Survival of the fittest

I'm not a very sporty person. I hated sport at school, always tried to be goalkeeper in hockey so I wouldn't have too much running around to do and loathed gym with a passion. I mean, what is the point of climbing up ropes or springing over a horse? I was mediocre in tennis and netball and didn't mind a bit of trampolining, but that was the extent of my sportiness. I can't even swim or ride a bike, not having been taught to as a child. 

As an adult, I avoided sport like the plague. I avoided doing it AND watching it. Whereas most people go mad over Wimbledon fortnight (which takes place a short tram-ride from where I Iive), I cannot bear it and get annoyed with the endless coverage on TV. I might watch the occasional football match if it has some historic significance, but even that leaves me with half an eye on the TV doing something else. I hate the Olympic coverage and, as to why footballers earn vast sums of money just to kick a ball about, escapes me (and not always perfectly into the goal in my view, given that is what they are paid to do).

Thus it may surprise you to know that in my seventies I have taken up going to the gym. By accident I might add, but nevertheless. Just before the arrival of Covid, I had some blood tests that showed I was too close to being diabetic. Not quite over the threshold to require medication, but nevertheless close, unless I diverted it. My doctor advised me to join the gym where I would get 12 free sessions, courtesy of the National Health Service. This I duly did and found I actually liked the treadmills and bikes with their computer screens and analysis of my progress. After the 12 sessions, the statistics showed I had toned muscles, lost some fat, my bloods were showing a more acceptable glucose reading and I was no longer pre-diabetic.

Of course, the gym jumped on the opportunity to offer me a senior citizen membership. For something like £38 a month I had the choice of use of the gym equipment and swimming pool whenever I wanted, as well as hundreds of exercise classes a week. There is so much to choose from - pilates, yoga, keep fit, strength and stability, zumba, line dancing, body pump, group cycle class, weightlifting and much more.

Because of timing and parking restrictions near the gym, I have narrowed my classes down to three keep-fit classes a week. One on Monday which is relatively gentle and which I usually precede with an hour in the gym on equipment. The other two are back-to-back classes on a Wednesday. I call these my manic classes. They are advertised as for the 'Over 60s', but i think the Wednesday instructor has not got the memo and thinks we are 'Over 16s'. I call them my Manic classes. Another lady calls them her survival classes. I think you can deduce from that how exhausting those classes are. The Instructor is a lovely lady of Caribbean origin and she always gets cheers of approval when she enters the class. She plays beaty music such as Bob Marley, Michael Jackson or Soul Sisters and we have to keep up the intensity for about 45 minutes. I love her classes as she is so full of enthusiasm and cheers us on.  We leave the class dripping in sweat. On the odd occasion that she is on holiday in the Caribbean, her replacements are quite tame in comparison. The level of mania/survival seems to intensify with each week. This week, I finished the class almost on all fours and woke the following day aching all over.

I have quite surprised at how 'sporty' I have become, even ensuring I have the right clothes and shoes. As people often say, "if you don't use it, you lose it". Maybe I'll make the Olympics yet.

Why Alcoholic Daze? Chapter 1

In connection with my last post and for those who are new to my blog or for those who came here, hoping to seek some nuggets about alcoholism, I thought it might make sense to post once a month some repeat posts of my blog and how it all came about. So starting with today and then continuing with the first Sunday of every month, I shall focus on that. This is how my blog began nearly 18 years ago in 2008......

Alcoholic Daze – it seemed such a good name for my blog – a play on words of daze and days – because alcohol features quite a lot in my days, and weeks, and months, and years. But before you go leaping to conclusions, I am stone cold sober. All the time. My husband Greg on the other hand is not. I am watching him slowly kill himself and our love with it. He is an alcoholic. There, I have said it, spoken it out loud and now I believe it myself. HE IS AN ALCOHOLIC. Up to now, not many people knew he was, including me. 

