Stendahl

I did two walks today and thereby achieved my walking goals for April (see chart). It was windy and raining and I was wearing all of my rain gear for the full 12 km. I’m quite pleased with my fitness progress, more so with the lack of grief from my knee. And I see we still sit at 68% of our fundraising goal. Come on, be good and sponsor us.

Overheard snippet between two women: I shared my riding school page with my niece three times and she's never liked it.

And a quote from Mark Henwick in his novel Hidden Trump: My paranoia wasn't always right, but just to be on the safe side, I never went to sleep with a clown in the room.

Three mistakes?

And some other things I was thinking about today. I was on Dun Laoghaire pier again, and I was remembering how lucky I was to have had the writer Gerry Hanley as a family friend. We had many conversations, literary and otherwise, especially during the occasional times I drove him home after dinner chez nous. One such night, he asked me to argue the case for my favourite book. I might have answered Lord of the Rings. I could also have comfortably argued for Principles of Physical Geology, a book that changed the direction of my life. And at that time, The Great Gatsby had also been a big influence on me. Yet I know that I replied Scarlet and Black by Stendahl. I had only recently read it and I identified more with the 'coming of age' theme of the young Sorel than I recognised in any of the somewhat seedy Gatsby set including Carraway. Today, I might give a completely different answer. But back then, Scarlet and Black had deeply impressed me. Gerry told me that it had been banned in some countries for being subversive, which made it all the more interesting to me, living as I did, in a repressed, religion tormented third world country of banned opinions amidst the fear of terrorism. I was reminded of this conversation when I read about a condition called Stendahl Syndrome (and another link is that Gerry died in Dun Laoghaire 25 years ago). Anyway, back to the syndrome, said to be common in Florence, as I understand from wikipedia (and I don’t want to be responsible for sending you down that rabbit hole). 

Haddock

Old anthurium, pavement paw marks, Sorrento and rough seas.

Another loop around the hill. I went down to sea level thrice and back up to the top of the hills. I was on a dinner mission, headed to Robert's in Dalkey to get some haddock, and took the opportunity to make it a 10 km walk, on Trump's 100th day.

Early on, I met a family of five at the top of the Cat's Ladder, where they asked me for directions to the nearest DART station with emphasis on routes with the least traffic. The adult accents were foreign, I presumed tourists, so I showed them the way with Walkmeter on my iPhone before I headed down to Coliemore Harbour. The youngest of the three kids fell over and the kids and I exchanged a bit of banter in perfect English as the eldest told me their ages to lend weight to the need to get the howling five year old to a train. On my way back up from the sea, I met them at Khyber Pass; they had changed their plans and were consulting a paper map. I carried on back up to Telegraph Hill and then went back down again, cutting through Sorrento Park where I met them a third time. I crossed the road, heading back down to sea level in Dylan's Park. And of course, I met them for a fourth time as I left the park. From there I went to Dalkey to buy the fish. And wouldn't you know it, I met them again 20 minutes later for the fifth and final time on Coliemore Road. Which is when I heard the 9 year old use the word 'stalking'. I wondered about that (a lot) on the last two kilometres walking home.

Once home, relaxation in mind, I decided a bath was better than a trip to the jacuzzi in Fitzpatrick's hotel. Best not to dwell on why there's dog shampoo in our bathroom? It was hidden under the anthuriums that have lived there since the Sydney Olympics. Plus a zinc pot of them that arrived two years ago when colleagues in America kindly sent me 'get well' flowers. In a strange coincidence, a local florist chose potted anthuriums, not understanding that a near death biopsy infection, followed by a diagnosis of prostate cancer was why Interflora got involved in the first place. There are three pots still thriving in the light at the top of the house.

Blame

Flowers I saw and arranged as a flag on my iPhone.

Is reality subjective? What is fact?

I was reading about science in 2007 this morning. Elephants were thought to be self-aware because they inspected their reflections in mirrors. Genetically modified goats were expected to produce milk including antidotes to lethal nerve agents like sarin and VX. Opiorphin in men's saliva was thought to be six times more powerful than morphine. Winning the Nobel Prize was postulated to add two years to your life expectancy (and I guess the prize money would cover the healthcare). Staying with Norway, researchers reported that elder children have higher IQs. I'm not sure how these panned out though I know we don't have any goat milk in the fridge.

I spent some time discussing age-related change with people now planning for such change. One feature of today’s discussion was that planning has become reactive. There had been time for planning but the act of planning was perceived as premature, defeatist, greedy, divisive, manipulative, demeaning or a mix of those and other excuses I can’t recall. So the planning was left to “others”. And the recommendations of those "others" were ignored because gerontology professionals advised that self-determination prevails. This version of historical and present reality is both true and sad. And because of it, the future of the individuals concerned is less predictable than it should have been. There will be revisions in the retelling of this story, much like corrections to blog posts, and there will be others to blame. Always others. Thanks be for the blames of “others”.

