Protected: thoughts typed on a mobile phone
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Last night I was reading from a book, rather than from a kindle or audible book. As a result I had to keep the bedside light on. I also had to ensure that the light light the pages of the book. I was reading from the book “Beneath My Feet, Writers on Walking” introduced and edited by Duncan Minshull and I came across an exert written by Karl Philips Moritz. He wrote Journeys of a German in England in 1782.
In this book he writes about walking in England and about how people were puzzled that someone would want to walk from London to Richmond and back. People couldn’t fathom that someone would want to walk such a distance on foot.
At one point he says “Walking four miles in England feels like walking one mile in Germany”, to paraphrase. He enjoyed walking in England. He speaks of stopping by the side of the road, finding the shade of some bushes and reading. Apparently people on the road were puzzled that someone would stop by the side and read.
What is so striking about this writing is that it is from 241 years ago, before cars, before the steam age, and before the forms of transport we are familiar with today.
Several centuries later another eccentric would go for long walks, Grandma Gatewood. People were puzzled that someone her age would walk the Appalachian Trail alone, more than once.
According to Google Bard walking was normal in 1782, as was horse back riding, horse drawn carriages and sailing ships. Given the context it’s interesting that so early, before steam and trains people would have seen walking from Point A to Point B as strange.
The idea we have that the car encouraged people to stop walking is erroneous, in that people did not walk from A to B long before then. The idea that the carriage was an ordinary form of transport to get from A to B, rather than walking is interesting. Was the writer trying to save money, for his travels, or did he simply enjoy the act of walking?
I found copies of the book in electronic format so I will take the time to read a copy, to understand more about the reasons for this long walk.
Today I went for my daily walk and I saw a shape. I thought, “That looks like a fox” and as I approached i had a doubt about it being a dog and I felt fear but I continued forward anyway. Eventually the fox noticed me, looked at me and then fled the other way. This is good news. This means that the fox was healthy, rather than rabied. It also means that I can keep being relaxed about seeing foxes.
At this time of year fields are filled with flowers by the thousands and if you walk around the right fields you hear the buzzing of bees. I didn’t hear them today. Summer heat seems to be back now. The thermometer is going up to 26 to 27 degrees. Warm enough to cycle in shorts and not feel cold. This is a nice time of year for such sports. I have cycled 100 kilometres so far and tomorrow I expect to add another 20 to 30 kilometres so I will have reached my pre-pandemic goal for the first time in two or three years. I haven’t cycled seriously since I broke my arm.
I have now completed 50 percent of The Complete JavaScript Course so I am finally closer to the end than the beginning of this course. I feel that I am learning new and interesting things, as well as consolidating knowledge about other topics. What I am learning about JavaScript can be found here. This is sorted by learning, rather than projects. I keep this as a notebook rather than a repository for others to use. When I am confident about the projects I am working on I will share them in an organised manner.
I am approaching the five kilometre mark now. I am getting close to being able to run five kilometres in a row once again. It is paradoxical that I find running hard, compared to walking and cycling. I was able to run up to 13 kilometres before. Now I’m aiming for half, to a third less.
If I ran somewhere flat I would find running easier. One of the challenges of running in this landscape is that it undulates. In theory I could also run around in circles like others do. I could run laps, rather than a long circuit but I don’t want to run around in circles. I am considering running around in a circle for the 4.8km run. I want to run around in that circle to focus on achieving the distance, rather than struggling to cope with the contours.
I have a tendency to speed up and wind myself, and then I struggle to regain my breath. I don’t give in and start walking. I just try to get my breathing and heart rate to lower, without having to stop or slow down. I sped up yesterday because I saw that people were going to cross my route, and I didn’t want to get stuck behind them. I succeeded.
I am working on my running ability but I don’t think I like running. I find it hard. I don’t find it relaxing. I have been reading about the 80/20 rule of training, and it’s good to know about it, but it doesn’t apply to me yet. I am not a runner so all runs are beyond comfortable talking pace, for the moment. With time I will slow down my fitness will increase and walking and talking will be simple.
For now the goal is to reach 5km in a single run. Once I reach the desired distance I will work on feeling more comfortable running that distance, as well as work on speed.
I wish I was more inspired to write better posts, but that will come. We are still in winter and when I start going for more interesting activities my post worthiness will increase.
It’s taken no more than a few days from the time I first saw Fred2baro on seesmic to our first meeting with Deek in London for the first Seesmeetup… so called. In fact it was both Sizemore that had the first meeting although more private in nature.
One of the questions that one of Fred2baro’s relatives asked was why would you want to be part of Seesmic? Aren’t people pretend and fake? Aren’t you uncomfortable with this?
My answer was the following: When you go to a bar or you meet people face to face rather than via twitter or Seesmic you’re quite often in a bar under the influence of a drink or two. As a result you’re not as genuine as you’d be if you met in another place. In other words Seesmic and twitter are a way of getting to know people before you meet them in the physical world.
What this means is that you can generate some great friendships, some strong ones. It’s also a new contemporary method of networking than the bar. We’ve got too many distractions at home. Whether it’s from the computer, the phone or the television to feel the absolute need to go out to bars where we’d sit and be bored anyway.
The point is the following. To me the social media, especially twitter and seesmic are a great way of creating new friendships in the physical world where limitations of time and travel distances are cancelled out. If’ we’re part of an international society why not meet people online and bring it to the physical world rather than the other way around. How many times have you been sad to see a friendship disintegrate because of distance?
I have, many times. Time to enjoy these new toys.