SLEEPS IN THE GARDEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1933, Page 4

SLEEPS IN THE GARDEN

MAN OF FIFTY-FIVE. Most people are interested in health, the value of fresh air, and the avoidance of colds. “R.H.8.” tells the lollowing story of bis experience in the “Birmingham Post.” Ho writes: — “An overcoat should bo my daily habit in the winter, and I should, no doubt, wear a muffler and' thick gloves, and look to my boots to see that they are of a. stout kind. That is the way of the careful man. I meet him, a well-wrapped'-up figure at every corner. He sits inconveniently bulky beside me in the train. And when he comes into the house he needs a deal of peeling. “Yet friends remind me that I am no longer Young-Fellow-My-Lad. I am come, they say, to the age when I ought to take care of myself. At lil’tyllve, a man should guard his health, take no risks of getting cold and wet. It, sounds very true. There is chapter and vei.se in the books for every word of it. Looking back, I do not know that I have been much the worse for riot, dressing up against wintry weather. On the whole, 1 have been reasonably healthy. The last time I spent a day in bed was forty-three years ago, when I was a boy of twelve, with measles. The last time I spent the full twenty-four hours indoors was in 1895, when I had influenza. Since then there has not been a. day when 1 have not been up and out and doing. Do not think that I have not been ill. I can remember times when I have felt unwell, but never so bad that I had to knuckle under.

MY PLAN FOR FIVE YEARS

“The past live years 1 have slept, out in the garden under the stars, not every night, but. when it has been fine. 1 meant to do it only in the summer, but I kept it u.p throughout last winter, except on very bitter nights. When it does rain I have to come in. I wake pretty soon to the drops on my cheeks, but not always soon enough to keep my blankets quite dry.

They are just a bit wet sometimes when. I remake my bed indoors and get between them again to linish my sleep; and once I woke up to find that there was snow an inch deep all round the bed. All this, J am told, should be making a. cripple of me. Yet I sleep snug, wake fresh, and so far have not come by any great disability. “So I wonder, What is there in all this coddling and muffling and hugging the house just because winter has come? Very often I find that the man who would not dream of going out without an overcoat is heavy with a cold when I am free, although I may not have put on a coat since last it rained. And some who sleep indoors creep about moaning of the sciatica and lumbago which,' I am thankful to say, my garden bed has not brought me. i “It may be that, in our fear of the I

. weather, we wrap up too much and keep too much in shelter. Many a man, whose day lies between home and office, would be appalled if he troubled to reckon just how much time he spent out of doors on an average working day in winter—probably not more (han (wo or three hours. Yet ho has a. pretty sure expectation of winter ills. “When I .sleet) in the garden I spend at leas! (on hours of the Iwontylour in (he open, although I have io do nearly all my work indoors; and yet my expectation of a. cold is small It looks, does it not, as if the best 1 protection against the winter is to get 1 as much fresh air as possible? Thai, *

taken into the system, is as good as an overcoat. It is nothing new to toll of the benefits of fresh air, but not many folk lake a. real airing every day in winter. “Maybe, when thc years have bowed my shoulders rather more and brought giey to my bead 1 shall (ell another talc. As I get into one wrap after another in the hall I shall talk to ‘■rung- fellows of the folly of going out latlcss and coat less to brave the day. \ lesson or (wo of bronchitis or chills

will have put all the old wisdom of health on my 'lips and a great tophamper of clothes on my- body—but m i (his winter, I hope.”