How to prolong your life

I read somewhere that there is a method of finding out how long you have left to live. I think it was the website of the British Heart Foundation.

(I was visiting the site as I did have to call out the local firemen once a couple of years ago. But refused the ambulance as it was time for the football results)

All you need to do is:
Raise one leg from the ground with the knee bent and (standing on the other leg) close your eyes. Hold the position for as long as you can and time how long it lasted.

Ideally you, the reader, should now stand up and try it .........to fully understand what follows.

My first attempts were unrecordable. I didn't have time to check how long I lasted in that position.
Instantaneous collapse forced me to open my eyes. Estimated period 0.5 seconds. I was thinking that I didn't have a future.

Apparently with a time of 30 seconds you have a great future.

Anyway in a week I have built up to 3 seconds and so already have 600% more life left in me than last week.
I am going to cut out regular walks and practice the new routine for even better results.

And a longer life?

The end

Memory update

                                    

Today, 28th August, 2015
I find that the names of the flowers in the garden are an acid test - which can leave a nasty space in your head sometimes. I often cannot recall the name of a particular flower: its ordinary name, not the Latin one - which I would not have known.

However, I can recover the name eventually if I wait long enough and do not hassle myself about it. There is a really tall flower at the top of the garden, it grows higher than the 1.5 metre wall just behind it. Today is Friday 28th August and its name is .....(cannot recall)...........

I will write its name here in red.....HOLLYHOCK..and also the date when I recall it ..SAME DAY, 30 MINUTES LATER..........
(It's something like 'Longjohn' ...NO, NO, NO IT'S HOLLYHOCK

The end

The lost lines

English: Bude castle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: shows Bude Haven from the top gates of the sea lock. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I went to Bude. I had wanted to go for some time. It was a sunny, warm day and leaving the A30 there was a huge loaded truck in front of us on the narrow road northwards through Devon and onwards towards the Cornish coast. What a speed he went, the truck driver! The only time any of us in vehicles behind him were held back was on a very long hill. Eventually he chose a different route while I ploughed on to my destination with other holiday visitors to the seaside.

The town was quietly busy at 12 noon. I got into a beach car park and fortunately found a way out. A parking place in a street near a bank seemed a good idea. A short walk and a coffee, then it was time for an early lunch at the Falcon Hotel.

There was no sign of the missing lines.

Can anyone help me find them? The finishing lines of the limerick:

"There was a young lady from Bude,
Who went to the flicks in the nude ...."?

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A hot day in Paris, Sunday 8 June, 2014

English: Jem Mace Русский: Джеймс Мэйс, известный обычно как Джем Мэйс или «Джипси» Мэйс (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rafa Nadal won his 9th French Open title in 4 sets in a match which drained the stamina of both men. His opponent, Djokovic, was the other man. Running to make returns was sometimes avoided when the energy loss in making a difficult return was not worth it. Both players did this.

In the 4th set Djokovic must have wanted both to win the French Open and not want to play a 5th set to do so. Maybe this was a clinching psychological dilemma which led to him losing the match in the 4th set.

Neither of them ate any bananas which might have helped with their energy.

The contest reminded me of reading about the stamina-sapping bareknuckle fights of old.* They went on until one of the pair could not get up from the ground to confront his opponent.

The two tennis finalists were at least able to make speeches, receive cheques and walk off the court unaided.


*Jem Mace, from Norfolk, in the 19th century fought in the USA and Australia after becoming famous in his own country at this illegal sport. 

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Five years without one.

Bananen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was a child during the 2nd World War* and lived in the north-east of England far from the warfare. The shortage of food in the UK was an effect felt by all, and the rationing of it by an allotment of coupons to families was a great administrative feat. But, of course, the only food available was produced within our shores.

Bananas, of course, do not grow in the latitudes occupied by the British Isles so for 5 years we didn't even see any. I can remember the day that bananas arrived back in our village. My pal, John Atkinson, was the son of parents who kept one of the two general stores in the village. I went to call on John at the back door of the house and shop. He came out to join me in the back yard with this unfamiliar fruit and announced that it was his 12th that morning. I used to believe everything told to me in those days but I made an exception in this case. Anyway my disbelief probably helped me to savour my first banana for 5 years when John went back into the house and came out again with one of the yellow-skinned monsters for me. And another for himself.

Green tea (matcha) ice-cream with red bean. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ice cream also went missing for 5 years but for a different reason. Its ingredients were needed for more vital foodstuffs than ice cream cones. The ice cream van did keep the memory alive by coming to the village on Sundays with the well-remembered chimes that carried indoors to alert everyone. But a cone full of red jelly was not nearly good enough to replace the real thing that we kids remembered and yearned for.

I do not recall my first taste of ice cream when it was available again. The bananas I do!

*Memories of the war years were stirred by the current D-Day 70 years Remembrance ceremonies in  Normandy.

My friend the Johnson's Blue

English: Geranium 'Johnson's Blue' Deutsch: Geranium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the huge expanse of plants for sale, outdoors at the rear of Trago Mills I found them. Last seen in my garden in London and first discovered in the RHS garden south of London at Wisley, the Johnson's Blue Geranium (Cranesbill) is my favourite plant that flowers. When I first saw it many years ago I was surprised because I had thought that blue flowers on a geranium were unlikely. Not at all like the red geraniums in window boxes in Spain.


(But I still have not found the Lost Bananas)

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How are you today?

English: Royal National Institute of Blind People , 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE . Corner with Hastings Street. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The young woman was facing us, my wife and I, as we entered Tesco. She asked my wife:
How are you today?
Doing anything interesting?
What's your name?

We were both a bit stunned for a second by the demand for so much information from a complete stranger. We accepted her handout about the RNIB.

"I've lost my bananas," I said.

The girl's face dealt with this information and I'm sure she was just about to offer to help me find them. We hurried out of earshot.

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