I’ve just had a dreadful night, and the dread of being woken in the early hours is being realised with mounting frequency.
I get cramp.
That might not sound much, but it comes with a tsunami of excruciating pain that takes an hour or more to subside.
The real agony is the cramp that affects (mostly) my left thigh, knotting the muscle into a grinner of solid, pulsing convulsions.
My face turns chalky white.
I become a human sprinkling system.
I feel sick to the point of being so at times.
The night becomes a torment rather than a balm.
I’ve always suffered with cramp. It’s nothing new in my life ever since I was five, shrieking in horror in my first footie matches, struck down on one of my right wing raids!
However, I have to accept that these last few years the affliction has got steadily worse.
I know what the root cause is of course, age and decrepitude apart.
I simply cannot sit still.
Yesterday is a case in point.
I was guiding the very excellent Dick and Dave on the river and it was a slow day indeed.
By 11.00am I knew I had my work cut out, and according to my phone health app (normally fairly reliable) I walked 5.6 miles, wading the river, searching both banks up and down, baiting swims as I went.
And as you can imagine, this wasn’t easy walking, but much of it pushing through untrodden undergrowth, carrying a heavy bucket and wearing chest waders with their accompanying water-laden boots.
So, do I tone down my wandering, guiding, fishing life to a safer level, or is there a cure out there that you might know about?
It would help here to run through what I have tried, generally as a result of wife Enoka’s tireless research, I have to say.
Magnesium tablets.
Hemp tablets.
Various rub-in potions.
A heat pad on which to rest my throbbing thigh.
Drinking a lot of tonic water… I owe Richard Jones that one.
Perhaps these remedies have worked to one degree or another, but as last night proved, not entirely.
I love the way I fish. For me, mobility is all.
Anyone who can come up with a fail-safe answer will earn my undying gratitude!