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Green (and Blue) Exercise Boosts Mental Health

John, Paul, Sonja and David after a dip in the river near Arizkun.

I remember an article on how living  near green spaces can be shown to improve mental health, so thanks Paul for routing it out for me!  Add these findings to those of a  previous article on my blog on how exercise is shown to aid mental agility and memory and it therefore makes sense that  ‘green exercise’ should reap the benefits of both the ‘green’ and the  ‘exercise’.  Now this BBC article implies that adding a touch of  ‘blue’  i.e. a river or a lake,  and stress levels and depression drop even more. Here are just a few facts I have gleaned about the benefits of  exercise on mind, body and spirit – I welcome more information if anyone has it.   

• Physical exercise is critical to mental agility and memory.
• A rich social life can help improve mental sharpness.
• Just 5 minutes exercise in a park can boost mental health.
• Living near green spaces shows a positive effect on anxiety disorders and depression; also coronary heart disease and diabetes.
• Children younger than 12 were less likely to suffer depression in the greener areas.
• Regular running or aerobic exercise in the over 50´s can dramatically slow the ageing process; remarkably slowing down the rate of death from heart disease, heart attacks, cancer and neurological diseases.  

For more facts on how green exercise can benefit mind, body and spirit have a look at the link below. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8654350.stm 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7554293.stm

Walking through the national park of Itxusi.

Basque Rural Sports

Another guest post from Veronica of La Recette du Jour.
Being in a country where you don’t speak the language well enough to understand everything that’s going on gets you into some odd situations where you can discover all sorts of interesting things you would never have guessed the existence of otherwise. Yesterday was one of those days. ”Dia de la sidra” in Leitza, said the Navarran tourist authority website. “Cider tastings.” Sounds good, and we haven’t visited Leitza yet. So we get in the car and set off, arriving at about 11 a.m. Absolutely no sign of any cider festival. As usual walls and shop windows were plastered with fly-posters, 100% of which were in Basque. But by using the few words of Basque we do recognise and looking at the pictures, we soon determined that none of them were anything to do with cider.

Steve asked in a haberdasher’s shop; the two women inside shrugged their shoulders. Try the square where the town hall is, they suggested. So we did. Still no cider festival; we studied a few more posters without success, as usual taking photos of some of them so that we could decipher them with the help of the Basque-French dictionary later. On the way back down the hill we asked in a newsagent. “Oh yes, el dia de la sidra. It’s this afternoon. At seven o’clock.” Hmm. To us, “dia” had implied “all day”. And to the Spanish, “afternoon” starts at about four and goes on till nine. Leitza didn’t look so interesting that we wanted to hang about till seven in the hope that a couple of stalls selling cider might appear. “Let’s go the butcher’s shop near where we parked the car,” I suggested. “I want to buy some chicken for dinner.”

The window of the butcher’s had a poster in it (in Basque) which seemed to be an advert for a museum of stone-cutting. Inside, the walls were plastered with photos and newspaper cuttings showing large sweaty men heaving improbably large blocks of stone onto their shoulders. Ahh, harrijasotzaile (Basque stone lifters)! “My dad,” said the butcher proudly. “And my brother.” “What about you?” asked Steve, eyeing his slim, thirty-something frame doubtfully. “I like partying too much,” he grinned. “It’s our family museum – it’s open till two-thirty if you want to see it.” Well, we didn’t have anything better to do, so we drove out of town and followed a large pointing finger sculpted in concrete up a steep track.

We arrived at a farmhouse overlooking a field. In the field were a giant Basque beret, a few stone circles, dolmens, and menhirs, standing stones with letters painted on them, an 8-metre tall statue of a man with a spherical stone on his shoulder, painted in brilliant silver, and an even more massive silver arm and shoulder emerging from the earth. The usual ponies and sheep appeared unconcerned by this, grazing calmly around the giant legs of the statues, and scratching their backs on the menhirs.

There was a bus parked outside the farmhouse, and when we went inside about 40 people were milling round a table drinking cider and eating pintxos. TV screens on the walls were looping images of the butcher’s dad heaving stones onto his shoulder.

Home-made Basque cheese

A guest post from Veronica of La Recette du Jour.

We took the opportunity of living a few months at Iaulin Borda in Ameztia in the Navarran Pyrenees. It is next door to a sheep farm run by Sagrario and her husband, Ignacio, so we to went over one day to find out how our neighbour makes cheese. She has about a hundred sheep and for part of the year makes cheese in her kitchen every couple of days. It’s a surprisingly simple procedure, requiring little equipment.

