Today, Thursday 6th Nov 2008, I took the usual route round the neighbourhood.

I waved at one neighbour in Marlings Park Avenue and later spoke to a gardener who was raking the leaves off a lawn in Wimborne Avenue.

He told me I should have been gardening instead of walking round the block. Raking a lawn, he said, keeps you fit and even works your abdominal muscles.

Why not do both gardening and walking? Fortunately, we don’t need a license or special permission to do any kind of exercise.

Nor do we need to wait for any particular time of day to exercise. We could wake up at 3 a.m. and do a hundred push ups. Most of us don’t! But we could!

Strength training is also very important. If someone is on top of you strangling you, it helps to be strong enough to throw them off even if you know how to use pressure points i.e. sensitive areas of the body.

You may know all the martial arts skills available but if you lack the strength to apply them, you are still in trouble.

Making your muscles stronger usually involves both pulling and pushing. I pull an iron bar plus weights off the ground and up to my chin on a daily basis and also hang from a bar high up on the walls of my gym. That covers the pulling and the gorilla impersonations!

I cover the pushing by doing bench presses on a daily basis. I also do pushups at an angle to a wall or table. I did most of these exercises today when I returned home from my walk.

It is easier to get moving if you are already moving. So get going by walking, gardening, pulling and pushing. This should keep you healthier and alive longer.

Watch your diet as well like my neighbour in yesterday’s post.

My sister, who has told me I should sign this post -’wonderman’ has just offered me some apple strudel with cream.

I turned down this generous offer until later when I would be hungrier. My slim neighbour would have been proud of me.

Today, Wednesday Nov 5th 2008, the world woke up to a black President Elect with an Irish sounding name – Obama!

Fireworks will be lit all over the UK today, not necessarily to celebrate his victory, but to celebrate the discovery of the Gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament in 1605. But, doubtless, some people will use the occasion to celebrate Obama’s victory.

I liked and respected all the Presidential candidates but think Obama’s victory will be good for the USA and the world. Too many of us think we can’t do things. Now every one knows that when people say we can’t do something, we will reply: “Yes, We Can!”

What a great attitude to have! I have loved the optimistic attitude of the great self help gurus of the USA since I first came across the books of Norman Vincent Peale and Frank Bettger.

Black citizens around the world have at least two great role models showing them and the rest of us the way within the last week.

First, the black British driver, Lewis Hamilton, won the World Formula One Championship in one of the closest and most exciting races I have ever seen and then Barack Obama won a huge election victory in a race which was not nearly so close but which was equally exciting.

Both men were the first black men, even though both had one white parent, to achieve such victories. At long last, a majority of Americans are judging people by the ‘content of their character rather than the colour of their skin.’

Today, I walked round the neighbourhood on one of those days when you meet and talk to quite a few people.

I first met a very active neighbour who is only one year younger than me. He was on his knees fixing a neighbour’s wall. I asked him how he kept so fit.

When necessary, he goes into diet mode and cuts out all sweet foods and sticks to vegetables and meat. If he is tempted to stray, he says to himself “Don’t even think about it!” He commented: “It is all about mental attitude.”

He has also learned not to clean up his plate at meals. Most parents, including mine, from the time of World War II taught their children to eat up everything on their plate even if they were no longer hungry.

My neighbour now realises that he no longer needs to impress his parents and stops eating immediately he no longer feels hungry.

He also appreciates the freedom his light weight and agility give him to crawl around in crowded attics fixing people’s plumbing.

The more reasons one has to do something, the more likely one is to do it.

I walked on and met two neighbours in Berens way who assured me that I had lost weight and was walking faster than usual. I thought how nice it was of them to provide encouragement.

We discussed the importance of wearing shoes that help you to keep your balance. Death often follows a fall when you are older.

I walked further down the road and met up with a neighbour who risks his life trimming the huge hedge at the front of his garden. I tried to persuade him to hire a younger man to do the job but I don’t think he was convinced!

On my way home I again met up with my very active neighbour who controls his diet so well. I mentioned how King Charles I had got stuck in the window whilst attempting an escape from Carisbooke castle in 1648.

If he had been as active as my neighbour he might have escaped and saved his life. Instead, Charles was executed in 1649. Stay slim and you are less likely to die of a heart attack and more likely to climb out of a window if your house is on fire!