A dry water meter

Enjoying A Rainy Day

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Although unfamiliar to most, there is pleasure to be felt from a day of rain. A day of rain, in a place where rain is rare is welcome. It provides a break from the daily walk. It provides an extra one and a half hours in a day. I have been impatient for such a day for months and it has finally arrived. Who wouldn’t want a day a rain. The rivers are happy. They were looking naked, with their rocks showing, and trees that are sometimes at river water level hanging high and dry. It will be good for the trees and everything else too. Rain cleans everything. That layer of dust that had accumulated over the weeks and months can finally run away, to flow into the lake, and from the lake down a river, towards the sea. It is also a break from the pressure of walking. Although walking is pleasant, and although it is relaxing, it is also a workout. You’re walking, deciding on a route, avoiding people and their dogs, and trying not to be yelled at by car drivers. You walk by one village and you hear a piano being played through a window. You wonder whether it is every day at the same time, whether the person is learning. Maybe it is simply someone who likes listening to music.

I Considered A Twitter Break

This morning I considered taking a twitter break after I saw one or two tweets that either seemed toxic or made me have a negative response. I take social media breaks, not because of negative opinions of social networks, but because either the people, or the conversations are not as pleasant or positive as I would like. I want to have fun, not be negative.

Not Drinking Enough

During this pandemic, after taking the habit of shopping for drinks once per week I find that my drinking habit declined. Instead of drinking two to three litres like some applications and journals recommend I drank one to one and a half litres. Recently I have started drinking more water and I see a change. In particular I am two to three weeks in. I am happy just to drink water now.

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One And A Half Years of Pandemic fatigue

Byrichard

For the first one hundred days of the pandemic it felt long but we had a hope, and the impression that respective governments were working to eradicate the pandemic so that we could resume normal life. Eventually though people against lockdowns, and against other measures began to be heard and so societies around the world reopened, and with the reopening of society so the virus flared up again. In the French part of Switzerland society is opening up despite half of people tested for covid testing positive, and despite knowing that the numbers are climbing by around 30 percent per week.


The number of children falling sick is increasing in Switzerland but some cantons are allowing children to stop wearing masks and it is written about as if it is a liberation. Before this pandemic falling sick, or being exposed to illness was either never, or rarely seen as a right. Health was seen as a right.


Vaud is going to remove the obligation to wear masks in crowds and in towns, meaning that now, if you want to stay safe, you have to stay away from crowds, cities and to some degree even villages.


Today when I wrote that with the new measures I would continue to avoid towns and cities as people are not wearing masks I was told “well it’s your choice to continue, if you wish. Leave the choice to others” to which I responded that self-isolation isn’t our choice because the risk of being infected comes from those who are either not masked, not vaccinated, or not self isolated. I was called a liar so I blocked the troll.


I recognise that logic. It is the logic of alcoholics and drunks. “I can do what I want because it doesn’t harm anyone.” and “Let other people have their freedoms” and other such attitudes. Selfishness. For the entirety of this pandemic the idea of people being selfish has permeated the pandemic conversation.


To get out of this pandemic we need selflessness and empathy. We need people to vaccinate, to wear masks, to aerate, to socially distance and to show empathy for others. At the moment the opposite is happening. Those who think there is nothing to worry about are forcing those who want to remain safe, to withdraw to the countryside and minimise any and all social contact.


Those who don’t want measures, are forcing those who want to minimise risk of catching the virus to live in solitude, ostracised from society for taking a pandemic seriously. This ostracism has lasted for two years and there is no sign of it getting any better for months or even years to come.


The Infection Paradox


The biggest challenge we face as a society is that there is the notion that the current variants are safe. There is the misplaced idea that we can fall sick, but because we’re not ending up in hospital, that it is safe. With the speed at which the virus spreads through society it will take weeks to infect everyone. That’s where the discussion about intentional eugenics comes in.


If we are optimists then we think there is nothing to worry about and in a few weeks the pandemic is over. If we are well-read realists then we have seen that from 10 percent to 60 percent of people develop Long Covid, and that many are being infected two or three times within a month or two.


Europe is falling sick, and we don’t know what the long term effects of Covid-19 are. We will see how history remembers this moment in time. We have to sit and wait for this pandemic to end.


On twitter I have found a bubble of likeminded people who think we should be working towards covid zero, and minimising risk, rather than the opposite.

Rivella in a Sigg Bottle

Rivella in a Sigg Bottle

Byrichard

For months, or even years, I have seen adverts for the Rivella Unlimited Bottle. it is a competition that you can play, and if you win the competition you get a Sigg Rivella bottle that you can get refilled anywhere for free. I thought the idea of putting Rivella into any reusable bottle was absurd and messy so I didn’t try. Today I did.


