Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
‘Landscape photographer Michael Kenna said that he tries to ‘invite viewers into the frame to imagine, experience, sit awhile, meditate, be calm and quiet for some moments, before returning to their busy activities.’
Individuals often spend without thinking but it’s not something you’d want a government to do. What you’d want to see is a reasoned explanation of the proposed expenditures and the sources of the budget to fund them. The evidence should be documented with no less detail than a judicial summary of a trial. The same care and detail should documented for the management of public health.
‘I want a poem
I can grow old in.’ ¹
Poet and Professor Eavan Boland died a year ago yesterday.
Today isn’t our Day 27 on the way to Rome. We’re not making our 24th hike. The discrepancy is that we plan to rest on the seventh day of every week. If we were out on the trail, it would be categorised as an easy 19 km in the Pas-de-Calais. We’d have set out from Wisques after a good breakfast from accommodation unknown. I checked the weather – cloudy but only 9C. Perfect for a hike and another chat. Assuming we’re still talking to one another.
The auctioneer was known for his malapropisms. He was the kind of man who might aspire to own a tantrum bicycle. Or announce that Rome wasn’t burned in a day. At the auction of the restaurant my parents were selling, the auctioneer tried to add value by including the view in the sale. He said there were magnificent sea views for ‘as far as the eye could see’. Eyes rolled, then checked the view before acknowledging he was correct. He had viewed the price and repriced the view.
The double-glazing in the windows of our home was replaced a year ago. Clearer and even more UV resistant than their twenty year old predecessors, the retrofitted double-glazed panes were noticeably, immediately effective in reducing heat loss. I had researched potential technology before we did the work. And the company we selected sent a consultant out to assess and advise. We made our choices, procurement commenced and five weeks later, we achieved fulfilment.
