Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
I had a bad few days recently. But first, since I’m not qualified to have opinions on why my days were so bad, here are a few weasel words.
Caveat emptor: my musings may not be complete let alone correct.
The full story starts with a fear of failure. It starts with the worry that my attempts to manage my cholesterol with diet were failing. It ended with a realisation that I wasn’t able to finish any of my daily journals.
Caveat emptor: my musings may not be complete let alone correct.
My first year as a vegetarian year has passed quickly and comfortably. We took How Not To Die very seriously and this excellent cookbook makes regular appearances on the kitchen counter even now.
You probably realise that wine, beer, bread and blue cheese exist because of fungal agency. Having met these big four, you’ll recognise that the benison of yeasts and spores is unobtrusively vital to our everyday lives. You have learned to avoid the yeasts and moulds of decay because the mycotoxins have a well deserved bad reputation. Good fungus, bad fungus. A sad fact you may not know is that fungus kills more humans than malaria (I’ll let you search for fungal diseases alone).
21 March 2020 – 10:01 GMT – 5°C Mostly Cloudy – Co. Dublin, Ireland
Washing, social distancing and isolation – all required in defence against a virus that jumps from animals we raise to eat – do we need a referendum – would any nation choose hay fever or corona? Not to mention a planet benefitting from methane reductions.
Six coronas included Mers and Sars all ‘jumped’ from animal husbandry. Then a seventh. Time to learn?
[Read more…] about Jumping Vegetable Perdify13 Mar 2020 – 19:48 GMT – 6°C Light Rain – Co. Dublin, Ireland
I plan to bring a camera towards Rome. Weight is a major consideration and things have improved in that regard. In years gone by, I brought an iPhone on my walks because my DSLR kits were too heavy and unwieldy for use by brain tired, wet hands. So I’d bought iPhone battery extenders, lens kits for telephoto and wide angle options, specialty tripods and my favourite, a grip that also acted as stabiliser. These all coupled nicely with iPhone earphones, cleverly designed so the volume control also acted as a remote shutter release. Except I’d walked the batteries dead with Walkmeter and other mapping apps on iPhone versions 3, 4, 5 and 7 and wouldn’t you know, the camera kits tended to change from one generation of phone to the next.
[Read more…] about Fuji Wabi SabiOne of the few disappointments in relocating to Dublin is the lack of decent vegetarian restaurants. That’s possibly because living in London has spoiled me. In London, it seems that vegetarians and vegans cook for vegetarians and vegans. In Dublin, there are just a couple of such places, Cornucopia the best known. Let’s not name many names but once you get out into the suburbs, the vegetarian still needs to select several vegetable dishes in order to eat with their carnivorous friends.
[Read more…] about Vegetarianism