Good Heavens

I sit here watching the rain come down outside the window.  Did that yesterday, did that the day before.  The day before that there was a break in the routine, it was cold and windy, which it had been for the 4 days previous to that.
Summer is becoming a distant memory.  I imagine there was something approaching a summer three years ago but my mind could well be playing tricks with me.
It has been a long time when walking has been more than just theory for me.  It says something of the current weather conditions that work has become a viable alternative to walking. 
This is perhaps a little odd given I work outside in the elements rather than indoors.  The distinct advantage work has over walking is I can stop work when the weather becomes to unremitting in a way you cannot stop walking.  A side effect of working is earning, which again is something that walking does not provide.
Compensations for not actually getting outdoors in anything but the most mundane manner is I get to watch some truly dire England football.  The World Cup is the only football I watch and only when England is playing.  A few matches every 4 years (if we qualify) is enough to remind me why I have no interest in football.
Just finished reading Steve Blease, End to End.  He did LEJOG during a world cup year and he had a lot of bad things to say about England’s world cup efforts in 2002.  By contrast to this competitions effort Blease was living in beknighted times.
It was a pretty slim volume, but it was not a page turner, or perhaps I had too many distractions going on.
Sport, sport, sport, all from my armchair while spinning outdoor adventure in my head.
Outdoor adventures fuelled by reading matter.  Steve Blease was a follow on from a John Hillaby reading session which is culminating in Journey Home at this moment.  John’s account of his “LEJOG” during the late 60’s reminded me how remarkably different the “recent” past was.
When not reading about walking from one of Britain to the other, I have been ploughing forward with the books that were written about the Sunday Times round the world yacht race, again late 60’s, again a world so devoid of electronic gadgets it seems near mediaeval.
Donald Crowhurst did go bonkers, read the book, see the film.
Bernard Moitessier : The Long Way
At times I thought he had gone bonkers, or perhaps started off mad as a hatter.  At other times he just seemed very French.  A great read.
Robin Knox-Johnston : A World of my own.
Never any doubt about the sanity of Robin.  Solid British stock, wasn’t going to be beaten by a Frenchman.  Wasn’t.
The other reading theme has been last Ray Mears series concerning Canada (it was on last year).  Slowly been chewing through the various explorers he referenced in the series, and mighty find reading it has been too.
Of the three current reading interests there is a much higher chance I will walk from one end of Britain to the other, but the odds are slim I will do that.
In the meanwhile my kit list is refined, fiddled with, equipment is updated, improved upon, all waiting for a break in the weather to coincide with a break in the schedule that will allow me to take off for a while.