Gardening = sport

In the absence of doing anything resembling either running or cycling, I've been concentrating on swimming.  That is, I was concentrating on swimming until my goggles broke.  No problem, I hear you cry, get another pair!  Hmmm....

I have a long-standing issue with goggles.  The super-cool 'fit on the eye' type goggles just don't fit my face.  Any of them.  When my goggles broke this week I fished out the EIGHT other pairs knocking around and tried all of them.  None fitted.  Or at least, two of them kept the water out but (a) hurt my eye sockets and (b) gave me spectacular wrinkles after I'd been wearing them for 5 minutes.  Seriously - if I wear 'cool' goggles and swim before work, I generally look like I've done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson until about lunchtime.  I don't know why - nobody else seems to have this problem.  Maybe I'm just wrinkly.

So...  I managed 10 minutes with goggles hurting my eye sockets, then gave up, headed for my laptop and ordered a new pair of dive goggles.  They are much larger, don't hurt, keep the water out and look spectacularly un-cool.  Sigh.  But they do the job.  Hope they arrive soon....

What to do instead of swimming, running and cycling and anything involving a knee (e.g. walking or skipping)?

Gardening, obviously.

On Saturday I spent a couple of hours picking up sticks in the garden, helpfully assisted by Happy Running Dog.  I did try to train her to go and get a stick and bring it back to me so that I could put it in the gardening sack, but it didn't go so well.  She did one stick, then when I next said 'Go Get!!' in the excited fashion necessary, she simply looked at me, looked at the sack, and pulled a stick out of it.  Sorted!  Hmmm - needs practice.

However, it seems Stick Picking Up is very good for knees - after a couple of hours my leg felt better than it has done in ages.  Hooray!

So on Sunday I did it again - or rather the Melodeon Master and I took out two overgrown and slightly dead bushes, found two roses under an overgrown hedge, replanted those in the gaps left by the dead bushes and then I spent a happy hour or so clearing up all the rubbish - good bending work.  And then four loads of compost for good measure (weight training, right?)

Hopefully by next week I'll have new goggles and it's possible (whisper it - possible....) that I may be allowed to try a gentle jog.*

Fingers crossed, eh?

*Yes OK Fit Mark, when did I ever do anything else??