Fore

"Sorry about that" I said.

"You're most welcome" they said, together.

A flight of two were teeing off and I had nowhere to hide as I walked through the golf course and across their fairway. There were other flights too. Flights of Canada Geese and Rooks and Mallard. It's beautiful this morning at 0900 on the Uxbridge (formerly Harefield Place) Golf Club, and look, there's a squirrel loping across the greens. (And no, that's a nest-cleared discarded pigeon's egg.)

I've already been under the M40. Not Hockney, nor Noble & Webster (dirty white trash with gulls). Fly tipping. No heart, no soul, just opportunistic ignorant dumping. Then and now photos, a broken gate facilitates the awful mess I snapped.

And I've been along a portion of the Grand Union Canal. People on their narrowboats enjoying the early morning sun day. One fat man in nothing but shorts, listening to the radio, drinking breakfast beer from a glass tankard. Others with more ambition, doing boat maintenance using tools and paint brushes amidst the hum of generators and the occasional bell tinkle from passing cyclists, under a splendid cacophony of bird song from the trees and hedges that frame the canal.

There are hawthorn confetti flurries in the light breeze, creating interesting dappled patterns on the ground.

The Frays River was running faster than it has been these last six months, fuller from recent rains - rich feeding opportunities for herons, coots, mallard, moorhen and grey wagtails.

And so went today's 7 km walk.

Kingfisher

A walk done many times and this time I was accompanied. Which gave me reasons to look and remark on things I take for granted. The tree, for example, in Harefield Golf Course that was killed by lightning a few years ago and now has become covered in countless woodpecker holes. The invasive parakeets who noisily go about their business overhead. The dismantled gravel loading points for the much touted great transport transfer from road to canal barges, during Olympic venue construction, now occupied by coots and moorhens. The honking of four Canada Geese flying above us, hidden by the tree canpopy. The swans seeming to stand on water to do neck calisthenics, doubltless impressing the twenty tufted duck close by. And then at Denham Deep Lock, where the Colne joins the Union Canal, there was a kingfisher perched on the NO FISHING sign; it saw us, there was a flash of blue and the moment was gone.

My 13th walk in this campaign, another 6.5 km walked off and I have thus exceeded my distance goal for March. This means I'm walking down the deficit of 25 km I carried from February. So I should be back on track by the end of March which will leave 350 km to be done by June 23.

Our fundraising continues well too. We had an office pot-luck lunch last Tuesday that brought out some excellent dishes and raised another sensible amount of money. Money? Are there any readers? Is it yet time for them to donate here?

Overweight

I woke up to the start of March worrying about The Yorkshire Three Peaks. The event is on June 24 and time is compressing. My concern was that I pledged to walk 500 km in training as a fund raiser.

Then I weighed myself and found no comfort in being 9 kg over ideal. I recalled the mind altering book 'The Things They Carried' by Tim O'Brien from the 1970s. Inspired, without intending to trivialise the sacrifice of soldiery, I found another purpose for half of the books in the bedroom, books also in mind because tomorrow is World Book Day. I collected and piled them on the scales until their weight allowed me visualise my excess. That's a 60 cm tower of books. I really need to keep walking.

So I took a lunchtime walk, choosing a route I'd blogged in April 2010 for another challenge. This date I know with precision because I still use Walkmeter on my iPhone and the track is still stored there all these years later.

There was a great variety of scenery with lots of chatter from hedgerow birds. In Harefield Place between the lakes, long-tailed tits were mobbing a jay. And the waterfowl on the lakes and canal were in courtship. I even saw two swans going through the entire ritual on the canal - fascinating and so elegant.

A few observations I dictated to the phone as I walked along The Drive - a road naming pun (?) leading to the Uxbridge Golf Course, passing Harefield Place and the former Blockbuster HQ, now being block busted, judging from the demolition advisories, four years after video streaming killed their rental business.

6.5 km today which leaves me 470 km to walk which is about 115 km per month. While nothing is impossible, some things are unlikely.