Recently I drove for 26 hours over two days between Switzerland and France and I used Audible rather than Audiobookshelf to listen. The reason for this is that when I am driving I do not want to fiddle with an app on a phone. I don’t even want to fiddle with apps on Car Play. I noticed that PocketCasts, the Podcast App, MyCitroën and even TomTom can be quite distracting when you’re trying to set things up when you’re driving.

Some people aim to read twenty books per year. Others aim for a book a week. I read 15 or so books last year which doesn’t feel like much, compared to others. Having said that, I don’t read like others. When I read I flit between books. I might start three or four books within a few days, and gently make progress for weeks or months at a time. Since the books are often not finished I might read hundreds of pages but it doesn’t appear in the reading stats.

I like Garmin Connect and the Garmin Instinct 2. Both the app, and the device are good and they’re reliable for tracking sports on a daily basis. Having said this, I felt the urge to slide back to my Suunto devices and the Suunto app. For many, many, many years I was very happy with suunto getting two dive computers, one feature watch an ambit 2, ambit 3, Suunto Spartan and Peak 5.

The biggest improvement you can make to walking and cycling mobility is to avoid having cyclists, and pedestrians blocked by car traffic. This can include traffic lights but also busy roads where it is impossible to cross. If you’re on a walk, or a bike ride, and you get blocked by cars, then the temptation is not to walk that route, or walk a shorter distance. Millions are being spent to make roads more cyclist and pedestrian friendly but they’re making changes that look good on paper but do nothing for cyclists and pedestrians.

It is when you roam with your phone across Europe that you realise how much data an iPhone gets through. In the space of a week I burned through almost 3 gigabytes and 7 more gigabytes before controlling which apps could use data. At the same time I reset the data counters and looked at the option of using dual esims at once. With the iPhone it is possible to have one sim active for your normal phone use, and a second sim that can be used for data while roaming.

Yesterday afternoon I was trolled by an American account of a person living in Germany. I commented on the absurdity of bicycle lanes that are just two hundred meters long and the troll account said “be happy to have that”. I felt like answering in a hostile manner. I refrained from doing this. I deleted my threads account instead. You might see this as overkill, but there is something to be said about dumping toxic antisocial media sites.

I was thinking of taking a break from Whatsapp for three weeks. I have this desire, and need because I am tired of how people use Whatsapp. They create groups, where strangers are added. People with no deep knowledge of online communities delete posts that are sometimes not spam. Other people complain when people try to have conversations. The result is that WhatsApp is emotionally draining because it doesn’t feel like a healthy, tight knit community.

Yesterday morning I woke and looked out of a window and saw fog. For some, the reaction is “oh zut alors” as we think that we’re in for several weeks of being under the clouds, with the mountains as a weekend escape from a sun deprived time spent in fog. An Indirect Walk I took it as an opportunity. I could have walked from A to B last night. Instead I walked my usual walk.

When it is rainy and overcast going for a walk at sunset is not rational. On a sparsely cloudy day this makes a lot of sense. On a day where the sun is shining, to go for a walk at sunset, is an opportunity to see golden hour colours. Last night that’s what I did. It is unusual for me to take so many pictures but the light was great. It’s just a shame that I was in an urban landscape rather than a natural one.

Yesterday I was asked why I went to an ice rink, to stand around while people skated. The reason is that I wanted to go for my daily walk while the sun, or at least daylight, was still around. If I had set off later, then I would have been caught by the night, and I would have missed walking in daylight. At this time of year, if you don’t go for a walk before 17:00 you’re likely to walk in the dark.