walking

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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Gus after Oscar

June 30, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Gus has started to worry a spot on his leg. He lies on the floor and dozes between bouts of licking the spot clean. The same spot gets licked over and over again. He’s snoring at my feet as I type about this worry for a dog who is 14 years old.

Tales of two dogs are probably not what you’d expect now. However, these are stories of a past and future I can’t change. Colum McCann’s Apeirogon has made me reflective, sad and now, even a worry spot on the dog’s leg makes me worry that I will somehow let him down.

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Locked-Out, Locked-In

June 23, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

As of 2016, we’d produced over 320 million tonnes of plastic and there was estimated to be 165 million tonnes of plastic circulating in seas and oceans. Not good considering plastics have only been around since 1950. Imagine how bad it will be if 320 has become 600 million tonnes by 2030. Will the seas then hold as much plastic as we have ever produced today? Will we be locked-out of sterile seas, lakes, rivers and canals?

Wapping River Slime.
Compelling scene found while walking the Thames in 2019.

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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?

walking

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