Grumpy old sods

Judging by today’s walk, I am still paying for the unwise choice of footwear 8 days ago. Since then, I have purchased new walking shoes, a woolly-hatted bloke in a white van turning up yesterday afternoon with said footwear in a box about ten times larger than necessary. Not even any bubble wrap to amuse me.

The biggest hit for the band Nu Shooz was I Can’t Wait. Indeed, I couldn’t wait to wear these shoes on their first walk. They fitted nicely and all was right with the world again. I had a couple of tasks to complete this morning and, after that, everything was in place for a nice afternoon walk. I vaselined where vaseline was needed and almost ran out of the house at about 12:15.

A morning shower might well have delayed me anyway and there were a couple of spells of light rain while I was out, spells of seconds rather than minutes. I know that one shouldn’t overdo it with any new footwear, whether that be shoes, insoles or socks so a plan for 15 miles maximum sounded sensible to me. However, after around five miles, one mile from coffee, I thought I had a stone in my right shoe. I stopped and checked and it appeared to be an old blister (that I thought had healed) making itself known to me.

Forward 15 or 20 minutes and I was in a queue of two at one of my favourite coffee stores. The bloke in front was a grumpy old sod (gos) and ordered some sort of coffee and had a sandwich to toast, no greetings, no small talk, no please or thank you. The baristas serving were no more cheerful, and appeared to aspire to a gos level of grumpiness. When the gos received his goods, again with no thank you, he asked for his change, which did include a note of some denomination, and slumped off. The barista made no effort to smile or apologise, only rolling her eyes as she turned in my direction for my order.

But one of my mottos has always been, when in Rome don’t do what the Romans do – they p***ed away their entire empire. I wasn’t about to go into obnoxious customer or even gos mode – there is a balance. But no matter how much I smiled and offered pleasantries, there would be no reciprocity, especially when I turned down the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of the special Jubilee blend of coffee for my latte. On sitting at my table, I discovered I had been given the wrong muffin but I feared the stare of a barista scorned.

A couple who resembled the couple involved in the real-life ‘faking one’s death after going out to sea in a canoe’ case recently serialized on tv parked themselves on a table near to me. They each then got their phones and neither spoke nor made eye contact with each other for the 20 minutes before I left. Of course, they may have been texting each other so I won’t presume that they had a communication problem. Perhaps they were plotting an insurance scam and didn’t want anyone else to listen in.

The half hour resting my feet did a bit of good but my right sole was painful after about another 40 minutes. Despite this, I resisted the temptation to break out the Vitamin I – ibuprofen. I usually carry some with me in case of emergency but, given that I didn’t ever take any painkillers walking a thousand miles from you know where to you know where, today wasn’t the day. I can only remember a couple of times on 100km ultra challenges when I have partaken.

I had my first experience, albeit short, of the newly opened Stubbington Bypass. It does a job, it’s not the Pennine Way or the South West Coast Path, but it does a job. As my feet became painful to the point of me thinking that the blister had burst, I thought back to the Thames Path Challenge in 2017 when that did happen at about 25km. My feet were a real mess by 100km but I had somehow put the pain to the back of my mind. I needed to do that today, even with the walk today being less than a quarter of that distance.

My coffee and muffin were also working their way to the pointy end of my digestive process. I wasn’t absolutely desperate but I wasn’t about to take my time. This is unusual but not unprecedented for me, and there have been two distinctly memorable times on walks where I only just about made it to a toilet. At least there was a public toilet within a minute or two from the first, er, rumblings and I was pleased it was open and unoccupied!

Home after stopping for a long and pleasant chat with two retired former work colleagues whom I encountered about 15 minutes from the end. It gave my feet a bit of a rest before finishing with a bit over 13 miles on the watch. Not my best walk by a long way, nor one that gave me that much pleasure or satisfaction and I need to give the blister a chance to heal. In gos mode for a few minutes but I have to be realistic; this was the sort of distance I have been doing with worn boots and any new footwear applies different pressure to different areas of the foot. Build up slowly and I will soon be back to decent distances.

Stupid is as stupid does

Note to self: if you’re going for a long walk, wear proper walking shoes. I should know this by now but, now and again, stupid is as stupid does.

My walking shoes are very worn, as I’ve said previously. For some reason, with a relatively short walk in my head, I thought that wearing my normal trainers would be better than proper shoes designed for walking. My trainers clearly had greater tread than my walking shoes which would fail an MOT test if they were tyres. It sounded sensible at the time, is all else I will say.

My head was full of cricket today. Yesterday was not a great day for me as a scorer and I had to remind myself that I go to cricket as a release from the some time stress, pressure and scrutiny I can get at work. Rather than easing all these, yesterday exacerbated them. I was getting messages and calls last night and this morning, just at the point when I didn’t need them. I will say that – while I was out walking – I had a good, nice and helpful exchange by message with a couple I know from cricket, asking as to my wellbeing.

