Dumb dictum

THERE’S an old saying that ‘the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ and the older you get, the more that is the case. I go to bed at night telling myself the next day will be a really industrious one: I’ll clean the house from top to bottom, do the washing and ironing, tidy the garden — there’s no end to my resolution. But in the morning it’s a different matter.

My first effort is to get out of bed and get the body mobile. I have a cup of tea and go back upstairs to get my plans under way — but some days the stairs feel like Mount Everest, so maybe I’ll leave cleaning the bedroom until another day.

Eventually, jobs get done halfheartedly, and I’m off to the shops, where I’ve every chance of meeting someone who, in conversation, will say: ‘If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.’ How I hate those words because it doesn’t always work like that.

I was a sporty girl, hurdled for my school and played in all the team games. I was never a layabout teenager and worked all my life, taking very little time off to have three children. I walked up and down behind counters for the best part of 55 years. Working in a plant nursery/greengrocers, I threw bags of compost and sacks of potatoes around like 2lb bags of sugar. On semi-retirement I would drive down to my local seafront and walk from one end to the other.

Now my poor old back and hips are wearing out, and I find it a struggle to walk any distance at all. I don’t want a medal for doing what I’ve done; I know there are thousands of others who have done the same.

But please don’t tell me ‘If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it’ because — guess what? — I used it and I lost it.

Mrs RoSE BEER, Sandwich, Kent.