Time to shout stop when we’re told clothes are ‘not essential’
Country Living with Francis Farragher
There mightn’t be many . . . but there are a few consolations of growing older such as not being worried as much of what people think of you. Another is in the area of a few simple eureka moments when you realise that if you drink too much you tend to feel unwell; if you eat too much you feel bloated; and if you can exercise a bit more than you generally feel better.
Many moons ago when a persistent back problem called a halt to footballing ambitions, I learned how to swim, very gingerly for the first couple of years, but then gradually got comfortable with it, and realised that this was really one of those exercises that was good for body, mind and spirit.
Of late, I even got into the habit of doing a 7am session in the swimming pool in Tuam, and after getting over the initial shock of an earlier rise from the scratcher, the overall impact of the strategy was quite positive: suppler knees and hips; looser muscles; and a clearer mind for the day’s work ahead.
On the Tuesday morning of October 20 last – the eve of the Level 5 COVID restrictions – as I left the water, I had a conversation with a man of French origin, obviously working local, who I had never spoken to before in my life.
Like myself, even though of a younger vintage, he had a dodgy knee and lower back, that benefited greatly from a daily swim, but we were like kindred spirits in the closing down of a facility, ran by a company called Coral Leisure, who had bent over backwards to run the tightest of hygiene and best practice regimes since the start of the COVID crisis.
All sessions had to start on the hour and finish on the button 40 minutes later; all the normal hygiene rules had to be adhered to; the same changing cubicle had to be used in and out; while afterwards the place was scrubbed out and disinfected thoroughly. There had been no case of COVID there.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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