A coffee break at 7 miles came just as I started to feel a little discomfort. I treated myself to the max of a large vanilla latte plus a muffin and took my time while I rested my feet. So far I’d had but the two thin layers while wrapping my hoodie around my midriff like schoolboys taking their jumpers off while playing football in the playground. Now, with a keen wind in the afternoon sunshine, I put on the hoodie but unzipped at the front.

I wasn’t in any mood to take anything but the shortest route home until I did a lap of the cricket ground. My feet were very painful and some damage even though the distance was only 13.5 miles. Yes, I know I need new footwear. Procrastination is my worst habit and I will set aside some time tomorrow to seek out some shoes.

Finally, one of my greatest supporters during LEJOG, Ali Crocker (now Ali Johnson) has her husband Dave Johnson walking London2Brighton, 100 km (62 miles), next weekend I think. What might also catch the eye is that he is walking for SANDS, as I did 8 years ago. He has as personal a reason for that charity as I did. If you have any cash or space on your credit card, please think about sparing it for Dave. I have pledged my Fantasy Football winnings, probably £20, though my lead narrowed considerably through the last two hours. Link below if you could spare anything….

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/david-johnson148

Musings of a coffee junkie

The weather forecast was for morning rain and drizzle to fizzle out by lunchtime so consequently I planned for a Friday afternoon walk.  At least I didn’t have seven meetings this week but was still pretty busy. I didn’t get away as early as I had hoped and it was not until 2:20pm that I started out. Fairly nondescript weather that felt it could go any one of half a dozen ways but instead it stayed pretty much the same for over four hours – despite news of rain across a number of areas across the whole country.

It isn’t easy to relax when I know that I can’t manage that far on account of my wearing walking shoes. I really must find time to find some and order them. I don’t think I will quite have the positive energy until I have new shoes on my feet. But I did my best, let my mind wander on to good things and gradually built up the distance. The coffee break came quicker than it might have, at about 6 miles.

There was a long and winding queue, which reminded me to promote I Saw Her Standing There to the head of my head music. I just about remember The Beatles on Top of The Pops, though I remember more clearly one or more of my sisters almost in tears over breakfast with the news that the Fab Four were no more. There was almost a full coffee house today and I had little choice where to sit. I’ve had comfier seats than this one but I was so begging inside for coffee that I didn’t really care, though my bottom was soon begging to differ.

I mused that a sign for baby changing facilities always amuses me, as if you could come here and change your baby if you were not satisfied with the one you had. I mused that I’d never ever seen even one customer take a book from the fairly substantial collection in the store, partly because most of them were novels and would take dozens of coffees worth of time to read. I mused that the bloke on the table next to me looked so tired of life that he’d come here to buy coffee to keep him awake. Musings passed 20 or 25 minutes of time before I was off again.

So more walking and the first signs of aches. I haven’t been walking so much lately and I should get out more (many have said that before). I’ll try Sunday too, I was thinking. Today was something of a drudge before I did one lap of the cricket ground to bring my distance up to 13 miles. Just about enough before my feet start to really hurt. Yes, new shoes, new shoes……

No coffee shock horror

A quick walk after work today, a day that I think holds my own record for seven meetings on a Friday. The last day of the week may normally have one or two meetings but otherwise allows time to catch up with some tasks that I hadn’t had chance to do before. With still some things to do, I couldn’t shut up shop until late afternoon and it was around 4:45 when I left the house.

Energy wasn’t overflowing but I walked around the local area towards Warsash, past the Common and cut back through Titchfield Common and Park Gate. Over 7 miles, no stopping, no coffee breaks, just solid walking, if not at my greatest speed. Nothing too much to shout about.

I didn’t report on a much nicer walk that I had last week with Pammy, on a weekday as well. For some time I have meant to walk part or all of the Meon Valley Trail and so we drove to Wickham, parked the car in the free car park and headed out. The Trail is long and straight, as one might expect for a former railway line.

There weren’t many others around, except for a few runners and cyclists, with a few dog walkers thrown in. For miles there is greenery on both sides which is nice at first but actually the lack of variation becomes a trifle boring, if I’m honest. The Trail is not brilliantly signed and it is not always clear where one might leave to pick up food but we walked as far as an obvious turn off at Meonstoke.

We walked through the village and couldn’t see a single shop or food store but I was aware of the Bucks Head which had a decent reputation. With food being served until 3pm, and the time being about 1:30, we stopped for tea, chips and fruit crumble. No coffee, there’s a thing; it was available but I just fancied tea, along with Pammy. Read that last sentence how you wish. We got into conversation with a couple who, as it turned out, were from Lee on Solent so we had common knowledge of places where we walked.

Then we walked back, the same route. As with these things, the return journey seemed to be much quicker. It had been lovely walking with Pammy for 14 miles. I think that at some time soon I could walk all the way from Wickham to West Meon and back, which would be somewhere around 22 miles, perhaps more if I need to walk around hunting for food or…..coffee. Look forward to that at some time.

Nothing walking-wise this coming weekend so perhaps a couple of post-work evening walks in the next week. Onwards and upwards.