You will need:
about 7-8 litres of this morning’s sheep’s milk (I expect cow or goat milk works just as well)
about half a teaspoon of liquid rennet or other coagulant (I’m told nettles work, but I haven’t tried them yet)
A large metal pan or bucket to hold the milk
a thermometer
a large wire whisk
a cheese mould lined with cheesecloth

It goes without saying that all your equipment must be scrupulously clean. First of all, heat the milk to 36 degrees C. Turn off the heat. Add the rennet to a very small amount of water, about a tablespoon (just to make it dissolve better). Pour into the milk and mix thoroughly with the whisk. Leave to stand for 20-30 minutes. Sagrario told us that you could achieve the curdling by dangling a bit of tripe in the milk, but she prefers liquid rennet!

At this point the milk should have thickened to a lumpy, yoghurty consistency. Don’t proceed to the next stage until it does.

Reheat the milk to 39 degrees C, whisking constantly to break up the curds. According to Sagrario, this is important to kill all the bugs and prevent your cheese from ending up full of maggots. Remove from the heat and set aside to settle for 5 minutes.

Plunge your hands into the bucket and grope around the bottom, pulling all the settled solids together. Lift out your large and dazzlingly white lump of cheese, squeezing with your hands to firm it up and get rid of some of the liquid. Press into the lined mould and squish it down as hard as you can.

The cheese is left to drain for 24 hours, then put in a cheese press and squeezed further before being left to mature for two months. The resulting hard cheese will keep for up to a year.

There was a lot of liquid whey left over in the bucket. “It’s not wasted,” Sagrario assured us. “You can take this liquid and boil it up. Lots of froth will appear on the top. You can scoop this off; it’s called requesón, and it’s delicious.” A check in the dictionary confirmed that this was curd cheese, the word literally meaning “re-cheese”. And later we realised that the word ricotta (re-cooked) in Italian expresses exactly the same principle.

Even simpler is cuajada, a very simple and delicious dessert  made in small clay pots that’s often served as a dessert with honey or sugar. It’s basically junket; the sheep’s milk is simply curdled with rennet as in the first stage above, and then left to set in pots. I’m going to gather some nettles to make my own rennet for this.

The Humble Origins of the Pyrenean Experience

Early days with Manolo. Mobile office in Ituren in the Pyrenees.

(Here is an except from Corporate Woman Magazine 2003 on the first humble origins of my company, ´Pyrenean Experience’  )

Walking in The Pyrenees

“At 34, I left my Danish lover, determined to make a few changes in my life: firstly my sense of direction – I had always intended to move south, not north; secondly, to unite two passions: language and mountains – neither of which being particularly spectacular in Copenhagen!

Having written my first book, ‘Freedom to Choose’, encouraging others to reach for their dreams, it seemed cowardly not to put my theories to the test. So, in 1999, I flew to Madrid with walking boots and pocket dictionary. There I hired a car and headed for the hills. The dream – to run language and walking holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees. The objective – to find the place where it would all begin.

Today, I write this article from my Pyrenean mountain cottage, (Iaulin Borda), the log fire alight and a snow storm outside. I have climbed the steepest slopes of my life, those of the learning curve, and now have a small, successful walking company which has featured in the National Press and on Spanish TV.

The Tabby Cat by the Fire

I had a budget of £5000, was a fair-weather walker, had no experience of the travel industry whatsoever, little knowledge of Spain and even less of the language. The closest I had come to ´language activity’ holidays was on a husky-drawn Eskimo sledge in Greenland where I taught English verbs to an Inuit woman at -20 degrees! …. ”

Read the full article on http://www.spanishlanguagewalkingholidays.com/PE10110WhatThePapersSay.asp

Spanish Language & Walking Holidays – Science proves it is not just an “off-beat” idea!

Learn Spanish while you walk – not just an ‘off-beat’ idea.

When I started our Spanish Language and Walking holidays 12 years ago the combination seemed to make good common sense! Not only would I, at least, get to do two things I loved, but the walks appeared to add another dimension to language learning all of their own.  Walking  immediately put people at their ease – they could hang back, stride forward, mix and mingle and no one was ever put on the spot to speak up unless they wanted to. On the other hand, the beautiful landscapes, the village fiestas, the beers in local bars etc. all provided endless topics of conversation and so although no one was ever put ‘on the spot’  – everybody had something to say! Conversation, naturally,  bubbled forth (mistakes and all!). Words and expressions also seemed easier to remember …‘castaño’ (chestnut) was more likely to stick in the memory archives  had you accidently sat on one over a picnic lunch,  ‘pásame el vino por favor’  if there was actually a bottle (or bota) to hand; and the expression ‘ secorro! ‘ (help!) would never be forgotten again if we really did have to send in the emergency services to rescue you 🙂 ! 

And … 

Science has now proven me right! A few months ago Paul, a psychology lecturer, and former Pyrenean Experience guest/friend  forwarded me an article from Scientific American Mind (July/August 2009) which shows proof that there is a powerful link between physical activity and

Smuggler Friend – Koikili (part 1)

Koikili and my daughter, Marion, 6, at our Pyrenean mountain home.

