A different kind of
Christmas gifting this year. I’d been influenced by the extreme simplicity of
the picture below, chanced upon earlier in the year, and chose to extend this
to exercise equipment. I bypassed many of my regular Christmas favourites in
favour of a ‘biggie’: a walnut rowing machine (wood sustainably sourced, and no
connection required to a power-source) by WaterRower.
I kept a few of my regular seasonal
gift traditions going though. A calendar (from the Landworkers’ Alliance, my
dad’s a member), kitchen equipment in the form of a griddle pan and some
measuring spoons (for tinkering around with essential oils in the kitchen),
vintage finds via the simplest work-out trousers I could muster up (shorts felt
a bit chilly in the British winter, so I settled on 1960s deadstock wool
long-johns from ebay) and a cream wool cardi from Jane Mayle (again from ebay,
a mere £1.20), plus books from the Cambridge health-shop institution that is
Arjuna, the Great Dixter annual journal and 84 Charing Cross Road (because
strangely for me, I’ve seen the film several times but never read the book)…