As I poured the Rivella from a half litre rivella bottle into the Half litre sigg bottle I was afraid that it may overflow and I was careful not to lose too much gas. Eventually the transfer from plastic to metal was complete so I went on my daily walk. I wasn’t thirsty during the walk so it was air cooled by the ambient air temperature. It is currently 6°c according to the Apple weather app via an apple watch. It is fridge temperature outdoors, so perfect for such an experiment.


I drank it when I got home, and it seemed fine. In summer, or if you store rivella in a bottle that has been opened for too long it will ferment. If you try this experiment drink it within a few hours. Rivella quickly starts to ferment so it is an unforgiving drink for slow drinkers.


Coop and other shopping centres often have PET and other forms of recycling nearby so if you buy some rivella, or another drink, you can transfer the drink from one container to the other, and the bottle is recycled within minutes of being bought, and you are then free to walk with the drink in a container appropriate for hiking. Of course aluminium does not crush down into a compact shape once you finish your drink, but at least it can be used for another drink after a quick rinse, or proper wash.


Before I leave you, another use case is restaurants. Restaurants. I often go to restaurants, order a coke, get it in a plastic bottle, and then hike with what remains. If I have an empty sigg bottle I can take whatever is left in the sigg bottle, and leave the bottle with the restaurant, especially if it is glass. It removes the rush of trying to finish a bottle before you leave, or vice versa.


Recycling PET and capsules is not an issue, in Switzerland, as recycling centres can be found anywhere, but there is a justification in walking away with a drink you bought, in a container you own, rather than one you will recycle, when the next opportunity presents itself.

Reading to Understand The Past

Reading to Understand The Past

Byrichard

When I read books i read to be transported back to a different time and a different way of thinking. That’s why i read James Bond books, among others. The books are old-fashioned but it is that obsolescence that makes them interesting.


They take us to a time before travel as we know it today. Imagine reading about being sun burned and sun oil. Imagine reading about speeding cars. Imagine reading about a time before road safety laws and speed limits. Imagine reading about when scuba diving was still exotic and more.


Recently people have been reading old books and destroying them by changing words and meanings. By editing books to be socially acceptable today we are behaving like the priest with a bell in Il Nuovo Cinema Paradiso. Do you remember the scene. Clang clang clang, insert a paper into the film reel where the kiss has to be spliced out.


The morality police isn’t splicing kisses or sex. It is neutralising gender, offensive terms and more. Words that make children giggle and laugh are being removed by grown ups.


They, the adults, see this as a social good but I don’t. In the age of Brexit, COVID denialism and a shift by political parties to the Far Right why are we worrying about books when the real social ill comes from what politicians are saying, of how populism is being used, to mislead people to vote against their own best interests?


A book is just a glimpse into the past and i am worried about the present.


My view on books is that we read them to understand how people saw the world before, whether from the 90s, the 50s or a century ago. We read Jane Austen A) because our English teacher told us to, but second to understand a different age and way of seeing the contemporary world. The world, contemporary to the writer, not to us.


I remember reading The Tiger that came to tea, thinking, “this is old fashioned and sexist” but that doesn’t stop me from reading it for a sibling’s offspring. Instead, it would be an opportunity for a well brought up child to say “but that tiger was not kind, that tiger was rude, and so was the dad when he came home.”


This brings me on to “All Creatures Great and Small”. “Oh I do wish you would pay attention” and more. Siegfried tells James off on a number of occassions for what he told James to do. James gets angry, but doesn’t say anything.


The issue with sensitivity readers is that they are moving on to adult books, with adult themes. James Bond is old fashioned, but if it is re-written then it loses some if its allure. I read James Bond while working in a humanitarian organisation. I knew that it was written in a different age, when people had different values and norms.


I worry about what contemporaries think, say and write, rather than what people wrote 60 to seventy years ago. The past is the past. Modern conversations, and modern books should reflect modern values. Will old films be re-edited to remove smoking? Will old films be edited for modern values?


Where will the line be drawn, on changing the past, to suit the views of people today?


And Finally


Roald Dahl was edited for modern audiences but the originals are still available, so you can have the “modern politically correct version” or the old fashioned historical version. Will you read the old fashioned version, and have a conversation about values, or read the sanitised version, and skip the conversation on morality and ethics?

