適度な運動が日々の生活の基本・・・運動はやり過ぎない

　高齢になると足から弱ると聞いているので、いつまでも「自分の足で行きたいところへ行ける」、いつまでも「自分の意志でいろいろ行動できる」ことを目標に朝のラジオ体操会場までは往復１Ｋ、夕方はほぼ毎日、生まれ故郷・倉賀野を１K～２Ｋ無理のない距離で比較的ストライドを広めにウォーキングしてます。昨日はご覧の緑に覆われた烏川の畔を西から東へ歩きました。それにしても、烏川は低い位置を流れてます。このため、倉賀野では大雨が降っても洪水が起こらないのでしょう。

　ここは高崎方面から流れてきた烏川が５００mほど北へカーブしてる所で、川底が高くなってます。このため、その昔、江戸から来た高瀬舟が上れなくなり、倉賀野河岸が終点になったことが分かります。生涯私が会うことが出来なかった祖父母は埼玉県・原道村から夜逃げ同然でここで下船したのです。倉賀野河岸がターミナルでなかったら私はこの世に生まれなかったのです。

　ところで、８月以来、取り組んできた日英対照「天声人語」夏号は、昨日頑張って４日分読み、やっと読み終わりました。日本文を完全に理解することも難しいですが、私の目的は現在使われてる英単語・熟語に触れることです。新たな言葉に出合うたびにノートに書き覚えようとしてますが、なかなか記憶できません。翌日にまたノートを見ると記憶が蘇ることがあります。試行錯誤し、「年齢と共に弱りつつある記憶力」に刺激を与えてます。記憶力向上には「幼児が言葉を覚えるように」実際にアウトプットすることと感じてます。

Dear my friends who are crazy about mnemonics and great music.

　The simultaneous interpretation into English for our mutual understanding will be done after my breakfast in Japan time.

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　Generally as we age, our legs weaken, so with the purpose of always being able to "go wherever I want by my own two feet" and "do various things of my own volition," I walk a 1km round trip to the morning radio gymnastics venue in the park, and almost every evening I walk a comfortable distance with a relatively wide stride of 1km or 2km around my hometown named "Kuragano". Yesterday I walked from west to east along the bank of the Karas River, which is covered in greenery as you can see here. The Karas River flows at a low elevation as you see. This is probably why Kuragano doesn't flood even during heavy rain.

　This is where the Karas River which flows from Takasaki, curves north about 500m, making the riverbed higher. This is why Takase boats coming from Edo Tokyo were no longer able to go up the river. Therefore Kuragano Riverbank became their terminus. My paternal grandparents, whom I never met in my lifetime, disembarked here, practically fleeing from Haramichi-Village, Saitama Prefecture. If Kuragano Riverbank wasn't the terminal, I would never have been born.

　Not change the subject, but, I've been working on the summer edition of Tensei Jingo, a Japanese-English comparison magazine, since August, and yesterday I finally finished reading last four days' worth. It's difficult to fully understand Japanese sentences, but my purpose is to be finished to read English words and phrases that are currently in use. Every time I come across a new word, I try to write it down in my notebook to memorize it, but I hardly memorize it. Sometimes when I look at my notebook again the next day or later, the memory comes back to me. Through trial and error, I'm stimulating my memory which is weakening with age. I feel that the key to improving memory is to actually output the words, just like a young child memorizing words.