Went for my walk on Christmas Day and it was dead quiet. Hardly anyone out, and all the shops were closed. Most of them, anyway. The local Ocakbasi was open (but takeaway only), the local Co-op, and Sainsbury's were closed. But the local fruit n veg was still open, and the Shell petrol station was open (to cover for those who are driving, even though you're not supposed to socialise outside your bubble). Surprisingly the Tesco petrol station was not open.
Another evening walk, popped into Sainsbury's to buy a new tub of chewing gum (I have a habit of chewing gum while I'm walking -- not while I'm running, though, the gum is likely to pop out while I'm panting).
Also realised when I was paying for the gum at Sainsbury's that I had forgotten to start my Fitbit tracking so now I don't know how long I walked. Oh well. :(
We got a plumber in to investigate and there's a pin hole leak on the heating element. But the heater is a balanced flue which according to him is no longer made and the whole thing would need to be replaced -- not what we needed a few days before Christmas Day.
The plumber turned off the gas and water to the heater, cutting off the hot water (at least it means the heater is not leaking) -- the pinhole leak was still going for a bit though
Booking a slot in the gym due to covid costs me nearly £10, versus £8 before the pandemic, but I can understand due to the additional cleaning and disinfecting work needed by the gym staff.
Decided to run instead of walk, but not sprint, just jog. Will work my way back up to faster running slowly.
Turned out they hadn't opened the changing rooms and showers for gym users yet, so I ended up having a cold shower at home afterwards.
Had an early start today so my walk was a bit slower, but still did it.
Has now gone totally dark during my normal walk time making it harder to see where I'm stepping -- risking stepping in poop or mud.
I got a replacement strap for my FitBit Ionic as the existing one is starting to peel away from the plastic. It arrived yesterday so I replaced it today.
Forgot to log this walks yesterday, but yesterday morning the entire area was covered in fog and at 7am you couldn't see more than 50m in front of you. Within 30 minutes, however, it had started to clear.
As for the walk, it was freezing cold at only 3degC at 4pm so my feet were beginning to go numb, even after only a 30 minute walk.
Hit the 200 day mark in exercising while in quarantine. Although, strictly speaking, I've passed the 200 point already, just forgot/didn't bother to log it.
Today's walk was cold and dark, and absolutely freezing. Went out with a wooly had and gloves and STILL felt the cold.
The temperature has really dropped in recent days and it's been absolutely freezing when doing my afternoon walk, not to mention its getting darker a lot earlier than before.
In other news, I found my replacement to Revolut -- Curve.
Curve seems to be different. It's not a bank of its own, but lets you put debit/credit cards onto your account and when you use the Curve card, the transaction goes onto the default card you have set on your account. And you can move the transaction from one card to the other (only once per transaction though).
Plus Curve supports FitBit Pay, meaning I can use that instead of Google Pay which has now broken again due to my device being rooted.
Evening walk from yesterday that I forgot to log -- short walk, the weather was looking ominous and did actually end up heavily raining.
Also, I got a notification a couple of days ago that Endomondo is being retired at the end of the year.
I knew this was going to happen soon at some point after Underarmor picked it up.
I'm saddened by this as Endomondo has been my go-to for a lot of running things, including helping me train for the Half Marathon. Strava is my alternative and a lot of my colleagues are on that, but I really do not like the interface and only really use it for storing my walk/run tracks.
Another evening walk, and this time I went to look at the back of a house that my folks really like post-viewing.
The back has a shared parking space -- which, during the day seems okay, but in the evening, when everyone else is there, it looks very tight for space, meaning unless you have backed into the parking space, it's going to be difficult to come out of the parking unless you reverse out.
Now I work on top of Victoria Station, so I walk past the memorial plaque dedicated to the Unknown Soldier every day I commute to the office. Obviously not so much this year due to covid.
The Military Wives Choir did the song for Abide With Me using the now-common feature of a virtual choir:
The virtual choir idea has been used a lot this year due to social distancing, but let's not forget, the idea dates back way further, even as far back as 2009 with Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir project (https://www.youtube.com/user/EricWhitacresVrtlChr) which also made it into several TED talks
My last logged walk was 23rd October. I've been slacking off logging runs since then, so this is my first logged run since then, even though I have been doing near-daily runs since then, so I'm skipping through to Day 191 since I've done 10 days of walks since then.
I've also got a few other updates.
My house purchase fell through a while ago so I have been actively house hunting a lot and my past few Saturdays have been spent house viewing. Viewing during the day is tricky unless I take time off to house hunt.
Dealing with different Estate Agents is a pain, with some not even bothering to give you the time of day, let alone
I also upgraded my phone to Android 10 LineageOS and I've been having quite a few issues with internet speed and stability. I'm seriously considering forcing a downgrade back to Android 9. In the meantime, I might switch from Adoptable Storage back to portable storage to see if that helps with stability.
Got caught in the rain on my walk today. It didn't last long though, but I had made it home by the time it stopped. Seems like that's a pattern when I go for a walk....
