Getting outdoors (8/365)

[white_hart]

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but if I had made one this year it would be to try to spend some time outside every single day, because even on the gloomiest, wettest, most dismal days, being outside helps my mood so much.

This morning I almost didn't go for a walk, because I had a meeting at 8:30 which meant I couldn't follow my normal route as I wouldn't be back in time, and when my alarm went off at 5:45 it felt like the middle of the night and I was so tired I really wished I could just go to sleep for another hour or so. When I go downstairs, though, I was surprised to see that it had snowed in the night, and my walk by the canal, just as it got light, was astoundingly beautiful, in a bleached-out, monochromatic kind of way.

Also, thanks to jinty I realised last night that the lockdown guidance around exercise has been updated since I checked it on Monday night.

If you (or a person in your care) have a health condition that routinely requires you to leave home to maintain your health - including if that involves travel beyond your local area or exercising several times a day - then you can do so.

Given how important swimming is to my mental health, I think I can consider that this applies to me, and I can actually carry on driving to the lake to swim. It's not like I have any options closer to home; the river near us is too shallow, the Thames is too fast at the moment, and even if it wasn't, I wouldn't swim alone in winter so one of us would need to drive. I do feel slightly trepidatious about it*, but I think it is OK really...

* I don't know if it's because I've spent most of my life trying to work out the rules that everyone else seems to know automatically, and, in my childhood, being shunned because I got it wrong, but I have an absolutely terror of accidentally breaking rules, and struggle even more with the idea of breaking them deliberately

Comments

[muninnhuginn]

What a stunning, magical picture!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[cmcmck]

That is such a lovely shot!

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[sartorias]

That is a GORGEOUS photo--so magical!

[el_staplador]

Snow!

I'm glad about the swimming - I have similar issues with rules.

[alithea]

Oh, I definitely think that justifies keeping up with the swimming, so glad for you!

[nineveh_uk]

That absolutely sounds like you should continue swimming.

[norfolkian]

I agree that you'd be within the rules to go swimming. And, from a safety point of you, it doesn't sound like you would be putting others or yourself in danger virus-wise, so I think you're fine.

[antisoppist]

That is beautiful. Go swimming.

I went round in circles trying to work out if we could walk up a hill a 30 minute drive away in tier 4 so I get that. I don't want to accidentally make people all suddenly cross with me about a thing everyone else apparently knew not to do and I didn't.

[white_hart]

Thank you!

[white_hart]

There wasn't much, but it was very pretty.

[white_hart]

I am very pleased!

[white_hart]

I am going to. I would have missed it horribly if I couldn't.

[white_hart]

No, I don't think swimming is a high-risk activity - we go in pairs, it's outdoors and we try not to get too close together.

[white_hart]

It's really hard sometimes to know what the right thing is. Especially when you hear about things like the women who were told taking hot drinks on their walk was classed as a picnic, though at least the police force in question have been brought to see sense.

[mountainkiss]

FWIW I think your interpretation is absolutely right and 100% defensible.

[girlyswot]

Oh, I’m so glad about the swimming!

[nanila]

Hello from Also Next To A Canal! :)

[white_hart]

Living next to canals has a lot to recommend it!

[white_hart]

I have taken a screenshot of the guidance and saved it on my phone, just in case.

[mountainkiss]

That’s wise.

[white_hart]

It is very good news.