Walking

Today during my walk this afternoon I surprised a cat on some stairs and I moved patiently. It brushed up against me so I started to stroke it. During this pandemic the only living things I have had physical contact with are cats. During a pandemic, if you’re not living with people, you are very limited.

Yesterday I did go out for a bike ride with a group of people, virtually. Before the ride I was feeling really down, and negative. After the ride I was feeling refreshed and relaxed. For the first time in three weeks I was able to do something physical without having to avoid people, worry about routing or anything else. All I had to do was pedal to the limit of my motivation and endurance.

The 298 Km walking and Running Challenge is now ten days old and I’ve managed to run or walk the required distance every day. Yesterday rather than walk I decided to run despite the rain. As a result, a pair of my hiking trousers are now nicely covered in mud. I walked through two puddles near home hoping that most of the mud would wash off the shoes and it seems to have worked.

I’m on the Apple Activities March Walking Challenge this month. The app has decided that I must walk or run 298 kilometres. It’s an average of 9.6 kilometres a day. This is both easy and challenging at the same time. Walking 10 kilometres takes about two hours.

When I had a broken arm I walked more than two hours a day, because I had nothing else I could do. I also walked that much because I couldn’t bike, take the car or drive the scooter. As a result, I needed to walk for everything.

I stopped playing Ingress a few years ago because of how much time it requires. I have started going on Ingress walks again - a 12km path to level 13 in yesterday’s case, because I’m combining the daily walk that I would do anyway, with listening to podcasts and audiobooks, anyway.

By walking and listening to audiobooks and podcasts I am constantly learning about new things. Recently I’ve been listening to current affairs podcasts, I listened to 13 minutes to the moon, I listened to podcasts about the Swiss Watch Industry and more. Every walk is a journey in learning. I also learn about the fifty objects that made the world and more.

Although this article is two years old La Tribune de Genève wrote again about it and it appeared in my Google Newsfeed. I am not opposed to making cities pedestrian because I love to walk more than I like buses, trains, or other forms of transport.

I actually do like trains. When I lived in London I liked to take the tube everywhere. I wish someone had encouraged me to try cycling in London because I would have used a bike to get everywhere. I already walked instead of using buses.

The Foggiest idea, or a pun, after a walk this morning through Geneva on a foggy day. “The Jet D’eau will be off”, I thought. It was pumping out water at its usual rate but you’d find it hard to see. The grey/white fog, along with the white water, converged and became one.

On a day like today, the Jet D’eau is not the only thing that is hard to see. So are the mountains. If you try to see the other side of the lake you see nothing, just a blank canvas on which you could add anything. It’s also a time when you might be happy to go back indoors where it is nice and warm.

The walk from Paquis to Decathlon can be almost straight if you take the most direct route. You walk from anywhere in Paquis to the train station and from there you head up towards Balexert and from there you head along the cycle and walking paths that veer slightly to the right, take you over the motorway and then to the airport, by the private aviation terminal. From there the rest of the walk takes a few minutes.

For the first time in my life I am cat sitting. I’m used to village cats and this is a city cat so I don’t know how much time I need to spend with the cat, how much I need to play and more.

When I look after toddlers I know that I have to be attentive to them from the moment they wake up to the moment they nap or sleep. It’s a challenge to have that level of endurance.

After watching the video below this paragraph I want to speak on the pleasure of walking without stopping at a road crossing. In modern cities you can’t walk for more than a minute or two without having to stop at a road crossing, a traffic light or other feature. The result is that a stroll or walk is filled with stops and starts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJ_rgEUSJE

As people move towards urbanised centres, and as more and more people live vertically, on top of each other so the need for gyms, swimming pools, indoor climbing centres and other features become essential. This is because we are designed by evolution for sports. Moving towards urban centres detracts from our ability to do sports in a natural environment.

Sometimes a walk above the woods is easy. I don’t mean walking while flying hanging from a parapente. I mean walking at an altitude where there are fewer trees.

The walk from the transmission mast of La Bariellette to La Dôle is an easy walk that I have done many times. Sometimes I have done it at dusk. Sometimes I have done it with snow and sometimes I have done it when I was walking through clouds. Usually people do it when the weather is nice