bendy bones?

I've been a bit blocked on the blog lately, partly because when the great Norm left us I realised how much I had been trying to emulate him (without success), partly because of bullying by an individual who has not liked some of the content of my posts (the latter has been going on for more than a year) and partly because the time of year has affected me more than it usually does. Cold, dark days, and all that. Of course, every November and December is cold and dark here in Alsace - so why is this year worse than previous ones? Well, it has been worse than last year, because this year I had a cataract operation in September which stopped me swimming for two weeks, then other things, including a two-week closure of the outdoor pool, kept me swimming indoors if I swam at all. The local heated outdoor pool is a splendid thing, and I need to use it several times a week, especially in the winter - how else would I get vitamin D?

I've got very fair Celtic skin, and two members of my family on my father's side (from whom I got the skin tone) have had skin cancer, so I have always used sunscreen and protected myself from the sun, well before it was routine advice to do so. And also because I burn very quickly in strong sun. I now realise that this was probably a mistake. The body makes vitamin D by absorbing sunlight through the skin. For this the skin needs to be exposed. In Saudi Arabia, where there is strong sunlight all the time, a great many women suffer from vitamin D deficiency - because they are always covered up outdoors. It's nearly impossible to get enough vitamin D through diet when there is no sunshine - and the sun hardly ever shines in Alsace. You could only do it if you ate an Inuit-type diet consisting entirely of oily fish. But last year, when I swam several times a week outdoors right through the winter, I had good levels of vitamin D. This year I don't.

Symptoms of vitamin D deficiency? Various. Sometimes none. You get more colds and other infections. Mainly fatigue. A different kind of fatigue from that you get when you haven't had enough sleep or you've been working hard, physically or mentally. Last night I sat down to watch my favourite soap and immediately fell asleep. Like someone switching a light off. I woke up to the closing credits. I've fallen asleep at the dinner table several times recently. I have difficulty getting up in the mornings, for the first time since a brief period when I was about 15. And all my joints ache, not all at the same time though. When I wake up my first thought is "What is it going to be today? Hip, knee or wrist?"

So, something will be done. To the pharmacy for a supplement. Eat an egg every day and oily fish twice a week (hard to come by in landlocked Alsace where fish has never been part of the diet, food in shops in France being more regional and local than it is in the UK). But, most importantly, back in the pool. Even on the darkest winter day (I never swim early in the mornings or in the evening when it's actually dark at this time of year, although the pool is open then) there is some diffused sunlight coming through in the daytime, and a heated outdoor pool provides a unique opportunity to have more than the face exposed to whatever is available. So, don't worry about sunburn - it won't happen in winter anyway. Do worry about vitamin D deficiency. Bad for the bones, bad for the blood, and bad for the mood.

What about you?

Waterlog

is a book by the late Roger Deakin, who I believe was one of the founders of Friends of the Earth, an organisation I hold these days in deepest contempt, but which did have its moments in the early days, and I supported it then. I loved this book, experienced and written in the 1990s, and will return to it, reading it by episodes rather than straight through as I did this time. You can see it here. "A Swimmer's Journey through Britain", he calls it, but it isn't really that. It's about swimming, a bit, and about England and its history, quite a lot, and about forgotten and hidden places people don't know are there as they thunder past on the motorway nearby, quite a lot. It's also inspired by the masterpiece of a film 'The Swimmer', which in its turn was based on a story by John Cheever (whom I must read, clearly). Swim in the wild and forgotten places - there will always be officials trying to stop you - or just go and find them. But don't leave much of a footprint.

that codeine lift

Here is an interesting piece, by Andrew Brown in the Telegraph, about over-the-counter painkillers. We probably all use them from time to time, those with conditions like sciatica or interstitial cystitis (Google it) more often. He describes the mild mood lift that patients experience, in addition to pain relief, when they take painkillers which include codeine. And after all, chronic pain is depressing. Well, we know where codeine comes from, it can trace its ancestry back to the poppies of Afghanistan ultimately, so the mood lift is not hard to understand. And if you grow to rely on that mood lift to make your day tolerable, then dependency is not far off. The comedian Mel Smith was very honest about his dependency on Nurofen at one time - 50 tablets a day, and he was hiding the packets as alcoholics do bottles. Good for him for coming out about it. Myself, I take Nurofen Flash for headaches, which are mainly caused by reading in poor light (if I read entirely on the Kindle, with a comfortable font size, I don't get headaches), not every day but two or three times a week. So I wonder. Am going to watch that intake from now on. I used to be a heavy smoker, so I know what addiction is all about. And boy was THAT hard to kick.

I might not have taken the article so seriously, but for the fact that I broke a rib in 2011 (granny goes inline skating) and it was agonisingly painful. It took about ten days to mend and stop being seriously painful (still aches in wet weather) and for that period I was prescribed some codeine-based painkillers. Only just enough for the ten days, and I can understand why. When I took one, the edge would go off the pain almost immediately, then I would start to feel rather serene, as though there was nothing in the world worth worrying about. Then I would fall asleep for an hour or two, and have vivid, banal and very pleasant dreams. By the time I had just one of the tablets left, the pain had nearly gone. So I took the last one in celebratory fashion, on the last day of my sick leave, and spent half the afternoon "smacked into a trance" as the old Steely Dan choon has it. And I just know that if I had had any left I would have looked forward to taking them. The doctor told me when she prescribed them that it would be no good asking for more, so she was probably used to people pretending they still had pain, to try and get more of those little white tabs of serenity. Sig other was prescribed something similar a few years ago for tendonitis (at one stage he couldn't put his own socks on) and he still has one left "for emergency use", he says.