Ask Koikil what he does for a living and he will say that he is an unemployed smuggler. Like many of the people here on the Basque/Spanish – French border Koilki was a very young child when he first accompanied his father on his night smuggling missions over the Pyrenees into France. Born in 1955, Koikili’s family had a tradition of horse breeding and so he has spent his life roaming the mysterious wooded slopes of the mountain passes. During the Franco era, and beyond,  (the last time he was apparently shot at was in 1992),  Koikili would smuggle sheep and horses over the border to fetch higher prices in France, bringing back other livestock and all sorts of goods that Spain was short of at that time.  A skilled raconteur (and lady’s man) .

Cultural Awareness …. or Not. Kissing the Danes.

Spanish, Basque, German and English friends at home at my curry party June 2010.

  

Words are not the only tools of communication, and failing to be aware of the differences between cultures, their traditions and values, can sometimes cause far greater misunderstanding than any linguistic shortcomings. Living in France and Italy I adapted effortlessly to the tradition of greeting each other with kisses on the cheek. In some places it was two, in some three and in others, people were insulted if you didn’t give them four! I don’t think I ever quite worked out which region gave which number of kisses but the important thing was to take my cue from other people and be ever ready to exchange a kiss or two.  

God knows what the Danes thought of me when I moved to Copenhagen several years later. Here, a common greeting between friends and colleagues is the hug. Jowl to jowl in firm Viking clamps, it is never easy to see exactly what goes on and (much to my embarrassment now) I never even stopped to think. I imagine that I kissed more Danish men during my years in Copenhagen than most Danish women have in their entire life!

Farming by the Moon

Making hay while the sun shines

 

One of the striking things I have learned in this Basque farming hamlet of Ameztia, is just how much of daily life is affected by the moods of the weather and the cycles of the sun and moon.  Amatxi, (our adopted grandmother of 83), always says that the full moon heralds a change in the weather. Yesterday there was a sense of urgency among the neighbours in Ameztia as we joined in to help her son, Isidro,  bring in the hay. ( A quick note here about Isidro for those who maintain that only women can multi-task: Isidro not only runs one of the farms but is also the local Justice of the Peace, official grave -digger, pig slaughterer and board member for one of the local banks). The sun scorched our skin, the red kites swooped low to hunt mice, the dogs barked at the tractor wheels and the scene was Van Goghesque.  With sore hands and chafed skin we finished around 7pm and joined Amatxi back at the farm, Zubialdea, for a merienda of jamon, tocino, chistora, sheeps cheese and quince jam – all washed down with Txakoli, a light dry sparkling white wine from the Basque coast, and a Navarran red. “Did you notice the full moon last night?” asked Amatxi, “tomorrow the weather will change”.      

Amatxi and Atautxi on their farm, Zubialdea, in Ameztia.

 Today, as I sit on the terrace, with the rain clouds racing in overhead, I attempt to record all that Amatxi, Atauxi and Isidro told me about farming with the moon. Not only are certain crops planted during certain phases of the moon, but the moon also seems to affect the decision when to cut firewood, sheer sheep, kill pigs and conceive babies! 

The Romance Languages

The Romance Languages

   Similarities between the Romance Languages  The similarities between all Romance languages are striking, even to the novice. The Spanish and the Italians, and the Spanish and the Portuguese do not have great problems understanding each other. Having learned one Romance language you have an excellent basis for learning the next, not only as far as vocabulary is concerned, but also as far as structure and thinking processes.   

For a start, the majority of English words ending in ‘- ion’, ‘- ary’, ‘- ible/ -able’ and ‘-ant/ -ent’  are very similar in all Romance languages:   administration:  amministrazione (It), administration (F), administración (Sp)   

  necessary:        necessario (It),  nécessaire (F), necesario (Sp)   

  possible:           possible (It),  possible (F),  possible (Sp)   

  probable:         probabile (It), probable (F), probable (Sp)   

 constant:          constante (It), constant (F), constante (Sp)   

 present:            presente (It),  present (F), presente (Sp)    

 Understanding which words tend to be similar in English and the Romance languages gives you an immediately vocabulary of over a 1000 words in French, Italian and Spanish.   

 Here are some more examples of words easily recognised from one Romance language to the next:   

school:             scuola (It), école (F), escuela (Sp)  

castle:              castello (It), château (F), castilla (Sp)   

escape:             scappare (It), échapper (F), escapar (Sp)   

 cost:                 costa (It), côte (F), costa (Sp)   

 visit:                visitare (It) visiter (F) visitar (Sp)   

 Changes in spelling.

 Looking at the previous sets of words we can see that each language has put its own  fingerprints on the original Latin words. Certain consonants change predictably from one language to the next – often because their sounds are very close, and easily distorted by changes in accent and spelling. Once you know which consonants are likely to differ from the English – or switch between themselves – you should find it easier to detect the ultimate similarities between words.  

The ph – f – changes: