Columbia Give Me The Sack

My sponsors Columbia Sportswear have sent me quite a lot of gear lately - clothes and shoes. Also for Gay.

Yesterday they sent me a new rucksack. I knew it was coming but I was unprepared for it. It is stunningly light and of a revolutionary new design.

I have been reading quite a bit lately about the new breed of ultralight backpacks. They came about because people trying to follow the wise advice of making your (loaded) backpack as light as possible were finding that this was a bit difficult when they started with an empty sack of up to 7 kgs.

One snag with the ultralights is that they are necessarily made of lightweight and therefore vulnerable material. One of Columbia's answers to this is to give the sack an outer frame, like a modern tent. This not only holds the pack open while you are loading it or otherwise furtling inside, but it protects the material.

The backpack is called Mobex. It will not be in the shops until Spring 2010 so I guess I will be a bit of a guinea pig regarding its use. I understand it comes in various sizes and colours. There are many other excellent points about the design, which you can see if you watch the following short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJqnzfR1P34

Friends

Again as predicted, very little walking done today because we drove from Le Rouret home. In fact I only walked 2 kms today. Tomorrow I hope to get in a decent walk of over 20 kms, but that will be it for this week. We have a plane to catch on Friday, Saturday we want to see as much as possible of my two daughters who live in UK because they are both about to leave to live on other continents. Sunday we have a flight back. Monday I hope to return to normal life for a while.

I mentioned yesterday that we met, by arrangement, with Mike, a friend who has become so through my blog. I was thinking during today's long drive about how many people have already contacted me through my blog with messages of support. I hope to meet as many of them as possible (some live along the route of VBW) and I expect many of them to become friends. This is one outcome of VBW which I had not given a thought to when planning the walk. But it is a very welcome bonus.

The friends we stayed with in Le Rouret came about through other means, of course, but they are being very supportive of me an my walking plans.

The family Scriven are American and this morning 10 year-old Julia got up early especially to make us all pancakes for breakfast, which we enjoyed American-style, slathered in peanut butter, maple syrup, bananas, Nutella, and lots more, and lots of combinations of all these. Thank you, Julia. It was Julia, only 9 at the time, who showed us last year how to make peanut butter in one minute.

Coincidence

As predicted, not many miles are being walked this week. A measly 2 kms yesterday, but we do have the excuse that we drove 700 kms, from Rome to Le Rouret, in the hills above Nice. Normally, when visiting Italy, we either fly back and forth or, if we have goods to transport to or from Nicola, we take the car on the ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, which gives us a total of 400 kms driving each way instead of the 1400 kms each way if we drove round the coast.

This time, we ferried to Italy but we have driven back because we wanted to visit the lovely Scriven family - Jonathan, Kerri, Julia, Patrick and Henry. They are from Washington DC but are spending several years in France, where Jonathan is a teacher. We had them as neighbours for two months in summer 2008 and became firm friends. They are as nice as we remembered.

By an amazing coincidence we had an e-mail the other day from Mike, who has been following my blog for some time and who recently made a kind donation to Pancreatic Cancer UK through the blog. Mike asked if, on our way back from Italy, we would by any chance be passing anywhere near his home because he would love to meet. As I said above, it is very unusual for us to drive home this way but this time we are doing so. The amazing coincidence is that Mike lives only 10 minutes away from Le Rouret and we met him this morning for a couple of coffees and a couple of hours of chat and bonhomie.

By the way, as this is a blog about walking, I should perhaps mention that we did manage to clock up about 8 kms this week, but I continue to think that this week will be more or less a write-off. For instance, tomorrow we shall be driving another 700 kms, which does not allow much room for walking.

Letter From Italy

As predicted, because we are travelling, because we are spending time with our Italian family, who we see very little of, kilometres will be down this week, even more so next week. I don't have my diary with me, but it will be about 80 kms for the week ending today, bringing me to about 3445 kms for the year so far. Next week I will be lucky to take the year total over 3500. A few weeks of normality after that, before we go to USA.

Not too worried about having to cut the distance down. I have piled plenty of training in the past twelve months, a bit of a lull must be good, now and then.

From Here To There

Although I have not fully defined the route through France, it will mainly involve the GR36. I could join this at Carcassonne, and walk it all the way to Ouistreham and the ferry. But it has a huge loop to the west and I shall bypass that by using the GR46 for some of the way. Also, it may make sense for me to strike directly north from Puivert and to join the GR36 at a different start point, rather than Carcassonne.

Mapping Out My Future

I mentioned some time ago that I was rethinking the whole idea of walking through France mainly on roads. After a year of experimenting with walks on the public highways, I have definitely abandoned the idea, in the interests of my continued survival as a member of the human race. There are too many nutters out there - too much possibility that I may meet one of them on a blind corner, with no means of escape.

Now I will walk from Puivert to Caen/Ouistreham on the Grandes Randonnees. It will be further, it will take me longer, but it will be more likely that my ferry ticket will not be wasted.

I have scores of maps and it will take me some time to refine the exact route. This may be easier once my eyes are fixed.

Once in England I will, as before, walk from Portsmouth to Oxford on various long-distance tracks, then from Oxford into Lancashire on canal towpaths.

Eye, Eye, What's This?

I didn't get a big walk in yesterday. Instead I got a bit of a shock.

I went to an opthalmologist, expecting to get a prescription for some new spectacles. Instead I came away with an order to go to see a professor surgeion at Toulouse Hospital, and to expect that he will operate on both my eyes!

I suppose a positive side of this is that I could end up actually being able to see the scores of maps I now have waiting to guide me through VBW.