Prue Leith

Diary – 27 September 2018

Is it just my age, or has summer always galloped past with indecent haste? No sooner do the reluctant leaves force themselves into the cold, like early morning runners, head down, braving the rain, than they are over, looking dusty and tired, turning yellow, spent. I know how they feel.

My chief complaint is cramp. I don’t think anyone is researching cramp. It’s not life-threatening and so of no interest to big pharma or the medics. But it sure as hell interests me. Leaping up five times a night yelping as thigh, calf and foot take turns is torture. And before any kind reader suggests magnesium, salt, phosphorous, calcium, warm baths or stretching exercises, raw potatoes or used wine corks in bed (my mother’s dotty solutions), airline compression stockings, or any of the snake oils sold on the internet, I’ve done them and they don’t work. The only thing that does is massive doses of painkillers, especially morphine. I discovered this when I broke five ribs in a car crash in New York. Knowing I couldn’t move, I lay in terror of night cramps. But not a twinge. However, taking double doses of tramadol just in case seems extreme.

I’m heartedly sick of hearing how feckless and selfish the young are. Maybe I move in enchanted circles, but I keep on meeting young people making a go of it, and frankly if they are the future, we should have no fear of Brexit. At Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Festival, there were (among the Glastonbury refugees selling henna tattoos, yoga classes and herbal remedies) new cheesemakers, butchers, jam- and pickle-makers, restaurateurs, furniture-makers and brewers, all having successful careers out of work they love. England now has more artisan cheeses than France.

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