Le Sentier des Toblerones
from Mainvision on Vimeo.
Hidden among the trees in the Canton de Vaud you can find concrete blocks put there as a defensive line to slow down invading armies. The concrete blocks have a similar shape to chocolate Toblerones. There is a hiking trail that you can follow from Bassin down to the lake side. Along the way you can find concrete bunkers camouflaged as houses.
In the middle of summer you may go sailing on the lake and find that there is no, or very little wind. On such days you may spend long periods of time hoping for the wind to pick up and get from point A to point B.
On other days the lake looks like in the footage above. After two days of constant wind the lake has been churned up and the waves are nice and large. They crash into the rocks and sometimes over them. The beaches are eroded and so you get this silty grey water.
A few years ago we went diving with this type of waves and it feels like getting into and out of the sea rather than getting into and out of a lake. The first few metres of the dive have very poor visibility but as you move further out to where the water is deeper the weather above goes unnoticed below. It might be darker but other than that it would be an ordinary dive.
When I lived by the sea I remember experiencing some very strong winds. I remember that the waves were so big and the wind so strong that the waves would crash onto the beach wall and the water would spray across and onto the seafront buildings in Weymouth. I also remember walking towards the town and walking against a wind so strong that I had to lean into it. On such days you could almost lie against the wind.
Although the wind of the last two days was strong and consistent it was not strong enough to have that kind of fun. It was enough to buffet me as I tried to get video of the waves splashing up and over the port walls.
I thought that I might be told that I was not allowed to film by the lake side due to the festival preparations but they said nothing. The festival that this infrastructure is for is the Caribana Festival. It’s the first music festival of the season.
We’re having dry weather which means that I have clean shoes, once again. They cut the grass recently but rather than see greenery we see yellow. We’re in March and it already looks as if we’re un June/July, with how dry the landscape is. The sides of the road, where it was once muddy, is now dry and hard. We are in summer dry weather despite being the first of march.
It’s windy and cold at the moment. You want to wear a good hat, good gloves, and to have layers that stop the wind from blowing through to chill us.
It was cold enough to kill the airpods after an hour of exposure to the weather today. On a warm day the airpods last for two or three hours. On a cold day they last for half an hour to an hour. With walks that last from one hour to one and a half hours I usually never run out of batteries. It’s a sign of cold weather that the batteries last less time than the walk.
In other news twitter failed again today for at least an hour or two. With mobile devices I tried to refresh the feed but saw nothing. I could still post and see replies, but I couldn’t read new tweets. Now that we expect Twitter to fail on a regular basis we don’t feel the same angst as before. It is unimportant.
At least one Londoner loves the mud because it absorbs his steps and lowers the pain he felt when walking on tarmac and other hard surfaces. I am puzzled by one recommendation. “Have a towel ready”. I know that football players have a brush and running water to clean their shoes. The idea of using a towel is new to me. I can think about it, next time it rains, in a few months from now.
The Narrative Clip 2 is a specialist camera that can be programmed to take photos at regular intervals whilst you enjoy activities. This is sometimes referred to as life logging. The idea is that you wear the camera either on clothing or place it somewhere where it can capture the passage of time.
For this event the camera was worn around my neck and took pictures throughout the activity. As you can see from the last image I had the Ricoh Theta S on a monopod and the Sony Xperia Z5 compact for other pictures. You do not see that I had a fourth camera with a 30 times optical zoom.
The camera took over four hundred images during this event and I chose just a few. I avoid sharing images of people unless I have their informed consent. I share the images that best represent the pleasant moments.
If I took the time I could rotate this camera to be horizontal and I could capture daily timelapses. Every time I go for a bike ride or a hike it would capture regular images. The camera has enough battery power and you can keep the camera in your pocket until you want to start logging the event. When the event is finished you can place the camera back in to your pocket and head home for example.
An improvement which I have recently noticed is that when you put the camera to charge it can automatically upload the day’s images to the narrativeapp website and you can then select what you want to share.
As cameras get smaller and more portable and as they become more specialised so we have an opportunity to get different types of images. One is for time lapses, the other has a powerful zoom, the third allows us to capture spherical images and the fourth is practical for sharing to social media.
