Recently, I was searching for some pictures of my Dear Little Mother. Having found them, I stumbled on one of me – aged three – pushing a wheelbarrow down the garden. ‘That explains a lot,’ I thought, as I seem to have been pushing a wheelbarrow ever since.
Three currently feature in my life: one in my back garden, one at the allotment and one at my friend’s yard.
The first two have a life ferrying compost, moving multiple plants and collecting the harvest. It is particularly difficult to imagine how I’d manage without the allotment wheelbarrow, which is used every time I’m there.
At the yard, the wheelbarrow is my faithful friend in poo picking the fields. In the winter, it was too tough an assignment, but at this time of year I know that it’s fantastic exercise. Somehow, shovelling someone else’ sh*t is a lot more appealing than shovelling your own.
So, a lot of my walking is now done with a wheelbarrow, and it provides lessons for life. You must go slowly with a wheelbarrow. When you do, you can take in your surroundings: the unfurling of the copper beech leaves, the flowering of the horse chestnut tree, the red kite returning to nest. Things must be balanced in a wheelbarrow, or you will end up in a mess.
Pushing a wheelbarrow uses so many muscles, but particularly your core muscles. Once you’re a lady of a certain age, that’s very useful. I lost 60-70 per cent of my musculature in hospital, and there’s no doubt that poo-picking and gardening have been key to my recovery.
I have never been one for the gym, where I might do something similar on a machine. But I’m perfectly happy to push almost anything in a wheelbarrow and get my exercise that way! There’s no accounting for eccentricity.