A walk around the local hill, some 6 km averaging about 100 steps a minute, including approx 200 m ascent equivalent to 60 flights of stairs. My knee is fine. And there's lots to think about.

Vegan

I went for a short walk on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire without Walkmeter. The iPhone records that I took some 3,300 steps equivalent to just 2 km, which suited my recuperating knee. Besides, I've been climbing stairs all week too. On the pier, it was bracing because of the wind chill and most folk were better wrapped than me. The Thursday racing yachts were for the most part back in the marina and the sailors heading for home. I was met and we found coffee and dessert in GFP. Not a vegan dessert despite the chalked encouragement I snapped on the harbour wall.

Burgundy

This morning I woke to a dawn chorus like I don't think I've heard before. Breakfast and then I walked along the disused railway from St Desert towards Buxy and up to Rosey, some 7.5 km. The disused railway is really a cycle path, flat and a bit boring being also boxed in by hedgerows. And those hedgerows are at 10:30 in the morning absolutely full of birds singing, calling, trilling under high-pressure blue skies; it's a beautiful day and it feels like a world apart from the rest. You would never know that fascists and comments are vying for power via the ballot box, today the first voting day in the French presidential elections.

There were lots of Charolais in the fields, not surprising since we are only a few kilometres from their origin at Charolles. The vineyards of Givry, think Premier Cru (Côte Challonnaise), are visible to the north from Rosey. So many well manicured towns here. And so many second homes. 

As to the rugby, we were a bit late to the start due to traffic, much like Leinster themselves. Ten down as we reached our already occupied seats; we had heard all the scores as we circled the stadium looking for the right entrance. The carnival continued and that brief period of yellow shocked quiet in the second half, before the TMO broke our hearts, was reason enough to have traveled so far.

We lost. but we lost well. And they won and of all the teams in Europe, their fans are reason enough not to begrudge Clermont yet another shot at their first European Rugby Cup title. Their opponents are a good second reason to support the "lions" slayers. A tough ask, I don't see Clermont beating Saracens but we can hope Ici. Ici. C’est Mont-ferrand!

I think it's OK to have digressed to Lyon for this post because after the game we rented bikes and cycled some 8 km around the two rivers and old town. After this short cycle, perhaps foolhardy because my knee had been quite sore earlier, it stopped hurting. Nonetheless, I'm taking a few days off to recuperate.

It's 235 km walked in 28 walks taking about 50 hours. So projecting this average pace to the Y3P, where degrees are C and distances imperial, the 25 miles should be achieved in well under the mandatory 12 hours even allowing for those three peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough.

Hurrah, we've raised 65% of our £5000 target. Could it be your time to sponsor us here?

Vines

We went for a 3.5 km walk up into the vineyards. And took the three hunting dogs (Beagle, Weimaraner and Porcelaine). The Porcelaine got lost before we even got to the Chardonnay and Pinot vines. Later, I heard him baying as if deer had been located - quite a trumpet for a hot-air balloon passing overhead.

Weimaraner seeks Porceleine

Topics of conversation ranged from horse bloodlines to varietal grapes. And led from hunting to winter game menus. Then we talked of Grand Maison reclamation, renovation, and rehabitation of a house complete with 'cave', swallows and bats (judging from the guano). This part of Gaul was popular with the Romans and more recently the Germans and then quickly thereafter the Americans occupied houses in this area. Grand houses built in previous centuries because it's a nice area to live east of Chalon-sur-Saone itself. A town once headquarters to Kodak but perhaps best remembered by photographers for Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who is credited with the invention around 1825. He's also credited for co-invention, with his brother, of the internal combustion engine, some twenty years earlier.

So that's 227 km done. My knee is still restricting me from doing much more than a few km per day.

Lake

GoogleEarth time lapse screen shots

There's a new lake nearby and it came up in conversation when I visited a 3P teammate whose office overlooks the site. And the lake is a site; a lake being built in advance of the HS2 project, an amenity as compensation before those rail works obliterate other local lakes.

So there are lakes about to disappear. And their local flora and fauna will relocate to accommodate the need for northern expansion of London's workers dormitories.

The area around this stretch of the Grand Union Canal has changed considerably over the last 20 years. Factories have been demolished and replaced by office space as manufacturing has yielded to services. Does HS2 reflect that change: are factory workers inclined to commute the huge distances that service workers seem to tolerate?

With so much fresh water on the surface locally, I wonder about how few life-belts I see. There's an interesting thread of articles on the the theme of "Drowning doesn't look like drowning" that's probably worth a read every year as we prepare for summer.

I've been resting my knee this week though still climbing stairs rather than using the lifts. So this short canal walk served to verify my recovery. And I didn't walk the canal alone. Our walking conversation ranged across many of the topics of the day: May, Trump, Alzheimer to name an unjust few.

Help: can anyone advise me how to make gif animation work on blogger (because this gif picture is animated but not animating).