Monday

I finally bought the new boots and the mention of the charity activity walk in The Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge earned me a 10% discount from 53 Degrees North. Recall that we are doing our walk for Care International and you can sponsor us here. Go on, sponsor us. You know it's time.

I managed a 4.5 km walk today. The new boots and the continuing sore knee made me cautious.

My weight back in 2012

We attended Beyond Caravaggio recently in the National Gallery in Dublin. Dramatic use of light and a new realism (at the time) were techniques inherited by the Caravaggisti on show in this exhibition. I was amazed to learn that there is some debate about the homoerotic subjects and portrayals. No question in my mind. Get over that and instead, explain his violent nature - lead poisoning? syphilis? or maybe he was just nuts? However, he was a great painter and inspired many more.

I picked up Blink by Maclom Gladwell after I stumbled over this photo of my weight in books from 2012 (an idea I re-used here in March). As I was flicking through Blink earlier, I found a bookmark I left in 2012: “Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action." Seems self-evident and yet Little Britain had us all laughing with "computer says no".

This haiku reminds me that I am not the only one surprised by what can be found in books:

I read a book -
somewhere within the book
an insect chirps
Tomiyasu Fusei

Harbour

Today on the West Pier of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, photos of us and the dog, quartz veins and air traffic and finally, me as a pseudo "Kilroy was here" meme. How did we manage anything Before the Smartphone Era?

It was a lovely morning. I read about nettle soups in The Irish Times, I saw crabs being caught at the end of the pier and I ate Icelandic dried, salted and shredded cod on oatmeal galettes for breakfast.

The Thursday bad knee is being rested / managed and there have been just two short walks blogged / memorialised here as one (yesterday's 3.5 km and today's 3.5 km). My overall total is already 216 km which is a tad short of the half way mark, half way into my training. Mustn't grumble. And now, we must go out to buy me some new walking boots - the old ones are 'walked out'.