By: Blonde Two
Despite trying very hard to resist, I recently found myself watching the first episode of the BBC’s ‘How to Stay Young’ program. It was informative, interesting and amusing, but there was one element of it that really annoyed me.
It was the ‘getting up off the floor’ bit. The mooted idea was that you can tell how well someone is going to age by their ability to sit down and stand up again using only their crossed legs for support. It didn’t sound very ‘sciencey’ to me, but this is probably because, according to that particular test, I am going to drop dead tomorrow.
I might be exaggerating, but I have been doing elaborate ‘getting off the floor’ manoeuvres for a fair few months now. My knees hurt if I do anything else. Getting off the floor, as you can imagine, is a very important ability for someone who likes sleeping on it and is thus (by default) forced to wee on it.
I actually look for ‘disabled’ outdoor toilets. That handy crack in a tor or the sturdy looking branch both serve to avoid me having to put a hand onto the floor to push myself up from a squatting position. I have even been stuck down there, trousers (many trousers) around ankles, struggling to wriggle out of my rucksack so that I can find the leverage to get back up again.
If you have a chance to observe me getting out of a tent, you will note that I do it backwards so that I can get first into the squatting position. That first stand-up after a night in a tent is always a bit of an unknown quantity. Since the days of canvas ridge tents ended, tent poles have not been good stabilisers.
Today my knees are sore. They are sore because I spent yesterday evening determined to prove that I was staying as young as Mr B2 (who is clearly going to live forever). I can just about get up with a bit of fiddling around, but getting down is just not happening.
Oh well, if I am not going to live forever, I had better get out there and do some more walking!
Yesterday I left my trusty walking stick at home and had to dig out my sitter (plastic seed sack) and crawl up the bank from the stream – – – but hey, who cares? At least I can still get across somehow!
That is fantastic! I often end up on my bottom, more confidence going up than down! Wish you had taken a picture.
You are quite right to rail at the getting up off the floor thing. it was the subject of conversation at our Extend Exercise class last Wednesday; our leader is a retired physiotherapist and she said it it a very wrong manouvre, never to be attempted by any of us. I shall of course obey her as I cannot get up off the floor any way, by any method! B2GM
Phew! And Mums are always right! I think actually the best way to tell your age is how gracefully you can munch a bacon and mushroom sandwich!