ManRom2021

Journal 132 Day 100

July 10, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I started this series of daily journals on March 1st when my preoccupation was the preparation for a walk from Manchester to Rome. I’d already realised that the coming pandemic might postpone it. Nonetheless, since I planned to journal the walk, practice was required.

Twelve days later, I wrote that I’d been discharged from prostate cancer care but the bigger news was the confirmation, on the same day, of a tumour in our eldest daughter, that confirmation coming three days before I started the journal. There’s always an element of denial with the arrival of cancer but by the 27th journal, a strange day, her treatment had started. The treatment continues and will continue for many months to come.

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In Pursuit of Trivial Failures

July 5, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I checked my Fitbit today. A watch that spies on me. A gift. I’ve been happy to have it because it counts my steps, monitors my sleep patterns and tracks my average resting heart rate. It even provides the time of day on demand. Which isn’t that often because I have an internal clock that’s reliable to within a few minutes.

I’ve been confidently supplying my bio-data to the Fitbit corporation since December 2018. They used to be known as Healthy Metrics Research Inc which tells you what they set out to do.

This day 2015 – The Butterfly Garden, Vannes © Simon Robinson

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Walking Story

July 2, 2020 by Simon Robinson 2 Comments

You’d have had a London plan if you visited us when we lived there. We’d likely have joined you on a vintage train ride to Windsor, visited Harrison’s clocks in Greenwich, toured the Natural History Museum, driven out to Shaw’s Corner or visited the Chelsea Physic Garden. There was more, so many more things you introduced to us.

We’d have shared our knowledge and access to the British art of artefact concentration in institutions like the V&A, The Tate galleries, the British Library, the Science Museum and the Royal Academy. It’s hard to condone some aspects of such collections but the fact is that they are there in London. Public. They would have been all the more interesting because you probably chose to coincide your visit with a specific exhibition or event. There were so many things available in London that the days of your visits would have been filled with wonder. The evenings and nights would be packed too; some plays, a few musicals and lots of good dining.

When you weren’t with us, we were just as busy. Lia might have spent days in research in the London Library, for example, while I was indulging my passion for long distance walking.

2018/9 Walks from London – ManRom21 segment in red may be done next year

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Our Day 81 – Not Answers

June 21, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Today could have been the 81st day of our walk from Manchester to Rome. We could have been at the highest point on our trek (2,469 m) on the shortest night of the year north of the equator. We should have reached and crossed the Great St Bernard Pass.

From the blue of France at the top, across the Alps in Switzerland to the turquoise of Italy.

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C Ton Century

June 8, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

C: If you were in Rome, you’d find that C used to be a hundred. You and I knew that anyway but until today I had no idea that the Latin for 99 was undecentum which might occasionally be written as IC rather than the more standard XCIX. Useful trivia for a pub quiz perhaps?

Howth and Now

May 31, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I wrote about what I was doing in November 2010. That retelling was inspired by a receipt that fell from a book. The revisit to 2010 had me looking at some photo albums and there I found a memory of great pain.

By coincidence, this weekend ten years ago we had a couple of our extended American family as guests for lunch. It was Sunday lunch and I decided to go back with them on the train to Howth where they were staying and then walk home. Which is exactly what I did and I got home on the Monday very early AM which was like today, May 31st. It’s a 42 kilometre marathon distance walk and you can read about the blisters here.

42 km yet to walk around to the other side of Dublin Bay.

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