Walking and wanting

I haven't been out walking a huge amount lately as I've really been quite busy, but there have been a few things that have caught my eye:

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Free London walks are back this weekend, thanks to Walk London.  Some long, some short, but all interesting.  I like the sound of 'London's hidden alleyways and courtyards', 'Subterranean London' and 'Seafaring London'.

Go and have a look at what else is on offer!

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Back when I was training, I heard about the FitBit - a small clip-on  pedometer and sleep tracker with a really useful online logging and analysis tool.  At that time it was not availble in the UK, but guess what...

It's now here!

Even though I'm not doing crazy activity anymore, I'm massively interested in this.  I can't quite put my finger on the attraction since I've tried pedometers and didn't like them and would probably forget to put this on at bedtime after the first week, but still there's something about that sleek black case, and clever auto-syncing, and the data.  Oh, the data.

It's £80 though...and I guess I don't really need any more stuff.  Especially if it's £80 stuff. Ho hum.

Here we go again.

New year, new walks!  Something a little less stressful than the training regime at the start of last year, and without the same purpose, but still out and about exploring London.  This is the year that we start walking the London Outer Orbital Path (LOOP).

The first route is a nice easy 8.5 miles from Erith to Old Bexley Village.  No steep bits, no particularly rough paths, and with interesting views of two very different flavours: rivers (Thames, Darent, Cray) on one side; heavy industry on the other.  I rather enjoyed that. 

I took a few photos from the walk (and a video of some enthusiastic seagulls) which you can see in this Flickr set. 

I plan to resurrect this blog, not to raise money as before but to continue posting about my London walking adventures.   And also any other bits that catch my eye.  Which leads me nicely to direct you back to Matt Green's blog.

I first posted about Matt in July 2010, when I was right at the start of my training and finding inspiration from all over the place (you can read my original post here).  Matt's journey was certainly inspirational as he aimed to walk from one side of America to the other.  Just because he fancied doing it.  The result was not only some really beautiful and strange photos of the parts of the States that you don't usually see, but also an amazing insight into the country and the people who live there.  His last post looking at the walk one year after finishing was a touching reflection on the kindness that he met during his journey.

The great news that came at the start of the year, is that Matt is now back out and walking full time again.  This time he's aiming to walk every public road in New York City.  Once again he's taking stunning photographs of usually unseen NYC and the people who inhabit the city.  Please do go and take a look at the details of his challenge and enjoy the scattering of photos that he posts at the end of his daily walk.

Go!  Go now!  And I'll see you back here once I've hauled myself off the sofa for another stroll.

Three months on...

Wow. Another month has gone by. And what a month. Highs, lows, busy times, quiet times. They've all been there. And then today, as I prepared to write this post, I got a fantastic email.

Ages ago, I filled in a survey for Mapumental, and of course totally forgot about it. But apparently there was a prize draw attached to this one, and my name was drawn to win a £50 donation to the charity of my choice. Guess which one I chose... That makes £1682 for the June Hancock Mesothelioma Fund. Hurrah!

A couple of weeks ago my husband David and I took a weekend out to go back to my hometown for a visit. We had a particularly good day out with my Mum and Gran, driving through the nearby countryside and visiting places I hadn't seen in years. On Sunday we also had a little wander over to Southampton Common where this lovely chap posed for me and showed off his fabulous feet.


I haven't really talked about coots and their place in the relationship with Dad. Perhaps I'll leave that for another time
As often happens, the childhood photos made a brief appearance. While David amused himself by threatening to make pictures of me on a potty in the woods public, I was a little more taken with this one.

Two months on...

The walk feels like such a long time ago. My legs are now pretty much back to normal, the joint pain I was having last month has gone, and the only thing that seems to keep the whole adventure real is the map on the kitchen wall that I still haven't had the heart to take down.

In the last month since I wrote here I have taken part in a flamenco performance, continued singing pop songs in choir and been rather busy at work. In short, life has gone on. In the last month there has also been a Fathers' Day.

I don't think I ever celebrated Fathers' Day when dad was alive. I think he had the same opinion of it as the one he held for Valentine's Day: another hollow opportunity for consumerism. Or at least that's how he presented it - I'm sure he'd actually quite like to have had a shoddily made card from me of course and maybe I should have made one for him. Ah well. The opportunity has gone now.

Anyway, here's a little photo I found which must have been taken when I was maybe 13 or 14. It shows us during a day out to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This is how I remember time with Dad.

One month on...

I'm now one whole month on from the start of my epic walk.

Since then I've started feeling like I've got twice the time in the week than I had when training. Which is awesome.

So, what have I been doing with all that perceived extra time? Not walking too much actually, thanks to a knee that's still a bit sore. But I've been back up and dancing, and I started singing in a choir for the first time in a decade. I've never had more varied things to interest me.

That said, I have started missing the routine of the training a bit and I sometimes find myself wistfully looking out of the train window at the parks I used to walk through. And just as soon as my knee is back to normal, I'm getting back out there.

David bought me a guide to walking the LOOP for my birthday so I think that will be our project over the summer. Not in one go this time though. It's 152 miles...

One week on...

I've spent the last week reflecting on the walk, flopping around my house and waiting for my ankles to fix themselves. It's only now just starting to sink in that the last year of training has finished and that I'll now have hours of extra time week - my brain's coming up with some great ideas of how to fill that, but perhaps for now I'll just devote the time to sitting.

I've collected most of the photos that my friends took during the walk into one set on my Flickr, which you can now watch as one mammoth slideshow of the full 27 hours 11 minutes (it doesn't take quite that long to view!) Watch below, or go to the set page. Enjoy!

I do this so you don't have to

Those of you who saw the picture of my leg I posted yesterday will know that I've had some trouble with swollen ankles and shins following the walk. Yesterday my left foot started swelling up too.

This morning I woke up and nothing had improved, so I made an appointment with my doctor.

I've just come back from that appointment and the verdict is that I have Compartment Syndrome. Apparently that's when the muscles swell to more than the sheath around them can contain. I've been told to rest up for a week, and I'm to go back to my doctor on Monday (er, Happy Birthday to me) to check how it's going.

Still not regretting the walk - I really truly loved it - and rather pleased that I had the foresight to take the next week off work. Not quite the holiday I had planned though!