So - I am not a fan of media-induced panics over medicines and various substances which, used correctly, are entirely beneficial. Nurofen and similar are not dangerous. People around the world who don't have access to safe prescription drugs often have to live with chronic pain. But, let's all try and understand what drugs we are using, and why. Those of us (boomers) who are facing the beginnings of old age, know that as we increasingly ache in the places where we used to play we are likely to consume more prescription drugs and over-the-counter medication. Many of us have parents alive, in their eighties or older, and in the UK, under the NHS at least, those parents are rattling with pills, most of which they have no idea of the provenance, contents or effects. That's not going to be us. Four years ago I had one of the comprehensive medicals you get here in France, and it revealed a heart murmur (confirmed by another check) which I have probably always had, and never knew. It doesn't cause a problem, and is nothing to worry about, but apparently medical services need to know about it if I ever have major surgery. Please not. It also revealed a patch on the right lung, undoubtedly caused by the smoking years, which also doesn't cause a problem, though it won't ever go away. I decided then that I would start swimming more seriously, to make the heart and the rest of the lungs more efficient. And it seems to be working. A kilometre a few times a week, which I hope to increase in both speed and distance as time goes on. A legal and non-prescription high. We live on the second floor, forty steps up and no lift. I can take those steps fast, with two bags of heavy shopping, without the rhythm of my breathing changing. I couldn't do that two years ago.

this is not me

fifteen years older than I am now

is when old age begins, as has been said. Here is the great Diana Nyad on older athletes. An inspiration. I am not sporty or keen on fitness, never have been. When I was about 13 a school PE teacher suggested to me that I join the swim squad. I said no. Sport wasn't cool, in 1967. It's one of my few regrets. You don't last long, as a serious swimmer, so it doesn't take that much time out of your life in which you could be doing other things. However, I swim now. My goal this year (by the autumn), is to swim a kilometre front crawl. I can do it easily breaststroke, and further than that. But breaststroke is too slow. Well, I will be 59 this year, and because I was never sporty or took exercise to speak of when I was younger, there is not much "muscle memory" there. But I do make progress, and each goal achieved not only feels good but takes me a step further to healthy and active old age. So I can party when I'm 90. I stopped smoking almost ten years ago. I have always liked a drink, probably always will, but am not drinking at present. I had some work done on my dodgy ankles (genetic flat feet) four years ago (all hail the French health service!) and can now walk for an hour or more without pain, and do so regularly. I ride a bike, though I confess to not cycling to work when there is snow and ice, as there is at present - but that's not much of the year. And I swim several times a week, and do a Pilates class - which anyone, of any age and fitness level, can do. All these things make me feel good. So why wouldn't everyone do them? I'm feeling a bit down for various Life reasons at present, and when I get out of the pool later I will be a lot less down than when I got in. It's worth it for that alone, isn't it?

Leanne Shapton, "Swimming Studies"

this is a book all on its own.  Its author is a noted artist and writer in Canada, new to me, and in her teens was a serious competitive swimmer, who went I think twice to Olympic trials.  As she says, "I was pretty good, but not the best."  When you go to Olympic trials for  your country you have to be first or second to make the cut.  Several female members of my family, including my daughter and my niece, have been competitive swimmers - when I was at school, age about 12, I was asked to join the training squad, and declined.  To my everlasting regret.  We seem to have the physique that cuts it in the water.  Most swimmers are fairly tall.  This swimmer, Leanne Shapton, has a mother who originates form the Philippines,and thus she is not that tall, which might explain (she wonders) why she did not make the Olympics.  Who knows.  I was interested to read her book, because these days I am a competitive swimmer myself, though competing only against myself, and not always that successfully, but at least seriously.  Shapton says "When I swim now, I step into the water as though absentmindedly touching a scar".  This is after she has stopped competing.  Me, I am doing it the other way round.  Hurting myself, because doing it hurts, and the wound from the hurt creates a scar, which later I shall touch - perhaps.

There are fascinating details about the lives of competitive swimmers, which I am ashamed to say I have never asked my daughter or my niece, both of whom have experienced these things, about - I knew that swimmers shave off their body hair, to reduce drag.  I didn't know that teenage girls shave each other's backs before a swim meet (gala, as they were called when my daughter was competing, late 80s, early 90s, around the same time of the competition history in this book).  Who knew?  I do not think I have ever had hair on my back, and I do not think teenage girls ever do.  Do they get stubble afterwards???  Shapton includes paintings and sketches in the book, beautiful drawings of swimmers' heads, and also lovely photographs of vintage swimming costumes, which apparently she wears, for preference.

Brief linguistic interlude - she is apparently an Anglophone Canadian, and she calls a magnifying glass a "loupe" - which is the French word for it, in my experience.  Is this normal in Canadian?

Shapton mentions something I have discovered only recently - that serious swimming, whatever your level, hurts.  "Pain on land was there to remind me to get back in the water, where after a certain threshold, the pain went away.  For an athlete pain is not a deterrent, because the only place the pain will be eclipsed is in practice and in competition."

She ends, a Canadian swimmer, whose life, as all competitive swimmers' lives, has been punctuated by 5 am starts in winter, "ever present is the smell of chlorine, and the drifting of snow in the dark".

You don't have to be a swimmer, or interested in swimming, to be interested in this book.  It's worth looking at for the paintings of swimmers and the vintage costumes alone.  But it's something unique.  I think everyone will find something different, and worth experiencing, in it.