It's true that I walked in my pyjamas this evening, but the title is also a test to see if the word 'pyjamas' attracts weirdos and pervs from Twitter. The last title that had 'pyjamas' in it was very popular. Eff off, pervs and weirdos. Nothing to see here.
I wasn't going to have a walk today because I started work at 6.30am by accident and I'm tired. It's quite easy to start work accidentally at that time in the morning in my job, because I can do a lot of it on my phone as soon as my alarm goes off. That's what happened today. But anyway, it got to 10pm and I just felt like a wander so I went out. Thomas also popped his head downstairs and said that he was going for a walk but that I wasn't allowed to go with him – I'm too embarrassing. I guess I can understand that when I look at that pyjama photo.
So I let Thomas go out first and then I followed, by which time he'd disappeared because he walks faster than I do, being only 16 and 6'3". I intended to just nip up to the top of the hillock at the end of the street, past my good friend Sarah-jane's old house – man, I wish she still lived there because we had great fun. She lived just round this corner. She once laid some concrete to fill in a hole at the end of her drive and her two boys put their handprints in it (I can't remember if S-j did it too) and I always look for the handprints when I walk past, even though I know they've been covered over.
From S-j's house you can see the castle. This is a great place to watch the fireworks on Bonfire Night. One of the best was when we watched from Sarah-jane's front garden and got soaked right through to the skin because there was a storm. It was wonderful. I love being out in a storm at the best of times, and a storm with fireworks is just about as thrilling as you can get!
Point four of a mile done by the time I got to the bottom of the hill. My body seems to have set itself the very small challenge of not allowing me to go home until I've done more than a mile, so going back over the hill wasn't quite going to cut it. I decided to squeeze in a quick jaunt round the half-block, not the big block because that would be an extra three miles and I didn't have that in my legs today.
The roads were empty again this evening, although it was very late. You can still tell we're locked down, though.
Still empty enough for me to walk along the tiny island without anyone stopping to tell me to get down and grow up.
Fairly soon, I started to think that this might be the day I'd crawl the last leg home. This was feeling like ... duh duh duurrrhh ... exercise! It was a short walk, but it was hard work. I was walking quite fast because I just wanted to get home. I took no photos for half a mile, which you know is not like me. I was just on a mission to get this over with. That's not to say that I wasn't enjoying myself – no, I was still having fun, just a different kind of fun.
Stopped for a rest in the middle of a road and thought I'd just see how long I could stay here before a car forced me to move. Played with the iPhone's camera settings for a bit; this is me exercising a bit of control over the shutter speed:
And this is me letting the iPhone have its head and do its own thing. Honestly, I don't like either. I'm taking my old phone next time I walk at night because I like the honesty of its dark photos. Mind you, you can see a few of the stars in this one:
I've been walking and documenting these walks for almost two months now, and I'm starting to notice that there's a whole bank of new memories being created. This is not surprising because memories are created daily when you actually make the effort to leave the house. But it's not something I was expecting to be so vivid – I look down this road now, and I see myself and Matthew walking along together and laughing and chatting, and that time I went looking for postboxes, and that other time when I walked round the big block as fast I could. There are not just 59 memories from 59 walks; there are hundreds of memories already and there will be thousands more. Imagine if I'd stayed home with Netflix and Amazon Prime every day and night for the past eight weeks – I'd have no memories to enjoy at all.
Look, there are another two memories, of that time I walked up the hill and down the hill, and that other time when I walked up the hill from the other side and found Oz. Amazing.
I tell you what you never see many of these days – weeping willows. These used to be all over the place. What happened, I wonder. Were they a 1980s garden fashion that faded? I think they've got a bit of a 1970s disco look about them, actually.
Until tomorrow, when it might be a crawl to the end of the street and back.
WQ
I wasn't going to have a walk today because I started work at 6.30am by accident and I'm tired. It's quite easy to start work accidentally at that time in the morning in my job, because I can do a lot of it on my phone as soon as my alarm goes off. That's what happened today. But anyway, it got to 10pm and I just felt like a wander so I went out. Thomas also popped his head downstairs and said that he was going for a walk but that I wasn't allowed to go with him – I'm too embarrassing. I guess I can understand that when I look at that pyjama photo.
So I let Thomas go out first and then I followed, by which time he'd disappeared because he walks faster than I do, being only 16 and 6'3". I intended to just nip up to the top of the hillock at the end of the street, past my good friend Sarah-jane's old house – man, I wish she still lived there because we had great fun. She lived just round this corner. She once laid some concrete to fill in a hole at the end of her drive and her two boys put their handprints in it (I can't remember if S-j did it too) and I always look for the handprints when I walk past, even though I know they've been covered over.
From S-j's house you can see the castle. This is a great place to watch the fireworks on Bonfire Night. One of the best was when we watched from Sarah-jane's front garden and got soaked right through to the skin because there was a storm. It was wonderful. I love being out in a storm at the best of times, and a storm with fireworks is just about as thrilling as you can get!
Point four of a mile done by the time I got to the bottom of the hill. My body seems to have set itself the very small challenge of not allowing me to go home until I've done more than a mile, so going back over the hill wasn't quite going to cut it. I decided to squeeze in a quick jaunt round the half-block, not the big block because that would be an extra three miles and I didn't have that in my legs today.
The roads were empty again this evening, although it was very late. You can still tell we're locked down, though.
Still empty enough for me to walk along the tiny island without anyone stopping to tell me to get down and grow up.
Fairly soon, I started to think that this might be the day I'd crawl the last leg home. This was feeling like ... duh duh duurrrhh ... exercise! It was a short walk, but it was hard work. I was walking quite fast because I just wanted to get home. I took no photos for half a mile, which you know is not like me. I was just on a mission to get this over with. That's not to say that I wasn't enjoying myself – no, I was still having fun, just a different kind of fun.
Stopped for a rest in the middle of a road and thought I'd just see how long I could stay here before a car forced me to move. Played with the iPhone's camera settings for a bit; this is me exercising a bit of control over the shutter speed:
I've been walking and documenting these walks for almost two months now, and I'm starting to notice that there's a whole bank of new memories being created. This is not surprising because memories are created daily when you actually make the effort to leave the house. But it's not something I was expecting to be so vivid – I look down this road now, and I see myself and Matthew walking along together and laughing and chatting, and that time I went looking for postboxes, and that other time when I walked round the big block as fast I could. There are not just 59 memories from 59 walks; there are hundreds of memories already and there will be thousands more. Imagine if I'd stayed home with Netflix and Amazon Prime every day and night for the past eight weeks – I'd have no memories to enjoy at all.
Thomas got home at exactly the same time as me and I almost got a photo of him but he got out of the way just in time. One day, young feller me lad, one day!
WQ
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