Walking

A Walk In The Rain

Today it was meant to rain for the entire day but there was a brief window which it stopped raining so I went for a walk. I expected not to be rained on but within minutes I could feel a small spray of water falling on me. I walked anyway. It was nothing to worry about. I did the usual walk and although groups of people were walking they were easy to avoid. The rivers are nice and full today so rain is having an effect. Rain has melted the snow that had covered the landscape and filled the rivers. In some places there are traces that the water is slightly polluted.

In Switzerland a three hour drive feels long, but in France or Spain it does not. I drove from Switzerland to Spain and from Spain to switzerland. The drive to Spain is easier because traffic gets lighter as you get further south. Most of the time this is true. This time, as I drove from Spain to Switzerland I came across the opposite. From the moment I started driving I encountered traffic.

A walk by the Mediterranean Sea.

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People think that you need to get in the car, drive for half an hour to two hours, hike, and then drive home for from half an hour to two hours but this idea is wrong. We can do a lot of walking in circles. In reality we don’t walk in circles. We walk in loops. We walk from home to home, but via a different variety of villages. Some days it is the villages that overlook the lake, and other days it is the villages that are under the Jura.

A yellow flower

We cannot always walk around in circles during a pandemic around where we live. I spent over a year walking around in circles near home in Switzerland but this Christmas I travelled.

I didn’t travel because I wanted to. I travelled because sometimes we need to see family. I also travelled to escape all of the Christmas rubbish in Switzerland.

We are in a pandemic. I haven’t socialised in over two years. If you want me to value Christmas give me a reason to celebrate it. Spending two years in pandemic solitude does nothing to enhance my indifference to Christmas.

At the moment I am walking with worn shoes, not because I do not have shoes that are not worn, but because I do not want to walk with shoes that have good tread at this time of year, due to the mud that gets stuck in them. When I walk with shoes with treads I collect mud during my walk, and I bring it up the stairs when I walk up, and I drop it off when I run back down. This leaves a mess, which, if I was a child, would be forgivable to some degree, but as an adult may be seen as immaturity.

I tracked the run and walk with the Garmin Instinct Solar. It is very easy to use while wearing gloves. You can stop the activity, change sport, start the activity, do the second sport, and then stop the tracking of the second sport, without taking off your gloves. Now that we’re in the cold part of Autumn this is useful. On the flipside anytime the clouds hide the sun this watch is unable to recharge itself. Despite this the battery life is still good. When fully charged it displays 27 days, but it loses around two or three days of charge per day with a tracked activity. This is still excellent. The Apple watch needs to be charged every single day. It is a watch that you can wear in the classic style of wearing a watch, i.e. keep it on for days or weeks at a time.

richard - 11th of Nov, 2021

I want to do a few through-hikes. One project is the Via Alpina. 6000 kilometres of hiking.

Leslie - 20th of Nov, 2021

I think I’d like to do the actual Camino de Santiago one day!

Just as I was thinking, “I have nothing to write about because I have been walking around in circles for three or four years I find that at least virtually I have almost achieved a big project. Walking 819 kilometres on the Camino De Santiago. I am now four kilometres from the end. By the end of tomorrow morning I will have completed this goal.

In reality nothing special, as I haven’t had to change my routine, suffer or anything else. What does surprise me is how quickly I completed the challenge. I could have accomplished the goal in more time. I have more than 100 days left to complete the challenge. Now we know how long it would take me to complete, in the physical world.