Thrown or Dropped Out Of A Car
I don’t understand why this would fall out of a car window.
Every sunday I try not to use the car at all. As a result I went for a walk through the local countryside and experimented with the new camera. I was looking at the streams but they were quite low, not such a great opportunity to test the underwater part.
[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157624577824618″]
The weather was finally dynamic today. The storm warnings were flashing towards Hermance, on the French side of the lake. This gave a nice contrast between the yellow of the Colza fields and the dark threatening clouds behind.
At moments I thought that rain would begin to fall but luckily the doppler radar, and my instincs were correct, so I did not get drenched in rain or pelted with hail. At one point it did feel as though hail could be a possibility.
In the last week or two I have cycled around 150 kilometres, which isn’t bad. It could be better but single rides are around 49 kilometres. Once the ride was 49 kilometres but I saw that I could easily get an extra few meters to make it 50 so I made the effort. The second time I skipped.
My only trips into Geneva this year have been by bike, but only up from the lake, up the Via Appia and then back towards Vaud. No stops in Geneva itself so far. We are still in a pandemic and I am not going to play Pandemic Roulette, as I like to call it. I am not taking risks that are not worth taking.
If you are so inclined you can now listen to Germinal as podcasts via France Culture. Each episode is 28 minutes long so easy to slot into your day, either commuting or doing other things.
During the pandemic I spent a lot of time reading swiss news, to keep up with current affairs. Now that the Swiss government has decided to pretend that the pandemic is over I have stopped reading the RTS info site. There is not much value when they do not provide relevant news and information.
I will update this blog erratically because it’s hard to know when I will or will not be inspired. Today’s blog post is mainly as an excuse to share photographs.
People who walk as much as me wear through shoes within a few months. The soles that were deep and ridged when new, become smooth as we walk, and wear away the soles. Usually I know that shoes are new, or that they need replacing the same way. They start to cause blisters, and I feel that stones are starting to be felt through the soles.
These shoes stand out from others because they are waterproof almost to the top of the shoe, so as long as lake waves are small you’re fine. I tried on the lake, but with a speed boat passing seconds before, I didn’t insist. I tested in the blue shower by the lake to see the result. They performed as expected.
Usually we would put shoes on, and walk once or twice, down the aisle, to see if they were comfortable, but this time I took a liberty, I walked around decathlon with two or three pairs of shoes, to see which ones I liked most. This is a worthwhile. If you forget you’re wearing the shoes you’re trying on, then that’s a good sign. That’s how I chose these over two other shoes I tried on.
According to the marketing content they are meant to be comfortable for walking 20 kilometres a day, 6hrs a day. I haven’t put them through that test, due to recent rainfall.
It feels childish, to put a shoe in a basin of water like I did in the photo above. It confirms your expectations of how waterproof a shoe is. Now that I have confirmed my suspicions, I can walk through puddles, without fear of getting socks wet. With these shoes, the problem is rain seeping in through the trousers and socks, rather than through the fabric. They also have “gaiter” although I would call it a gaiter, to keep stuff out.
With time, we will see if I like them more than other shoes.
One day I prepared Raclette and whtin a few days I prepared Goulash. I find the contrast between the two recipes amusing. One takes 15-20 minutes to prepare because of the need to cook potatoes for that long, and the other takes half an hour to prepare and then another hour or two to cook. One is just cheese, pepper and bread, the other is bread, pepper, tomatoes, potatoes, meat, paprika and more.
I googled Goulash on Wikipedia. It’s interesting that originally goulash was made from meat that was dried in the sun before being stored in animal stomachs. When it was time for that food to be eaten it was rehydrated. The practice of dehydrating food, before travelling by horse, foot or other means is an old habit of humans. Thru-hikers are not the first to do this. Neither are the various militaries.
I walked one of my older routes today. It’s a nice walk but the problem with dangerous car driving persists. Instead of driving at a speed that would be polite and respectful when crossing a pedestrian they drive at the speed limit. This makes me feel unsafe. Society likes to say that we shouldn’t walk along roads, but if you want to get from village to village there are not that many options, especially during a pandemic where couples and groups walk side by side.
I stopped walking those routes because I was tired of feeling endangered during every walk. It is also for this reason that I cycle less. Breaking an arm also helped, and being in the middle of a pandemic. These are conducive to keeping some habits rather than others.
This week I used the Sig Shield One and Camelbak eddy+ a lot. I took the Sigg Original with me on daily walks. The 600ml eddy+ is the most practical bottle out of the three. You can drink from it while doing something else. It takes little to no focus. The Shield one is a close second. The Sigg Original requires more concentration because the top needs to be unscrewed and screwed back on for every drink. Another problem is that half a litre of water is not like half a litre of coke. You can drink half a litre of water in a few seconds, but you sip coke.
I like going for daily walks with the 600ml Eddy+ or the Sigg Original 500ml. Every village has a fountain, so if you run low on water you can easily refill. My favourite is the 600ml Eddy+ for now. It is the easiest to use clean, and carry. I didn’t “need” to buy the other two bottles but pandemic curiousity, when you see things online, rather than in person, got the better of me.
All of the containers I bought are now easier to clean. One is made of steel so cleaning is easy, a second just goes in the dishwasher so I don’t even think about it, and the third has a wide mouth opening that makes cleaning and inspecting it easy.
I still think I need two 1L water bottles for summer hikes, when we’re out of pandemic, and reverting to normal life again.