Some people love walking

Some people love walking – the actual physical thing of walking. For me it’s a way to get to places and I’m neutral about the actual activity itself. I might say we walked though an interesting town/forest/ruin, or the weather was really pleasant as we were walking to somewhere, or it was lovely to be in the sunshine/feeling the refreshing breeze/having a cooling spatter of rain as we walked home from wherever. But I can’t imagine saying oh what a lovely walk – as in the process of putting one foot in front of the other to get somewhere.

Lots of my friends love walking, short walks, long walks, really, really long walks – they love the process of striding out, whereas for me it’s plod plod plod, one foot in front of the other. However, today, because our car is off the road I had to walk. I walked to meet the writing group for our weekly meeting, I walked home. I walked with my husband to the doctor’s and then we walked home. I walked into town to go to the optician, and then I walked home – deviating to visit a friend who gave me a nice cup of tea. It was mild weather, it wasn’t raining, there was no buffeting wind only a pleasant breeze, I kept myself amused by thinking about the characters from one of my books and what happened to them after I had finished writing about them. I didn’t hate my walks, but I didn’t love them either, they were just something which had to be done.

However – a big however, when I checked my step count this evening it was 21,171 steps – 8.73 miles. This would be a mere stroll compared to what my walking friends would do, those who’ve tramped the Pennine Way and the coast to coast and the Camino de Santiago. They would sniff at my less than a dozen miles, but for my little legs it was a lot. Has it made me want to walk like my friends do? No, I did it for a purpose and was pleased I did it at a good consistent pace, my legs weren’t too ache-y afterwards, and it didn’t cost me anything to get from A to B. Will I do more walking? Not unless I have to – except maybe I will choose to take short jaunts rather than taking the car. Will that lead me to take longer jaunts? I doubt it!!