During the 30,000 step walk at the Creux Du Van on Sunday I was wearing the Xero Xcursion shoes. For almost the entire walk they felt comfortalbe. These are light, thin soled shoes that are minimal. This means that you feel more of the ground, and the soles will take the shape of the floor beneath your feet. Step on a root and you will have your toes putting pressure and the rest of the foot adapting around the route.
With most barefoot shoes I feel the heel smash into the ground so I don’t like wearing them because I don’t like harming myself incidentally. With the Trail Glove Seven and the Xero Xcursion shoes I can walk normally and not feel my heel smashing into the floor with every step. These shoes were fine for the walk up. I didn’t feel any regret in wearing them. On the flat part I didn’t feel any regret either.
I walked through several muddy parts without caring because I knew that by the time I got back to the care the mud would have dried up and fallen off. It fell off during the walk down so when I did check for mud there was none. The other thing that surprised me is that when I walked in muddy patches water did not make its way into the shoes so my feet remained dry. Mud is not the same as heavy rain. These shoes are fine in mud.
It’s on the way down the hill that I noticed slight discomfort. It wasn’t serious discomfort. I could just feel my feet sliding and putting pressure on the inside of the shoe. I have no blisters after the fact so it was just a sentiment. I might wear proper hiking socks just to be safe.
I have been wearing “barefoot shoes for months by now so my walking style has adapted to “being barefoot” with the Trail Gloves. Vapor Gloves, Trail Glove six and the Merrel barefoot shoes I have are not comfortable for long walks. I only find the Trail Glove 7 and Xero Xcursion shoes comfortable. Experiment with shorter walks and normal walks, before doing a 16km hike.
The advantage of minimal/barefoot shoes is that they’re very light. They are not rigid so your foot can adapt to the ground beneath with ease, rather than balancing. For the most part they were so comfortable that I forgot that I wore them. The fact that I could descend with such ease is good. This was a proper test. 30,000 steps and with 900 meters of climbing and 860 meters of descent. I didn’t push through snow because I wasn’t worried about mud. If I had walked in snow I probably would have wet my socks. That’s why I had a spare pair in the car, in case. I would hike again in the Xero shoes.
Duolingo and Babbel log days in a row, rather than the progress made in a day. The Kindle App counts days and weeks in a row. Kobo and Apple Books both log reading time. I want to dump Duolingo but I don’t want to lose my days in a row streak.
Plenty of apps like to log streaks. For them it is a way of addicting us to their app, to force us to use their app every day, whether we feel like it or not. It is a way for them to hold on to us as users, way after we have lost a passion for the app. I hate Duolingo but I keep using it only to keep my streak. I don’t use it to learn German now. Babbel is better. It allows you to move on, and choose whether to repeat a mistake. It also provides you with an in-depth explanation of what the grammatical rules are. Understanding the logic makes learning much easier.
I have read every single day for a year, so to count days in a row is silly. When apps count how many days in a row I do things I want to beat my current record for days in a row. With books this is silly, because books are across Kobo, Kindle, Apple Books, physical books in the real world and more. This means that I would need an app to count how many days in a row, I read, rather than a bookseller’s app.
I like Goodreads’ ability to tell you how many pages you have read in a year. I find that this is a great way of judging whether you have been an avid reader, or not. I tend to read a lot, but not to finish books. I can start a book and finish it a few years later.
Developing consistent daily good habits, like blogging, or like reading, or daily walks are all good. To get into habits that you can do every day, automatically is useful. These habits give structure to our day, but they also keep us moving forward. I find that with certain apps, their desire for streaks, has a negative impact on habits. I hate Duolingo for forcing me (so to speak) to use their app to learn every day. Without the streaks I’d be happier.
Pedometer++, a walk tracking app counts how many days in a row, you can maintain a streak, but it allows you to miss a day or two, if you’re cycling or taking a rest day from walking. This is healthy. Another fun app is Pacer. It allows you to take on walking challenges. The challenge I am currently on is to walk the Camino De Santiago in 180 days. I am 259 kilometres in, out of 819, and ahead of the time limit they set. I am currently walking from Marismas de Santoña to Santander.
What I have written over the last 103 days may not have much value, but it provides me with writing practice. Writing daily, means repetition. Repetition makes it boring to read. I will try to improve my writing habit.