affable-lurking

Since the first lockdown, when we were all taking our allotted ‘one exercise session per day’ seriously, I’ve been walking around my home town a lot more then I have in years. Initially it was interesting to walk down side streets I’ve not been along before, or to let the dog choose a direction at each intersection and end up somewhere unvisited before. Over time, this became a bit of a game with myself, can I walk places I’ve never walked before, then it because even more specific, can I set foot on a piece of ground I had never stood on before.

While choosing new roads, this was easy; every step was a new one, but as my walking patterns got more settled; to the shop and back, to the park and back, the game became harder.

The rules I set myself:

• 1) Private property is off limits
• 2) At least one new step every trip out the house

It’s an easier game to play and explain away when I’m walking the dog. If I’m sure I haven’t ever set foot on the manhole cover in the middle of the road, it’s a lot easier to explain away should anyone ask, if I can say the dog pulled me that way.

Drains, bits of curbstone and the like are all good for a first step. I’m 99% sure I’ve never stepped on most of the ones I choose. A new pothole in the road is a good find, while I may well have stepped on the original surface, the newly revealed subsurface is ripe for another step.

I’ve had some first steps that I’m sure are the very very first step anyone has ever had, a tree being cut down while on my outward journey left me a nice low stump to step on on my return. A fence removed at the park got me several steps on a bit of land inaccessible for decades, a fallen tree at another park opened up a space between it and a fence – another tiny scrap of land that cannot have had any human footfall for at least 80 years.

There’s absolutely no reason for me to carry on wit this game with myself, but I shall. Many of the easy steps on my usual routes are now stepped on, so there’s still a challenge to find something new.

I borrowed an idea from Diamond Geezer who is on his 20th year of counting things during the month of February.

I decided to count in five categories:
1) Cups of Tea drunk
2) 500ml bottles of coke zero drunk
3) Cycle trips
4) Meetings attended (in person and virtually)
5) Number of Radios I repaired

You may think that number 5 is just grasping for a fifth option to pad the list out, I couldn’t possibly comment.

As I write this, there are still 14.5 hours left in the day, so my numbers will change.

1) Cups of Tea drunk – 121 127
2) 500ml bottles of coke zero drunk – 22
3) Cycle trips – 8 9
4) Meetings attended (in person and virtually) – 21 25
5) Number of Radios I repaired – 1

My Tea consumption is greatly reduced from normal, I’m not quite sure why so this month, I’m usually a 6 to 7 cups of Tea per day person, with the occasional rise to 12 or more when I’m working on a particularly hard problem. This month I’ve averaged just over 4 (4.3 to be more precise). End of day update, now at 127 with an average of 4.5

Coke consumption is about where I’d expect it to be. About one bottle per day when at work – it pairs very well with Co-Op rough oat cakes.

Cycling is down this month due to terrible weather for cycling, and not being at work for some of the month, so no cycling required.

Meetings happen. I try hard to avoid those I really don’t need to be in. This number could be far higher if I didn’t decline calendar invitations more frequently. End of day update, 4 – yes 4! meetings sprung on me today. Bah!

Radios repaired, I do like fixing things. I was at a loose end one evening this month and decided to look over my old Eddystone EC10 receiver and fix it. There’s a twitter thread here, because have you really done anything if you’ve not told the world about it?

Ten years ago today, my aunt mentioned in the last post, died.

Fuck Cancer.