Chickens in a field

Of Beets, Columns of Black Smoke and Finished Books

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

If you walk around at the moment you see that they have cut corn, sunflowers and beet. You also see that there are piles of beet in fields, queues of tractors waiting to send them on a train journey and more. Agriculture is busy at the moment.

Plenty of Beets
Plenty of Beets

This morning I heard quite a few sirens of emergency vehicles and as I looked out of the velux I saw a column of black smoke rising. I was curious as to its origin. I thought “Is it a car or is it a building.” It turns out that a car had decided to start burning while being driven on the motorway. I saw no mention of injuries or other. It seems a strange thing, for a car to spontaneously combust. I wonder what mistake led to the fire.

Recently I have been very good at picking up books, but terrible at actually reading them. I want that to change. There was a time when I was reading 8000 pages a year, and this year I have managed just 2900, in theory. I want that to change. I want to get into the habit of finishing books again. In 2015 I read 29, and this year I read just twelve. My reading habit has really changed since then. I took a journey back in time and read plenty of James Bond books.

I skipped recycling today because the experience of driving and shopping this morning was unpleasant. The obligations of normal life, without the rewards. Pandemic life.

See you tomorrow.

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Fondue for Lunch

Fondue for Lunch

Byrichard

The weather was cold and cloudy this lunchtime so going up to the mountains for lunch was feasible. If the restaurant had been filled with people, and if we had shared a table with others, then I would have skipped and driven home. Luckily the road was closed to go up to the mountains so that stopped some people from going up. There were also the benefits of clouds and cold air temperatures. Combined these things meant that the restaurant was less tempting for large crowds. We ate a fondue.


View of La Dole from the other side
View of La Dole from the other side


I did not plan to go up. It was spontaneous, and I had my own car, so that if I saw that it was too busy I could turn back or walk to the summit. We’re still in a pandemic, so if I feel a risk is too great I bail.


Today is interesting because it seems quieter than it should be. The restaurant was quieter, but the villages and other places are quieter too. It’s as if people are hibernating or hiding. I saw that all the cars are goine from the garage for example.


In other news a Valaisanne, dressed as Lucy Walker climbed the Matterhorn in period costume. In Uri, due to the glaciers melting people are asked to be attentive to archeological remains. If we leap to the space age then we see that SpaceX might be struggling to find enough liquid oxygen due to the pandemic. With hospitals needing more of it SpaceX might be in second place to get it.


https://twitter.com/UkTravelling/status/1431612722467250183

Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles
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Northern Exposure and Blowing Bubbles

Byrichard

Northern Exposure is a series about a doctor who finds himself sent to Alaska to be a doctor for a few years. He thinks that it is the middle of nowhere and he has to adapt from enjoying life as a New Yorker to life as a frontier town doctor.  


Early colza in the Canton of Vaud
Early colza in the Canton of Vaud


Although the series is thirty plus years old it still remains relevant today with its exploration of global warming, pollution and more. The characters have existential conversations and in a few episodes we meet the man living in a geodesic dome. He lives in the dome to avoid pollution. He is allergic to aluminium, methane gas and more. 


It’s an interesting episode to watch within the context of the pandemic. People, including me, continue to wear masks when we are indoors. People think that we are strange for doing this. The pandemic isn’t over. We hear all the time about how Long COVID lies dormant, whether people are symptomatic for weeks, months of years after primary infection. It makes sense to wear masks, given that a mask takes a second to wear and take off, but long COVID can be for life. 


Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday
Cars coming from Geneva on Easter Friday


The idea of being allergic to the modern world, to various forms of pollution is an interesting one. We read about forever minerals and plastics in drinking water, more and more often, and about air pollution. We have CO2 monitors to keep an eye on pollution. We have maps of pollution around cities, motorways and more. The topic is still relevant today. 


This television isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. It is on Filmin, a film network for experimental films. The content is niche, more diverse and more interesting. as long as you understand Spanish. It has films like Nano of the North, which I find interesting. I know this because when I typed North for Northern Exposure it suggested Nanook of the North, a documentary film I read about regularly when I was studying documentary. 


Modern television series should have people wearing masks to socialise. “Lunatics” like me, who still wear masks, should be normalised in modern television series, to show that being cautious should not be worthy of stigmatisation and prejudice. Northern Explored pollutants in the air. Modern series should explore the reasons for still masking despite the gas lighting of politicians, stating that the pandemic is over, despite the death rate telling a different story. 

Barefoot Shoes and Socks

Barefoot Shoes and Socks

Byrichard

Today I am going to write about something a little different. A few days ago I saw a child with a huge hole in at least one sock and I commented “for once you’re the one with holes in your socks, rather than me. Usually I do have holes in my socks, and when the child noticed he pointed this out in public once.

After this incident I started to throw socks away as soon as they got holes, to avoid such a comment. For some reason it bothered me to have holes in my socks in a context where I had to take off my shoes. That’s not actually what this blog post is about.

