Twenty One Thousand Five Hundred Steps and A Wind That Plays The Harmonica
Today I could have taken the scooter to some shops but I went for a walk. The result of that walk is that I reached twenty one thousand five hundred steps. I often take a lot of steps per day. I wish I was walking somewhere more interesting than in circles.
According to Sports tracker my daily workouts saved 4.74 kilograms of CO2 this month.
I was amused during this walk. The wind is so strong at the moment that as I tried to play the Harmonica as I walked into the wind I found that the wind itself was playing my harmonica. If I blew then I won, but if I drew then I was competing against the wind. Boring people get wind chimes. I think that people should get harmonicas instead of wind chimes. Wind chimes are audio kitsch. Harmonicas are not, because they’re rarer.
This recording is from yesterday’s walk in the wind rather than today’s. The audio was recorded from the airpods, I think. I wasn’t sure you would hear the harmonica over the sound of the wind but it worked.
The wind has to be going at, at least, 25km/h if I remember correctly for the reeds to resonate enough to make noise.
In other news I have read more than once that trawlers are now trawling for krill within superods of whales. I read a few days ago about how fishermen are hoovering the sea of krill to feed farmed salmon. Humans are destroying the sea to such a degree that they are now hoovering up krill, leading to whales and other mammals to starve. We should not be wasting money and fuel to farm something in a juvenile state. It’s bad enough that humans destroy other parts of the marine food chain but this is a step too far.
As a diver people always asked “But what is there to see when you dive” and the truth is “nothing, because of overfishing, in Swiss lakes and the mediterranean. The paradox is that with a marine reserve aquatic life comes back and thrives quite easily. People fly to Fiji and other locations to see plenty of fish but if Europeans, and others, worked to preserve their marine diversity, through marine parks then we would have more fish to see underwater. The marine eco-system needs us to leave it alone, to recover, so that fish reach maturity, so that we see large whales, fish and more.
Nice Clouds on a Windy Day
Sometimes you drive home on the scooter and you look up at the sky and you think “When I get out of this village I’m going to stop by the side of the road and I’m going to take a picture of the clouds because they’re photogenic.
The reason for them being photogenic today is that they were rippled like the sea, rather than fluffy. Those ripples make you think of the sand underwater by the beach.
After so many hours spent walking the same landscape day after day you spend more and more time noticing the details. In so doing you notice the sky, you see the fields change, and the crops mature, from a muddy field to a field at full maturity, before being ready to be harvested, and harvested.
Spring and summer are playing with us
Spring and Summer are playing with us. A few weeks ago it was warm and sunny. It felt as if summer was finally here and that we could start planning outdoor activities that don’t require enormous amounts of fossil fuels, like skiing and snowboarding do. 😉
We had the rain and the cold and when the rain and cold grew tired the wind came by and replaced it. This was a moderately strong wind. Some gusts were strong enough to make me deviate on the scooter and strong enough not to be able to wear a hat. The wind was also strong enough to damage trees, blow plastic around the place and even to make you feel like you were walking through a wind tunnel rather than down a road between fields.
The wind did seduce boats into breaking from their moorings, tree branches and trees, from falling from above onto forest paths and even for a blue sky to emerge as water struggled to congregate in a single place. For the last two days we could see the Mont Blanc in most of its glory.
The two problems that we face with the wind are that it makes moving around harder because instead of cycling at 30 km/h with a 30 km/h wind you’re cycling at 20km/h with a 50km/h headwind. I didn’t try because the wind plays mind games. You feel like you’re unfit despite not being. I also found that when walking it dries out your ears and prevents you from listening to podcasts while walking.
Imagine, walking for an hour or two, deep in thought, rather than having your thoughts led by someone else.
Whilst it is nice to walk between the trees there is a danger of falling branches and other debris. You can hear the wind blowing above and on the trails you can see all the wood that has been loosened. Imagine if you were looking for firewood and were only allowed to pick up what had already fallen to the ground. You’d be happy.