Monday 7 August 2023
I keep thinking how many more friends I see when I’m staying in London. It’s true, I do. But it’s not a reflection of how it was when I lived here. In the week I’ve been back in London, I have seen six friends (planned) and my mum, all separate meet-ups except for seeing two friends together, bumped into my cousin and popped into a shop to visit two other friends. My friend Fiona and I met in Rochester, Kent, yesterday, kind of mid-way between where we each live; it was forecast to rain all day, and was indeed raining in the photograph, but it was somehow okay in the end. I’ve been on a bus, train, Overground, boat, my car and I will go on DLR today. I suppose it’s more a reflection of how comparatively easy it is to meet up with people and go out and about in and around London compared to the middle of nowhere in Scottish Borders. It’s been a great week but I am now ready for what I perceive to be my “normal” in Scotland, which is a lot slower-paced.
However, while it’s been a tiring week, I have also massively appreciated how easy it is to walk and do 10,000 steps every day, particularly in London, maybe in part because there is more variety in your surroundings and things to do and distances are shorter so it’s much easier to walk places rather than have to drive. I had a Fitbit until about a year ago and had had a few Fitbits over the six or so years I wore them. They worked for me. They got me going out and about. I currently half-heartedly use a step counter on my mobile, but I don’t always have my mobile with me around the house and, particularly in the Scottish house, I walk quite a lot around the house and garden. I also don’t think the step counter is accurate. There was something in the psychology of a Fitbit, I had a few friends on the Fitbit app and we used to occasionally tease or encourage each other. It all seemed official. It would appear that that worked for me. Today, after meeting my friend Duncan for another walk, then going to the cinema at Canary Wharf to see Barbie, I am planning to buy myself one of the more basic Fitbits. I am hoping that it will make me go out and walk more in Scotland. I don’t like being out of the habit of walking a decent amount every day and I really dislike that there have been a few days in Scotland where I haven’t even gone outdoors beyond the garden.
I would estimate that on average I do 10,000 steps once a week in Scotland. In London, it was seven days a week. The past week, maybe five days of at least 10,000 steps, though I would have walked more than 70,000 steps, ie more than the equivalent of having walked 10,000 steps a day. So maybe this is my August resolution, to walk 10,000 steps more than – trying to be a bit realistic to factor in days of torrential rain and midge days – four days a week. And maybe a minimum of 5,000 steps on the other days.