A trip to London and some yoga

Posted on August 21, 2007
Filed Under - leaving the rat race |

I had to return to London last week to see family. I hadn’t planned to be back in the big smoke so soon after leaving, and if I hadn’t been so eager to see my sister and little nephew, I wouldn’t have bothered. YakupHere is the handsome young fella, wearing a little t-shirt I bought him – who could resist, eh? Actually, my adventures are nothing compared to my sister’s. She gave up job, home and friends in England to move to a small town in Turkey, get married and eventually have Handsome here. My other sister has just put in an offer on a house – which is an adventure in itself. Being back in London made me realise that….I don’t miss it very much. I’ve got used to the brisk sea air and wide open vistas. The things I want to spend my time doing – the outdoorsy things – are here, not in London. It’s funny how my perspective has done a one-eighty. I used to be of the school of “the countryside’s nice to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there”. Now I’m flirting with the club of “London’s nice to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there”. Today someone asked me, “How’s life in the slow lane?” and that is a pretty good description of what it is like at the moment. I am pootling along in the slow lane. Sometimes I make plans in advance; sometimes I just decide when I get up in the morning what I am going to do that day. Much of what I like to do is weather-dependent, so you have to adopt a ‘go with the flow’ attitude. If there’s no surf but it’s dry, maybe you can do some rock climbing. If it’s wet, a run or a hike could be a good idea. If it is pouring down and howling a gale, I go out to the headland and take pictures of the sea.

Everyone in London commented on how healthy I look. I’m eating well (lots of fish, fruit and veg), my skin is in better condition than it’s ever been and I’ve got a rugged outdoorsy tan. And my hair is……well, my hair will always be slightly wild. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not ‘Sally of the Fields’ all the time. I also read books, watch DVDs, surf the web and potter about the house. There’s no pressure, nothing much that I have to do. So I’m finding time to do those things I always thought would be quite nice if I ever got round to them. For instance, I have taken to starting the day with yoga sun salutations. This is partly to address my poor flexibility and partly to see if it really does help you to wake up and improve your day. Certainly after only a week it has made a difference to my flexibility. I’m not sure what effect it has on my general well-being as I haven’t controlled for all the other things that could be making me feel good. I’ve never done a yoga class but I am familiar with the moves in the sun salutation and there are plenty of clips on YouTube which demonstrate the sequences. Most clips are instructional, but this one below is just a rather nice film of someone doing the sun salutation at dawn on Maui. The next time I arise at dawn (!) I will go down to Porth Beach and do the same.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOH6M7himkw]

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