’ve never had them as a consequence of menopause.) I suppose the biggest symptom I have had, is a general feeling of gratitude to be rid of something which was always superfluous to requirements: I have never needed
Yeah so, walking: I love it. It’s like having a mini-holiday every Saturday. I spend all week thinking about and planning the next walks. I don’t care if it is rain or shine, I get off that train somewhere near trees and don’t stop grinning until I approach the train home. At which point I start sobbing uncontrollably… ? I want to walk for a job but I am not sure who would pay me to wander around the countryside overflowing with joy and muttering about how much I love this or that tree or view. If you know of this job, please let me know. I’m eminently qualified. In the meantime, it occurred to me that I could bring my walks into my week by writing about them. I am an habitual photo-taker, which is like a photographer but with only occasional talent. So my new writing project is to
I’ve decided to move into 2015 and start my own monthly newsletter. You can sign up here. It will contain synopses of the previous month’s posts, links to three things I currently love (1 book, 1 piece of music, and one ‘thing’), and also a quote which has enchanted me. You can thank me later. Other people would probably just share these things by social media, but I’m obstinate like that. ?
On this week’s edition of Tank’s Continuing Dietary Adventures, I have good news to report. I mentioned back in September that I had started a strict ketogenic diet, as my HbA1c result still had not improved. I made the switch to keto on August 21st and by 1st September, my long-term (i.e. over a year) achilles tendinpathy had resolved itself. I can now run, jump, do the boingy-boingy exercise, and so forth, with no issues whatsoever. Unexpected win one for the ketogenic diet! (I haven’t actually had my blood glucose tested again, but I assume that’s fine now.) Another unexpected positive result relates to my neutrophils (a type of white blood cell). These have been on a downward spiral since at least 2015 when they were 1.8; by August 2023, they were down to 1.25 (the reference range is: 2 – 7.5 x 10^9/L). I just had them retested and they
I went into my garden this morning to sow some wildflower seeds that I have gathered over the summer, and found this forest of mushrooms fruiting. There were loads all over the place, and it made me feel quite happy. It prompted me to post some pictures of the cool mushrooms I have seen these last few weeks on my hikes. I am still obsessed with hiking. I am doing around 20km every weekend and don’t know how I lived my life without this practice. I finally know what I want to be when I grow up: a woman who walks in the woods. I have been walking alone, in the main. I realised that group walks are not for me the day that I was in the New Forest and the people ahead of me had squashed a large amount of stag beetles as they walked and talked. No one