Where Gary wants to get away from reminiscing and talk about the present – I am at the other end. I always think about the future, all those possibilities out there and come up with a string of ideas the could keep many an entrepreneur busy for years.
Of course I am also thinking in that way about our journey and its possibilities and options. I am already planning a route and am buying maps on eBay. Looking at a world map, London and Grafenrheinfeld (our destination in Germany) are nearly on the same height (does that makes sense geographically?)
I would like Gary to decide on a charity we can raise money for. Our friends, family and benefactors can set us challenges during trip and they will pay up if we achieve or people can just plain pay us anything between a penny or a pound per mile we have walked.
Perhaps we should get some sponsors to add to the money raised?? I am not fussy about logos on my back if that means dosh for a cause we are passionate about.
We have already decided that we are going to be technologically enabled pilgrims. We both love gadgets, so we are talking satellite navigation system, mobile phone, internet access, Ipods and camera with the least amount of chargers possible.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
We will not be thwarted
We haven’t set a date for our journey but Doris suggested that next May might a good time of year – not too hot and not too cold. It is about 600 miles, so if we stay fit and average of 20 miles each day, it will take us about 30 days. Unfortunately, staying fit currently seems like a bigger challenge than we might have thought, with problems coming in areas we did not expect.
Since the late Summer Bank Holiday, I have felt generally tired and have had occasional spells of light-headedness. I will not bore you with the description but suffice to say that one or two were sustained and, to me, vary scary. The doctor took some blood tests but could find nothing wrong. His sage advice was that “it will pass”.
Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon, on the same day I got my blood test results, I had another brief spell of light-headedness. That made me doubt the morning’s hope that I am recovering and lead me to ponder whether there is something, less obvious, at play. I am trying to put that to the back of my mind, however, because, in my book, less obvious equals scarier.
Doris has been suffering in a different way. After a few days of discomfort, a pain in her shoulder became agony. Doris is very stoical when it comes to illness and pain, so to hear her frequently crying out in pain meant that it had to be very bad. A visit to a physiotherapist didn’t help and with no imminently available GP appointment, she succumbed to my urging and went to “Accident and Emergency” at the local hospital.
They diagnosed frozen shoulder, a debilitating condition that can, apparently take as much as thirty months to pass! (http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=168)
Typically, Doris is refusing to be beaten and exploring ways of dealing with it. Also, I guess, we are both hoping that the initial diagnosis, in a hectic A&E department, turns out to be wrong and it is something less severe. If not, there is a specialist clinic in London that has pioneered a treatment that, while it doesn’t promise to work miracles, does claim that their treatment works within weeks rather than months.
So hopefully we will both be fit enough to do our journey, come May, and I can get on with worrying about more mundane matters such as why my Achilles tendons feel so sore every morning and how they will fair on a 600 mile walk.
Since the late Summer Bank Holiday, I have felt generally tired and have had occasional spells of light-headedness. I will not bore you with the description but suffice to say that one or two were sustained and, to me, vary scary. The doctor took some blood tests but could find nothing wrong. His sage advice was that “it will pass”.
Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon, on the same day I got my blood test results, I had another brief spell of light-headedness. That made me doubt the morning’s hope that I am recovering and lead me to ponder whether there is something, less obvious, at play. I am trying to put that to the back of my mind, however, because, in my book, less obvious equals scarier.
Doris has been suffering in a different way. After a few days of discomfort, a pain in her shoulder became agony. Doris is very stoical when it comes to illness and pain, so to hear her frequently crying out in pain meant that it had to be very bad. A visit to a physiotherapist didn’t help and with no imminently available GP appointment, she succumbed to my urging and went to “Accident and Emergency” at the local hospital.
They diagnosed frozen shoulder, a debilitating condition that can, apparently take as much as thirty months to pass! (http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=168)
Typically, Doris is refusing to be beaten and exploring ways of dealing with it. Also, I guess, we are both hoping that the initial diagnosis, in a hectic A&E department, turns out to be wrong and it is something less severe. If not, there is a specialist clinic in London that has pioneered a treatment that, while it doesn’t promise to work miracles, does claim that their treatment works within weeks rather than months.