At first I did not see it creeping up on us, then when I did, I tried to excuse it for something else. Eventually, when there was no doubt about it, I tried to keep the “problem” to myself for years until I broke down one day and told his sister. She in turn told their mother. A few months down the line, I decided to bare all to my best friend S, whom I mainly email on a weekly basis, as she does not live close by. Then eventually, when my mother* came to stay with us for a week over Christmas, eighteen months ago, it was so obvious to her and so she became enlightened to my world. The small circle of those that knew remained confined until recently. They were there in the background offering me support when I felt down or frustrated. Before I had told them, I had felt in the middle of a nightmare. Once they knew, I felt I could at least share the nightmare with them.

But recently, things have reached such a peak – I shall endeavour to explain later as the blog unfolds- that it was proving difficult to contain the problem. My daughter Kay* who is in the throes of sixth form and all the pressures that brings with coursework and exams, was finding it impossible to get the peace at home she needs to study. Normality for us is Greg shrieking his head off when anyone dares to say boo to a goose. The simplest things can set him off. Harmless questions to me or you can send him into orbit like the incredible hulk. Obviously the later in the day, and the more alcohol he has consumed, the greater the outbursts. Which usually coincide with my daughter coming home from school and attempting to do her homework. I use the word attempt advisedly because often she has to give up…..like she did a few weeks ago, when trying to revise for a chemistry test. She had to give up. He was shouting for so long and for hours on end. He usually follows us around the house as we move from room to room to get away from him and diffuse the situation. The result was that she did the test not having been able to revise a single thing the night before. She knew she had done badly and the results a few days later were confirmed. The teacher was not best pleased and took it out on her. Her A-levels were at risk. That for me was the final straw. The pretence could go on no longer. Suddenly, all these years of trying to hide it from everyone because of our collective shame was no longer important. We had to admit it and explain. For my daughter’s sake. For her future. Now was my time to come out and admit to the world that my husband is an ALCOHOLIC. It was at that point I made an appointment to see the school. Now the small circle of those who knew was about to be made bigger.

* Of course in the 18 years that have since passed, things have moved on. My mother is no longer alive and my daughter, Kay, is now a resident doctor in a hospital, but those details were correct at the time of writing in 2008.

Sixteen years

In a few days' time it will be the sixteenth anniversary of Greg's death. Sixteen years. That is almost half of the time we were married together. On the day he died, I wondered how I would cope without him and couldn't envisage getting to a stage where I would have ever  coped through sixteen years.

So much has happened since, either that he has missed himself or I have had to deal with. Just the general upkeep of the house and garden alone with major decisions to make on my own about what to get repaired or renovated and when, dealing with the finances and hiring tradesmen. Being able to discuss it with someone and share the problems made it so much easier when there was the two of us, although to be fair in his latter years he was so drunk, he left it all to me anyway.

He missed out on our daughter leaving school, going to university, graduating, becoming a doctor, getting married. I was the one supporting her, financing her, visiting her. I even got the job of doing the Father of the Bride speech at her wedding, something I am sure he would have been so much better at than me.

As an international news journalist, he has missed out on all the major events of the last 16 years from his beloved Liberal party finally getting back in to the government, when they went into Coalition with the Conservatives in 2010, the shenanigans in the various UK governments since then, Brexit, Covid, Trump, Putin, Ukraine, Gaza and much much more.

I have no brothers or sisters or even cousins. Kay is effectively the only family I have now and, of course, she has recently married and has her own very busy life to lead with many demands on her job and exams and little time to socialise. All of which means that I now have to find things to fill my world with. I long to go on holiday somewhere, anywhere, but don't have the courage to go on my own and can't expect Kay to give up her precious annual leave to go away with me, when she has a dashing young husband to go away with instead. Little did I know when Greg died, that I would make it through sixteen years, but somehow I have and will carry on doing so, so long as I have strength.

It is not easy being a widow and I don't think a lot of married couples give it much thought. Apart from the lonely evenings spent watching far too much television without a soul to speak to, there is the constant decision-making about what to do in the house or garden, the prospect of not holidaying again and just the sheer loneliness. I try to combat that by volunteering with charities like the local foodbank or the local park, gym classes and choir, but it is the evenings and weekends that are the worst, as well as coming home to an empty house. Many friends have commented that they don't know how I can have so many things to do, as they wouldn't have the energy to keep up with them, but the alternative is to stay indoors and become a recluse. Something I am determined not to be.