Embracing Spring and Community

Hi everyone, Heather again and we're approaching spring now. Actually, to be honest, spring is one of my favourite times. You cannot beat it. England, I think, I don't care what people say, like go to France or somewhere, forget it. England in spring has got to be the best place ever. Trust me, and I'm from the Caribbean and I say that. We have sun 365 days a year. but you cannot beat spring in England. You feel lighter, I feel lighter, I feel more bubbly. And can I mention this word, spring cleaning? When you get to my age, you've probably got 30, 40, 50 years of stuff in the loft, in the attic. This is the time to get it out. I'm still old enough to remember you put out the winter stuff, you've had September to whatever, and you're looking forward to getting the spring cleaning done, because you're putting up the spring curtains. you really should, people I think should get back into that routine because it makes you feel lighter, you put away winter months and you have the summer months, forget what's happening outside, yes it's going to rain, you know Britain but I would say the tips are get out all that clutter I've been clearing my house and believe you me thirty bags in my loft I had not realised, taking me a week and a half to clear my garage ordered skips, lovely, let the rubbish go away and that will make you feel lighter in yourself really honestly and truly and that will set you up. Put a spring in yourself, your health will feel better because sometimes it's the memories that may be depressing you. Get rid of some of those old baggage. You've still got the memories there. Enjoy that challenge, yeah. And in spring, are there any goals that you've set for yourself in relation to your diabetes? Well, mainly I'm a person who likes learning. So for me, it's just learning anything new, maybe revisiting some of the things I've forgotten. I write a lot, and just reading through my notes, I'm thinking, oh, I haven't done that, or I haven't that, and oh, I wanted to learn that about diabetes. And so I spend a bit more time doing that. The other thing I'm into is crafts. I really honestly believe that is helping you. I have gone from knitting, knitting I'm always good at, but it's taken me 74 years to learn how to crochet. And just sitting next to somebody, it's a wonderful way of having conversations. And I've now knitted up a storm in jumpers for my granddaughter, I've knitted. We knit hats for Northwick Park Hospital for their baby unit, hats and cardies for the little babies. Find something creative to do. And you find that instead of talking about your health, we can do that in conversation. But we're making a product for other people. and I find that is actually helping your health a lot better. You really manage it, but you're giving of something, and you're not alone. You find a nice little social group. And lastly, how can an online community help you to prepare for these spring months? I think we could all share tips, and what have you. Or we can put in things that will help us, and somebody out there may think, oh, I could use that. And somebody else would have thought of something, and we form a lovely little network and social club. You can't start having outings together, go to the seaside, what have you. We might discover different interests. Oftentimes you find that somebody you're talking to is only around the corner and you didn't even know that. And you could drop into each other's houses or if that's too controversial, you perhaps meet out in a particular centre and you do things together. And I think that actually having the online community will shorten the distance that much more and make things much more manageable and fun. To be quite honest, we'll come up with all sorts of things, quizzes, you name it. Lots of things we can do online. Once you have that skill, there's so much more to learn and enjoy.