Of Blue Skies and Autumn Leaves

Of Blue Skies and Autumn Leaves

Byrichard

Today we might as well speak of blue skies and autumn leaves because that is what we’re facing. The Septemper/Autumn grey clouds, fog, and cold are not here yet. Instead we have warm sunny days. The habit of walking one and a half hours a day is perfectly safe, with such a stable weather system.


Sigg Bottles


I have two Sigg water bottles, the half litre and the one litre. For months or even a year they lied dormant due to the pandemic and attempts to clean them. I used the tablets but I didn’t like the taste so I left them aside. Yesterday or the day before I decided to take a sponge and clean the exterior and mouth of the bottles. That’s when the taste I expect from these bottles came back.


Previously I had cleaned the bottles with a brush but that didn’t work. Using a sponge did. It is something so simple, and yet I did not consider it. If you don’t like the taste of a bottle try cleaning with a sponge. My one litre bottle lives inside a neoprene sleeve so although it has been smashed about over the years it still has no scratches on it, despite hiking, climbing, via ferrata, conferences, work and more.



Forgetting to Track a Walk


Today I went through the motions of tracking the walk and I thought I had started the tracker but when I went to stop tracking as I arrived home I noticed that either I forgot, or I pressed the wrong button. Before the pandemic, and even slightly into the pandemic I would have been annoyed not to have a perfect record of my walks and activities. One and a half years into a pandemic I don’t care. I stopped using Strava because I grew tired of seeing who was ignoring common decency by not self-isolating locally.


I also do the same activities day after day, for years in a row. It isn’t interesting. There is no mystery. I also have no link with people doing group activities. People who do city things have returned to their old habits, but I see that group sports have not returned. The pandemic is still too volatile for things to be as they were.


Although I forgot to “track” my walk it is still logged as steps, heart beat and more. The effort is logged, but it’s not visual.

Seventy Kilometres Later – Adapting to Barefoot Shoes

Seventy Kilometres Later – Adapting to Barefoot Shoes

Byrichard

I walk from three to fie million steps per year. In doing so I wear through shoes and through socks every six months or less. It makes sense that I would experiment with barefoot shoes since I spend so much time walking. 


The Experience


Initially I tried the Vapor Glove 6 and I was able to walk my usual routes without trouble. I did find one surface where it felt as though the shoes were not adapted to the weathered road conditions and that’s part of the reason I decided to try others. I also found that with the Vapor Glove 6 I could feel my heel stomp onto the hard road surface and I really had to be attentive to changing my walking style overnight. 


Of course, changing from one walking style to another is a challenge. That’s where the Trail Glove 7 come into play. Their sole is 14mm or so, rather than six. This makes a huge difference with my walking style.  With the Trail Glove 7 I have already walked 51 kilometres with ease. Contrast this to 19 in the Vapor Glove 6. The Trail Glove 7 are well suited to my walking style. I’m a strider, and as a strider I use my heel a lot. 


Driving


As a little aside I have tried driving to the shops and back with both pairs of shoes but find that the Vapor Gloves are slightly too soft for driving. It’s better to wear Trail Gloves. I know that flip flops are not recommended for driving. I’m not sure about sandals.  


Walking Style and Pace


If I was walking with people walking at a normal pace, and for smaller distances then the Vapor Glove would be fine. The issue with the Vapor Glove is simply that it has no heel amortisation. The rubber, even with socks is too thin. I need to consciously think of every step. When you walk 12,000 steps it becomes a challenge.  With Trail Glove shoes adaptation is gradual, especially with 10km daily walks. I really like wearing Trail Glove shoes.  


Conclusion


Although I like the idea of wearing shoes that are as minimal as the Vapor Gloves I prefer the Trail Gloves, for now. They allow me to get used to the act of walking “barefoot” without destroying my heels. The biggest hurdle for me is to adapt my gait to be barefoot shoe friendly. I hope that the wear pattern on my normal shoes will change. 

The Walking Paradox
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The Walking Paradox

Byrichard

Today I noticed how quiet the world, or at least the area in which I was walking, was. I saw very few cars, very few people walking, and very little noise from other people.


This doesn’t mean that people weren’t out and about. Although my route was for the most part deserted of people I did encounter crowds at two or three points. I think a man said “hello” but I ignored him for the cardinal sin of not walking single file, down a path, with his companion during the closing days of a pandemic.


“What does it matter?”, you may ask. I would love to do a group hike or a group Ferrata but I can’t because from a scientific point of view Switzerland is not yet clear of the virus. Meeting in groups of more than five is currently still forbidden. The groups I usually go with could be up to twelve people or more. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for the opportunity to do social activities once again.


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