Ramblings

Ramblings

Welcome to my first walk-a-thon journal. As the summer rolls along I plan to post an episode of this journal once a week. I will update the kilometre count, write a little journal and then invite your input in a section I will call Wondering While Wandering.

I thought I’d devote this first journal to answering some of the questions I have received.  

I am not a long time walker. Like a lot of you I began walking in earnest as an excuse to get out of the house when the Covid-19 protocols were established. A morning walk became a twice daily walk and then they just kept lengthening until by late March I was walking 7 to 8 kms a day.

I officially began this walk-a-thon on May 10th. I wanted to start early enough to allow myself to take days off as needed. I have two main routes for now and I hope to add a few more for variety. Most commonly I trek what I call “The Cardinal Loop” (5.6 km). This walk bisects a golf course and includes two streets that back onto a rail line. Every time I have walked this loop I have heard cardinals. One day I counted eight different birds!

The other walk I call “The Horsey Loop” (5.9 km). This walk is in the country and passes a couple of horse farms. Two of these wonderful creatures routinely come over to the fence to say hello as I walk by. I don’t pet them because horses scare me a little. This is ironic because my name literally means “lover of horses”; Philip philos=love and hippos=horses.

Each walk takes almost exactly one hour. I walk once before breakfast and again after supper. Every day I write down my kms and a few notes such as ‘it snowed on May 11th ‘ or 'I got soaked to the skin on June 3rd'. I hope some of this information is helpful or interesting. Next week I hope to write something akin to a story.

Wondering While Wandering

I would like to run an ongoing count of the kilometers that you folks are walking. We’ll give it a cute name like Parish Plodding and see how much we are all walking this summer. To do this I need you all to email your walked kilometers. Do you walk one an evening or maybe a couple of times a week? Well, add them up and email them to me at gearingphil@gmail.com