LAST WORD

Here's to your HEALTH

WINE EVERY DAY AND A NAP EVERY AFTERNOON –

THAT’S MY KIND OF “RECIPE” FOR TAKING CARE OF MY HEALTH, CHUCKLES DARREL BRISTOW-BOVEY

What are you “What?” said my partner suspiciously. doing?” said “On the Greek island of Ikaria – which has my partner as I the highest percentage of people in the world reached for the over the age of 100 – residents all drink two wine. “We’re going glasses of wine with lunch. Fancy that!” to look at paint swatches now.”

“What am I doing?” I replied somberly. “I’m looking after my health.”

She made a sound she sometimes makes when talking to me – like a lawnmower being pushed across a lawn when it unexpectedly encounters a pebble.

“What?” I said. “Do you think I’m looking forward to this large tumbler of chilled, white wine? No, no – this is medicine.”

I slugged it down virtuously, a soldier doing his duty.

It was my partner’s fault – she’s always bringing home dietary books and telling me to eat better so I can live longer, as though “longer” means the same as “better”, and using long scientific words no one All these understands, like “cholesterol” or “marzipan”. newfangled Mainly I just nod patiently and promise to stop squeezing tubes of Nutella into my mouth pretending it’s toothpaste. But ideas like calories or carbohydrates are just then one day, during half-time in the rugby, fads. It’s not what we I picked up one of her books and starting flicking through it. Well! What a revelation! It was a book called The Blue Zones – eat that hurts us – it’s worrying about it Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest, and it’s about She snatched up the book and scowled those various places around the world at the page, where I’d helpfully circled where people all live into their 90s and more. the relevant information with a ballpoint

“Well!” I said, turning the pages. “Well, pen. It made perfect sense to me. The well! Interesting!” oldest person in the world is never some marathon-running teetotaler – it’s always some old French lady who smokes cigars, takes shots of brandy with her breakfast and sexually molests any young man within arm’s length. I wondered if I should start smoking cigars.

“This doesn’t seem right,” she muttered.

“Don’t be a science-denier,” I said. “In the next chapter it says they all take a nap every afternoon to lower their blood pressure and boost their immune systems. Gosh, I wish I’d become interested in health a long time ago!”

“Maybe you’re not reading the book right,” she said.

“Sorry,” I replied. “I’d like to stay and argue, but I have to finish my second glass of wine then take my siesta.”

“But the paint swatches.”

“Well, I hate to miss them, but health comes first.”

The old-timers have it right, I reflected, stretching out happily on my bed. All these newfangled ideas like calories or carbohydrates are just fads. It’s not what we eat that hurts us – it’s worrying about it. From now on life is going to be both long and happy.

But there are good times to take a nap, and times when it’s a bad idea because it gives your partner the opportunity to read the medical evidence for herself. When I strolled through later she was jangling the car keys.

“Ah, you’re up!” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Go where? The paint shop’s closed.”

“To visit your family,” she said. “In the book it says another thing all those places have in common is very strong family bonds.”

“Wait a minute … ”

“Every day they spend time with members of their near and extended family.”

“I didn’t read that … ”

“Every single day. It’s what the book says.”

It’s good when a household can agree on a health regime. In mine, we have agreed to donate The Blue Zones to our local charity bookshop. *