Everything That Hurts
An end of the year round up of aches and pains.
Welcome to my, essentially now monthly newsletter. Time does seem to pass quickly when you have got other shit to be getting on with.
So, a quick note to those of you that pay to subscribe, the frequency of this newsletter is no longer in keeping with the original proposition. The MW is taking fucking1 ages, and for whatever reason I’ve lost my mojo a touch for documenting the heck out of it. Also, I’ve largely run out of grumpy, flippant rant-y opinions because, well, who am I have an one anyway?
Paying subscribers, if you’re sitting on your hands, annoyed about the frequency, I give you permission to remove the burden of me having to write this more frequently by going back to being a free subscriber. Honestly, having the pressure off will be a help.
To those of you that stay, I’m forever grateful, and I promise that your subscriptions still go into a separate pot for things like study trips, hotel stays, blind tasting samples, subscriptions to other great writers and so on.
Finally, if you don’t currently chip in to read this newsletter, its pretty much always free, but you can pay IF YOU WANT TO. It’s always on the premise that it helps to fund the associated periphery costs of the MW, which is where it all started.
One final point on that, anything older that 6 months is now paywalled. If you want to read all the juicy old stuff, then that’s perhaps the biggest perk of chipping in.
Right.
All the things that hurt.
I’ve been meaning to write this, clearly stupid, post for ages. In case you hadn’t clicked the writing of this newsletter largely serves to make me laugh.
I’m 41 now, and I thought it might be of interest to anyone out there who can relate directly to the random and inevitable pains and niggles you just put up with as you get older. To any younger people, here’s an idea of what’s to come.
From the ground up, here are all the niggles I’ve had in the last 12 months.
Left Foot.
I thought it was ‘plantar fasciitis’, that bit from your heel to the ball of your big toe. It was bloody painful to rock on the ball of my foot, that big ole’ joint was horridly painful for a few months in June / July.
I tried stretching it out, and then maybe a half baked attempt at some strengthening exercises (more on that in a sec). It hurt most in the mornings, but by maybe September it had slowly gone away.
Weird how things just heal up (no pun intended) sometimes, but by all accounts, for whatever reason, my foot hurt like hell for about a month, and is now totally fine.
Left Knee.
This was a big issue in 2023. I used to run quite a lot, enough to keep fit, but not really enough to be considered ‘a runner’. I don’t have all the kit, or one of those little tiny rucksacks for water.
Mr Physio eventually diagnosed IT band pain caused by my weak and wobbly leg and arse muscles, which needed lots of strengthening. Single Leg squats and resistance band stuff if you really want to know. Took about 6 months to sort it out, but after that I’d lost the will to run, and it still kind of hurt after about 5k. I got annoyed about it, so just decided to stop running.
So much so that gradually now, my left knee hurts again if I go on a really long walk. You know that coastal path walk I did back in September?2 By the end of it, the whole outside of my knee was bruised. A bruised knee from walking!
Right Knee.
Don’t say it too loudly, but the right one is starting to hurt now as well. Might be the same thing, might not. I’m trying not to think about it.
Right Thigh.
OK, fine, self inflicted. Quite a large tattoo on the front of my right thigh.
Right Wrist.
OK, fine, again, another self inflicted one. A medium sized tattoo on my write wrist.
Left Shoulder.
This has been going on forever, like just a random dull ache. When I was fit and healthy, I used to do some kettle bell and such3, and for a while as I got a bit stronger, it went away, but it’s also gradually coming back.
What has any of this got to do with wine?
Not forgetting for a second that this is a wine-related newsletter, the parallel here is that with these stupid ailments, I could probably have avoided all of them by just putting some effort in. A little bit of exercise over the last year would have helped no end.
Which is precisely what I’m doing right now with my studies. Putting in some effort, the mental energy to get my head in the right frame for study so that I can take in information and prepare is pretty much the same as putting in effort to avoid injuries. In both cases, consistent work could spare me the pain later on.
I think it was William Lowe MW, who told me that some of the best prep you can do for the MW is to keep physically fit as well as mentally fit. Pretty sure Will does Iron Man races for fun on a Sunday, but still, you get the point.
Reading and listening is great, but being able to process, document and recall the information is hard work too.
Prep.
Perhaps naively, I think I’m doing less technical prep so far this year, by that I mean taking on new information, from articles and blogs and podcasts and such.
When it comes to gathering information, there are primary, secondary, and tertiary references. Primary means speaking directly to a winemaker or vineyard manager, or someone who sells the wine. Secondary means reading or listening to someone quoting them second-hand, but I’d put podcasts in this bracket, while tertiary involves relying on a third party summarising those insights, like books or articles.
Last year, I spent a lot of time gathering secondary source information, but recall can be tough and often lacks context.
This year I’ve been reaching out to people I know, or have worked with, gathering a smaller pool of much more nuanced and contextual ideas.
The MW is not really about answering the question, and it’s not really about showing off that one thing you know amazingly well. It’s about discussing all of the angles, and providing context through the use of primary and perhaps secondary examples.
I can’t remember who said it, but someone mentioned, “The example is not the answer,” and I’m working on that principle this year.
Maybe my body will stop hurting so much if I just put the effort in there too. Maybe that’s one for next year.
Hi Grandma! - I know I have a potty mouthed newsletter, but you’ll just have to put up with that.
Normally after a run! How times have changed!?
Always reassuring to see that other adults are concerned with family members reading their profane ramblings. I’m about to turn 40, I have to pre warn my mother about some of the things I write. Still.
Best of luck on your physical AND mental fitness journeys this year. As a lifelong fitness person, and someone who has rehabbed multiple injuries at this point (I'm slightly older than you) joint pain is almost always about the muscles surrounding them being too weak, and so the joints are taking on more than they should. Runners - when they mostly just run - suffer the worst for this. For knees, squats and deadlifts are musts, though do split squats for even better targeting of the knee), but also the step-up, which targets the muscles surrounding the knee joint better than anything. Those usually do the trick for me whenever pain starts creeping into those troublesome bastards.