welsh hills again

My first ever yoga retreat started in the week I turned sixty two.  I found yoga about five years ago, roughly at the same time that I gave up my frantic London job.  Probably not coincidence.  I had tried it a couple of times in my thirties and forties but it was always too slow or too hard.  I would lie there, surrounded by people apparently relaxing, my head whizzing with work and home and my juggling, plate-spinning life.  So no surprise perhaps that at the same time that I decided to step back from that life, to downsize and to spend my time and energy on different things I found a great yoga teacher and a great anchoring class.  Yoga was part of what kept me steady in the heaving seas of the last couple of years as my parents died.  I can't imagine life without it now but I am very, very new to it and very stiff. I think the idea of a retreat emerged in January when I was musing about reflection and adventure being the themes for the year....

Here is the September extract from the longer pieces I am writing about the experience of getting older.  I am a bit self conscious about this one.  It feels a bit "showy offy" to talk about going to the gym somehow.  It is not about that.  It is about trying to engage more with what the body can do than with what it looks like.  Easier said than done.  I love to hear what you think so please tell me! Let’s face it, the aging body is not a pretty thing:   wrinkled knees and elbows, the saggy skin which hangs on your arms, turtle necks, veined legs.   But it is not just what the body looks like, it is also what it can do.  For the last few years of his life my father in law lived with us.   He made it to ninety five and was always remarkably, even relentlessly cheerful.   As a young man and right through middle age and beyond he had been strong.   He missed that strength when it disappeared on him as old age took ho...