Barefoot Shoes are Kinder to Feet

I noticed that all the signs of wear and tear that I had on my feet, as a result of wearing normal shoes are gone from my feet. My feet have recovered from having the toes, heels and other parts of the foot rubbing against parts of the shoes. The result is more elegant feet, thanks to soft barefoot shoes.

Intact Socks

I have been using the same socks for weeks, or even months at this point and they are barely worn. At one point, with normal shoes, I was wearing through socks within weeks. It got so bad that I was starting to worry about how expensive it would be to buy new socks every few weeks. With barefoot shoes that problem seems to be gone.

Five million steps

Over the last twelve months I have still taken over 4.9 million steps, so it’s not that I am walking less. I am cycling more, but I’m still in the five million steps per twelve month period range. My walking habit is consistent.

Softer Steps

When you walk with normal shoes the shoes do the work of amortising every step, so every step comes down with force, especially around the heel, where holes would begin to appear with some socks. With barefoot shoes you’re not crushing that part of the sock so the sock has a longer life expectancy

More Space for Toes

Plenty of people who write about barefoot shoes speak about the bigger “toe box”. With normal shoes you instantly feel that the foot has less space. This difference in room for the toes could contribute to the tips of socks wearing against the shoes, forming toe holes on socks.

Barefoot Barefoot Shoes

Since some people wear barefoot shoes, barefoot, without socks, it would make sense for the shoes to be designed to be barefoot friendly, to avoid friction points and more. It would make sense for shoes to be made to be comfortable.

And Finally

This observation is based on wearing a single pair of barefoot shoes for over 500 kilometres. If I wear another pair of barefoot shoes I might notice that the wear and tear of socks is different. usually new socks cost about 20 CHF for a week’s worth of socks. If I need to replace them twice, in the lifespan of a pair of shoes then I could buy a pair of shoes that is 20-40CHF more expensive, and the price of new socks would be offset, by not needing to buy socks as regularly.

I wrote that last part as a joke, rather than a serious consideration. I am happy to have stopped wearing through socks so quickly, at last.

Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home
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Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home

Byrichard

For once I walked in the drizzle, rather than the rain but I could hear thunder as I got home. I have almost reading Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home during this walk. Poetically I was listening to her about walking with a storm on its way whilst a storm was thundering over the Jura.


The rain became heavy just as I got close to home so today I am not drenched to the bone, and in need of a change of clothes like yesterday. I started today’s walk by running for the first two and a half kilometres, using the Guardian’s running podcast week three, for the fourth time. I didn’t run last week and I prefer to give my legs time to acclimate to running before pushing too much.


I spent most of my waking hours today working on the website. I’m still working on the front page and I think it’s almost ready to go live. It’s built with CSS, a little javascript, and grids. I have it behaving as I want it to behave. It looks good, whether viewed on a “desktop” or a mobile phone.


What I learned while working on the front page has helped. When I was making web pages mobile-friendly a week or two ago was bare bones and I didn’t change much. Now when I re-worked three or four pages today I used CSS where I could. I replaced tables with CSS and with pages where I had lists I used CSS to enhance lists. There is one page I still need to re-work, but I need to think about how to do something interesting.


See you tomorrow.

Initial Thoughts on the Sigg Travel Mug Miracle Black 0.47l

Initial Thoughts on the Sigg Travel Mug Miracle Black 0.47l

Byrichard

The Sigg Travel Mug Miracle Black flask has a mediocre name but a good niche. Drinking hot, or cold drinks, whilst driving, without worrying about it spilling, and as a bonus, the ability to open it one handed. This is especially relevant in a car, small enough not to have cup holders built in.


If you stand the Sigg Eddy+ 600ML next to the Sigg Travel mug Miracle 0.47ml they are the same size so if you can fit one into your hiking bag you can fit both. On one side you have your water, on the other you have your hot tea, coffee or other.


Today I tried drinking hot tea from it and the experience was good. I would warn against pressing the safety button straight after pouring steaming hot water into it. The button will purge hot steam onto your finger. You do feel heat, around the top after pouring in hot liquid, so it can help you guauge whether it has cooled enough for you to drink from.


Unlike the Camelbak Forge, that I liked using for years, and the Camelbak hot cap, that I was not overly enthusiastic about drinks do not spill to either side of your face. With both the camelbak forge and the hot cap I found that you would tilt too much sometimes, and it would spill down the sides of your face. With the Sigg TMMB 0.47 (I’m too tired of typing the full name each time) you get the fluid right where you want it.


The vessel itself looks and feels slender compared to other thermally insulated drinking vessels. I like the form factor. The lid is simple on the outside. You have the locking button, and the hole to drink from. The trigger button is opposite the drinking hole, easy to use.


If you flip the cap and look at the mechanism then it is made of two parts and three springs. You remove the mechanism by pressing both sides at once and it pulls out quite easily. You can then wash every component. There is also a sillicon cap that is used to provide a proper seal when you are not drinking from the vessel.


Based on first impressions I think that this will fit my desires and needs perfectly and I would even toy with the idea of getting the 0.27ml version for take away coffee or hot chocolate. I am happy with it so far.

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