Walking Boots and Pink Laces

I have walking boots! Proper walking boots! With pink laces! The Man of the House is very dismissive about those laces – I think he feels pink is far too frivolous for sensible footwear for a woman who wants to be taken seriously. But I don’t care. They are so beautiful and so comfortable that I love them to bits. I tell you people, until you have worn shoes designed to for walking, you have no idea how uncomfortable fashion flatties and spindly heels actually are. So here the boots are,  for my Saturday Snapshot, with a map, and the new pedometer.

Monday: I'm ready for action with walking boots, map and pedometer.

The old pedometer which was indescribably unreliable, went back to the shop less than a week after I bought it, and I invested in a better one, which is dead easy to set up (even for a technophobe like me), very simple to use and, most important of all, very accurate. So this week I feel as if I’ve really got into my stride with this daily walking business, and I’ve been boring everyone silly telling them where I’ve been, and how much ground I’ve covered and how wonderful it is. Anyway, here are the walking boots on their first outing... they looked so nice I was worried about spoiling them and nearly left them at home!

Tuesday: Our first outing together... the new boots and me
in action down on the towpath.

Walking is good exercise for people who don’t like exercise – and I don’t. I hate games, and gym, and athletics, and exercises, and jogging, and anything else like that. My family wasn’t really sports-minded, but on the whole I blame school, where I was forced to do this stuff, despite the fact that I hated it all, and was too fat, too short-sighted and too uncoordinated to do anything. I was always in trouble with the PE staff, who offered no encouragement or help and refused to believe there were people like me who couldn’t do these things, and the girls laughed and never wanted me in their team. I used to hide in the loo, standing on the toilet seat so no-one would see my feet, but I was always discovered and marched off (generally in tears I’m ashamed to say) for hockey or gymnastics, or whatever else was the order of the day.  

Tuesday: I spotted this milestone alongside the
Coventry Canal at Tamworth, between Glascote
 and Amingon. Five miles to where I wonder?

I haven’t really changed my stance since then. I’ve remained a confirmed sports-free zone, with little or no interest in watching or taking part in physical activities. So you can see from this that for me to take up any form of exercise after a lifetime of slothfulness is a really big thing, and I can’t quite believe that I’m walking every day – and enjoying it. Hopefully, combined with sensible eating (no snacking between meals!) the regime will make me a little fitter, and I may even lose some weight.

Wednesday: Moss on a wall outside a house - close to it looked
like a forest of trees and bushes.

 I’m aiming to walk for at least 20 minutes every day, even if I only walk into town rather than using the car or hopping on a bus, with a couple of longer expeditions each week where I can drive out to one of the villages or somewhere a little more rural than Tamworth. And, silly though it sounds, I’m trying to create a record of my efforts by keeping track of how far I walk, and taking photos each day to show where I’ve been, and if I put them in some kind of album or journal, with suitable poems or extracts from books, it might encourage me to keep going.

Thursday: Looking across Minster Pool to the Cathedral on
a cold, misty morning. I was going to take bread to feed ducks
but I left it behind.

So far, 12 days into the New Year, I’m really enjoying it. I like being in the fresh air, and listening to birdsong, and looking at plants, insects and birds, and I think it’s lovely that other people stop and chat. I get back home feeling all refreshed and enthusiastic about Life, the Universe and Everything, and seem to have more energy, which I think is odd.

Friday: Trying to be arty here with a view of boats on the canal
at Kettlebrook, which is part of Tamworth.

At the moment I reckon I’m averaging about 4km a walk at the moment, which isn’t a lot really, but it’s a start, and I’m hoping to increase that in the months ahead. Over the last few days I’ve been along the canal in two different directions; across part of the Castle Grounds to footpaths through a housing estate and back along the main road to home, and around Lichfield, so I’ve included a picture from each place in this post. More Saturday Snapshot pictures are hosted by Alyce at http://athomewithbooks.net/