Keeping My Feet In

A rare sight on the Voie Verte - people. I just walked the 24kms home from Lavelanet. About 16kms of this is on the Voie Verte, a superb facility for walking, running, cycling. It must have cost a bit to renovate this old railway line for the benefit of the populace. Yet today, in August, the peak of the French holiday season, I saw this man and his little boy on their bikes, an elderly runner, and two other men on bicycles,

I also saw this tiny pony, which is a regular. It is moored by the trail at St Colombes. So small I could step over it. As my eyes get worse I will probably fall over it.

As I said, I walked 24kms. Just keeping my hand - or rather my feet -in. Did I really do this, or much more, for 70 days on the trot? Why didn't somebody lock me up? Mind you, I don't think it was this hot on many days, if any, during VBW.

Happy Birthday, Alessandro! Auguri!

The Walk Of Life

I have put this information on my blog before but I am repeating it, not through vanity, but because people keep asking me if there was any television coverage of the end of VBW.

Only those in the North of England would have seen it live, but Tony White has kindly snagged the news item and put it on YouTube.

You will find it by double-clicking on this link, or copy and paste it into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXEsgaK8EL0

During the walk there was some debate on my blog and via e-mail about which song would be the most suitable as a theme tune. Nobody, including myself, realised that there was an ideal candidate. The BBC used it in the news item. Dire Strait's "Walk of Life". Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler are my favourite artists and I particularly like this simple but striking track. Not to mention that there is an obvious tie-in with the life-saving objective of my fund-raising walk.

In fact, if I had thought about it, the walk itself could have been called "The Walk of Life".

Critical Eye

I did another decent (11 kms) walk yesterday, although I don't know what I am training for now. Just to keep fit, I suppose, as I plunge into my 8th decade.

But mainly I have been concentrating on catching up with the transcription of the daily ramblings which I uttered into a dictaphone during VBW. When I have the whole manuscript available, I will study it with a critical eye, wondering whether it would make The Book of The Walk.

You will note that the eye is purple. Purple is the representative colour of Pancreatic Cancer UK. My fund-raising for that cause now stands at 108% of the target. I know that more is on the way, so am confident of it exceeding 110%. But there is no limit to the amount of good that can be done by PCUK, so I don't want you to be inhibited into thinking there is a limit to the amount to be raised.

This Donkey Is Not For Sausages

It seems I am a walker still. My legs did not perish in the aftermath of VBW. And Gay is a walker as well, although she has been rather more diligent than me - as far as exercise goes - since we arrived home a week ago - she has been running every other day - she took her running stuff with her on the Big Walk but only managed to get in one gambol with Jean Dolan while we were staying with Jean and Bernard.

This morning we returned to our pre-VBW Saturday morning activity of climbing down into Quillan and up again - a fall of about 300 metres, followed by a climb of over 350 metres, and a distance covered of 13 kms.

There is a small market at Quillan of a Saturday, which is whence the pictures hail. The donkey is the advance marketing and PR representative of a team which finds itself hired out as pack-donkeys for wayfarers. So it should survive longer than all those donkeys I saw as I ploughed through France, which I eventually realised are destined for the sausage machine.

The other picture, also from the market, is of the famous Curry Fred. Fred is having great success in supplying various curry sauces to the folk of the area. He is also engendering a bit of surprise in a big proportion of his customers is French. The French are not known for their love of spices so it must be Fred's silver tongue which is leading them down the hot road.

The Sloth Awakes!

Three weeks ago today I finished Vic's Big Walk, after 70 days of effort. As I said the other day, I have not walked since, for all the excuses I gave then.

Today I shook myself from the torpor and legged it from Nebias to home. Only 6 kms, so it seemed almost not worth getting changed for, but in truth it is a decent bit of exercise. And for the first time since May 15th, when I set off in a northerly direction, I was walking towards Puivert castle rather than away from it. And what a fine sight it is, especially with those sunflowers in the foreground.

Ten-Toed Sloth

Since finishing VBW on 23rd July, I have not been for a walk. Sure, I have walked around town, even walked 7 or 8 kms into town and back, for instance while we were staying at a caravan park outside Ambleside. But I have not donned my shoes in earnest and set off walking for either exercise or pleasure.

This is partly because there has been such a round of visiting, entertaining, being entertained, wining, dining, travelling and generally basking in the warmth of success. Partly I have convinced myself that my body needed to recover from the sustained effort of walking more than two thirds of a marathon every day for 70 days - even though I did not feel tired after the walk or even often during it. Partly because I could let myself believe that I am now old. Partly because I have been there, done that, and am wondering what to do next.

Basically, I have not taken any exercise for 3 weeks, and have therefore put back the 2 or 3 kilos lost during the Big Walk. Monday, I started to correct my course. I did 20 minutes on the static bicycle (far more effort than if I took the bike off the stand and out into the open air). Yesterday I did 30 mins on the bike and 10 minutes on the NordicTrack ski-trainer. Both efforts left me drenched, but it is quite warm hereabouts just now. Today it was supposed to be 30 minutes on each machine, as part of the build-up to some sort of regular exercise program. But our friends John and Gail from Brisbane have been in town for some time while we were away. We almost missed them and only caught up with them yesterday. Today is their last day. We went for lunch with them in Quillan. After lunch it was too hot to exercise. Excuses, excuses? Watch this space. By Saturday I may even have been for a walk - Gay and I plan, weather permitting, to climb down to Quillan and up again, as we did so many times during training for VBW.

108%

The fund-raising now stands at 108% of the £7,000 target.

What am I bid to get it up to 110%?