So hopefully we will both be fit enough to do our journey, come May, and I can get on with worrying about more mundane matters such as why my Achilles tendons feel so sore every morning and how they will fair on a 600 mile walk.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
The challenge of having generous thoughts
Having ended my previous entry with a generous spirit, I have been meaning to post for while, to own up to the fact that I was not always able to follow through on my generous intention.This has taught me a couple of things.
First, and practically, blogging may work best when it is contemporaneous rather than reflective. This may be the value of the medium: the ability to capture emotions as they happen, in relatively small sized bites. So things that I thought were interesting at the time look less so at this distance. Of course, it could be simply be that distance brings perspective and the thoughts were not all that interesting in the first place. Nevertheless, I will try to be more contemporary with future entries. If they turn out to be drivel, I can always delete them.
The second thing that I learned was that keeping ungenerous thoughts at bay is easier in theory than in practice. This is something that troubles me. It doesn’t trouble me in that it keeps me awake at night but I am a bit frustrated by it. I am not very proud of the fact that I can be quick to criticise and judge people.
Most of the time, I restrain myself from saying something ungenerous. Most of the time. But now and again, I hear the words just after they have left my lips, regretting it instantly. So, since the blog is devoted to my nascent spirituality, a big question for me here is: how do I stop thinking ungenerous thoughts? Because I would like to. Honest!
But before you go getting, the wrong idea, the visit from emissaries was fine and, for the most part, enjoyable. It was just that, at times, I wished there was a volume control. I think I behaved generously – most of the time.
Actually, we ended up with even more house guests, to add to the emissaries. My uncle died after a long illness and my cousin came down from Scotland for his funeral. We put up her eleven year old son or a few days, while my cousin sorted things out. She then, I am delighted to say, came to stay for a few days after the funeral. It was great to see her, despite the sad circumstances. She is a very special person and I love her dearly. She and her son only overlapped with our emissaries for a few days but then my Mum came to stay for the weekend, overlapping with my cousin and her son.
Then, on the Monday, everyone was gone. Everyone except Doris, of course - my wonderful much-loved and adored free spirit. How did I ever manage to get her to marry me? I am so very lucky.
First, and practically, blogging may work best when it is contemporaneous rather than reflective. This may be the value of the medium: the ability to capture emotions as they happen, in relatively small sized bites. So things that I thought were interesting at the time look less so at this distance. Of course, it could be simply be that distance brings perspective and the thoughts were not all that interesting in the first place. Nevertheless, I will try to be more contemporary with future entries. If they turn out to be drivel, I can always delete them.
The second thing that I learned was that keeping ungenerous thoughts at bay is easier in theory than in practice. This is something that troubles me. It doesn’t trouble me in that it keeps me awake at night but I am a bit frustrated by it. I am not very proud of the fact that I can be quick to criticise and judge people.
Most of the time, I restrain myself from saying something ungenerous. Most of the time. But now and again, I hear the words just after they have left my lips, regretting it instantly. So, since the blog is devoted to my nascent spirituality, a big question for me here is: how do I stop thinking ungenerous thoughts? Because I would like to. Honest!
But before you go getting, the wrong idea, the visit from emissaries was fine and, for the most part, enjoyable. It was just that, at times, I wished there was a volume control. I think I behaved generously – most of the time.
Actually, we ended up with even more house guests, to add to the emissaries. My uncle died after a long illness and my cousin came down from Scotland for his funeral. We put up her eleven year old son or a few days, while my cousin sorted things out. She then, I am delighted to say, came to stay for a few days after the funeral. It was great to see her, despite the sad circumstances. She is a very special person and I love her dearly. She and her son only overlapped with our emissaries for a few days but then my Mum came to stay for the weekend, overlapping with my cousin and her son.
Then, on the Monday, everyone was gone. Everyone except Doris, of course - my wonderful much-loved and adored free spirit. How did I ever manage to get her to marry me? I am so very lucky.
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