Keeping fit during the festive period

LOL ! .... well it is Christmas

When growing up Boxing Day was traditionally the day for a family walk - no matter what the weather we'd all put on coats, shoes (boots) etc and out we would go. It was just family tradition.  

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Not wishing to put a downer on the post ... but seeing the poor folks up in Lancaster, Cumbria and other places where the rain just hasn't stopped and they have serious flooding, my heart goes out to them.

All the best Jan

We used to have Christmas dinner at munchtime and then go for a walk while the roads were more or less deserted. Oh that was meant to be lunchtime but I left the typo in for laughs.

Not this year though, it rained and blew. My heart goes out to them Oop North too. Graham and Derek, you OK? I was half expecting to see you drift by on a raft.

chris c wrote:We used to have Christmas dinner at munchtime and then go for a walk while the roads were more or less deserted. Oh that was meant to be lunchtime but I left the typo in for laughs.

Not this year though, it rained and blew. My heart goes out to them Oop North too. Graham and Derek, you OK? I was half expecting to see you drift by on a raft.

I like 'munchtime' glad you left that in ...

Christmas Dinner back when I was young, was always a lot earlier - say 12noon / 12.30 but in more recent years the family seem to eat later, sometimes not until 2.00pm 'ish. Perhaps with families further afield and travelling longer distances to meet up a later Christmas dinner helps ...

Now sometimes there is nothing like a walk before lunch and coming back to a lovely casserole cooking, especially on these duller winter days

All the best Jan

I once used heroic amounts of walking to keep my BG down while eating a full Christmas dinner, in stages.

Friends offered me the same this year, but I politely declined their offer. They didn't eat until about 4 as they took the dog for a walk earlier.

They currently have a freezer full of pheasants and partridges as he has been on several shoots. They prefer partridge, so I said I'd take some of the pheasants off their hands. It's a hard job but someone's got to do it!

I've been doing a few walks when the sun has shone and was half tempted to go on another today, but ended up in the garden with the secateurs hacking down virginia creeper and clematis and cutting back some of the roses which have STILL not stopped flowering.

"They currently have a freezer full of pheasants and partridges as he has been on several shoots. They prefer partridge, so I said I'd take some of the pheasants off their hands. It's a hard job but someone's got to do it!"

A friend of mine is into wild fowling on the Thames estuary. I love the fishing and shooting hunter gatherer concept. I have been considering getting a shot gun licence for some time, might just go for it in the New Year. Not that I would kill anything I would not eat and must be sustainable. Let's face it, when we buy game, meat or fish, we have paid someone to kill on our behalf.

This is something I have failed to get through to my vegetarian/vegan relatives: game and grazing animals are ecologically sound food sources as they pretty much look after themselves with minimal input. Many of our farmers leave their headlands for wildlife and walkers, and sow some cover crops for the game birds. OK they are given grants to do so, but they like their wildlife, especially the predators that keep the insects down cheaper than pesticides, and the pheasants and partridges give them some financial income too. All their crops require huge inputs of agrochemicals and diesel

There are hordes of deer in the woods and heaths - Fallow Deer and Sika like you get in the New Forest and also Red Deer. Not so many Roe Deer but masses of Muntjacs, and Chinese Water Deer in the marshes. The have no predators and few diseases so the only factor controlling their population is starvation, by which time they have done a lot of ecological damage. Shooting and then eating them keeps a viable and healthy population of deer, and of people too.

Likewise for the wildfowl in winter, we have huge populations of common ducks and geese, though shooting a rarity would be a Bad Thing.

chris c wrote:Not this year though, it rained and blew. My heart goes out to them Oop North too. Graham and Derek, you OK? I was half expecting to see you drift by on a raft.

It's not to bad at the moment I'm quite high up were I live apart from the village of Croston which has always had problems with flooding but never as bad or prolonged as this year.

I hear there could be problems further north from me heavy rain is forecast for the weekend