Walking The Dog

I don’t have a dog. I do like dogs and cats but I am too lazy to give them the attention they need and deserve. It is over twenty years since I had a dog and I won’t have another but that is just me,

My pleasure is actually walking and I really started maybe six years back with the Million Step Challenge proposed by Diabetes,co.uk to walk a million steps in three months. This sounds a lot harder than it actually is, a million steps over three months is roughly eleven thousand steps a day which is around five miles.

The original proposal was to do it July , August and September but I decided to start it in May and finish in July .

When I finished in July I thought , “What Next?” and then thought why not just make it a rolling million steps every three months, and just keep on walking.

With my phone and Bluetooth headphones and the lots of green areas around Newcastle, walking became an absolute pleasure, helping me with my diabetes , keeping me reasonably fit and making me explore parts of Newcastle that I didn’t know existed like the CHAT Trust Phoenix , the Roman Remple off The West Road and the Denton Turret a Mile Castle on Hadrian’s Wall just off the West Road.

The devices meant I could listen to lots of music as I walked which caused the steps to just mount up, and with my phone camera I could share images of everything that I found via Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. And doing all this while keeping fit is a huge plus.

A couple of months back I decided to scale back my steps to seven thousand steps a day as I felt too much pressure to complete the eleven thousand a day, though I still exceed that quite often but I am not pressuring myself to do it. The most I have done in a day is thirty six thousand steps including a walk to Gosforth High Street , then across Newcastle Golf Course before taking a trip through Westerhope and then back down to the West Road and across the A1.

This is an absolute pleasure that I indulge in in all weathers, and it does enable me to share things with friends and followers.

I am not one for regimented things of any description which is why I don’t like gyms, but unplanned walking gives me a lot of freedom and on every journey there might be something new that I discover and can then share.

The thing is by going out on foot you never know what you might find , or who you might meet, and as long as you want to explore and look after yourself , you will always gain pleasure from doing things like this.

Today I only walked six thousand steps. Tomorrow may be less , but I then may take off and do eleven thousand steps , just so I can feel I have done something worth doing and make myself feel good.

I always include a piece of music and the natural choice would be “Walking The Dog” by Rufus Thomas, but I am going to share the Spirit version from the album “Spirit of ‘76” because the chances are you haven’t heard it and the album is a favourite of mine featuring the wonderful voice and guitar work of the sadly missed Randy California, a song that often accompanies me on my walks.

So get some music and start out in a direction and walk and see what you can finds to share with your friends and followers.