I don't actually remember when I did this very short walk earlier in the week, so I'll just write about it very quickly so that I can move on to the more interesting and fun ones!
So, one evening after work this week, I was tired and only had enough oomph left in me for a pyjama walk around the houses. I remember that I came out of my front door and the buddleia that's completely covered my porch gave me a fright because it did a screechy scratching on the window and I thought I saw a pair of eyes in it. Idiot.
I pulled myself together and set off at a stumble down the road, not really knowing where I was going or particularly caring. I wasn't sad or anything, just really tired. Have you all had trouble sleeping lately as well? Maybe it's the weather. Anyway, stumble, stumble, I found myself at the end of the road and thought I might wander down to the scary park that's only scary at night. A quick two-mile walk – surely I could manage that.
The road was wet in a patch here, but none of the rest of the road or the pavements were. What's that all about? It hadn't been raining and there were no cars about or any signs of an accident involving water. Because I was tired and a bit jittery, this wet patch of road freaked me out a bit. Strange, isn't it, how the brain can be so stupid when it's tired? I kept glancing behind me this evening, feeling like I was being followed. I wasn't. There was no one around at all.
I stood in the long grass for a bit, having coming up with the bizarre notion that, if I was being followed, my pursuer wouldn't follow me into the wilderness. Wilderness! Grass that's grown to about a foot in height. I think I'd gone a bit peculiar on account of going back to work after my week off.
I came down onto the main road, thinking that wider roads are probably safer than narrow ones, but that was a mistake. My body and brain disconnected at this point and a mighty but invisible battle ensued. My legs set off at a brisk pace towards the park, determined to make me do a couple of miles. The rest of my body tried to obey my legs, but my brain is in my head and that caused a problem because my brain wanted to go home and kept forcing me to look back the way I'd just come. If I didn't get control of all the bits of me, I was going to trip over my own feet and fall on my face. Did you know, I've never actually fallen in my adult life? Never. I'm not a faller. I've only been ice skating once – I fell a total of none times. I stumble sometimes, falter, trip, stagger – but I always manage to stay upright. Perhaps that's my superpower.
My body took this photo, and my brain made a feeble attempt to tell itself that it was having a nice time: 'ooh, look, the castle, that's prett— WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??!!' Whatever it was that had spooked me didn't exist. There were no weird noises, nothing moving, absolutely no strangeness at all. But now there was a bit of adrenalin doing what it does, and I wasn't having a nice time. I think what actually happened here was that I was just very sleep deprived from several nights of still being awake at 5am. Maybe when that happens, the brain is desperately trying to be asleep and there's some dream stuff going on while you're awake. I don't know – I've just made that up.
I got to this junction, which is really just round the corner from my house, and my brain completely took over and won the battle. 'NOPE!' it says, 'that's it! We're are not going down there, NO WAY!' I could see there was nothing down there, no cars, no people, no particular danger, but my brain just wasn't having it today. It needed sleep and it had decided that we were going to be in mortal danger if we attempted to walk to the park. The park's just there – the edge of it is just past the bridge. But I was done, no proper walking this evening. Weird.
To make up for the lack of distance, we added a small hill on the way back to the house – and we are now referring to ourselves in the first-person plural, for some reason. We – my brain and my body, because Matthew wasn't out today – stormed up this hill and were home in approximately two and a half minutes.
And that was that, the shortest walk I've done yet. But at least I made it out of the house and stretched my legs a bit. Fine. I've done three better walks since then, and I'll go and write about them now for you!
Until later, friends.
WQ
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