As I glanced at my GPS watch on Saturday afternoon, a moment after it finished recharging, I fancied I heard a snatch of this drifting in through the open balcony door. The watch was last stopped on September 29 at 15.15pm. It was now March 29 at 15.15, precisely six months — to the minute — since I’d tottered across the finish line in Berlin. Six months since I’d done any exercise worthy of a sports watch. If indeed Berlin had been worthy of such a device: perhaps a calendar would have been more appropriate. After 6 months of strategic ignorance about how long it had taken me to stumble the 26 miles, yesterday the watch blurted out its shameful … …
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Friday: Early Last week I spent three days in a windowless room near Helsinki Airport, Understanding Leadership with ten silent, but charming, Finns — and my silent, but charming, Swiss colleague. The ladies fidgetted with their ID badges and worried about their figures — the ones they’d scribbled in the margin of the handout, to be compared with some other set generated in an earlier reverie. The stoical men in their warehouse yellow seemed no less tormented. I do like the Finns but I worry about their anxiety. I may occasionally moan about my job, but it’s good to be reminded that I never have to worry where the next pallet is coming from; no one beats me over the … …
1. SC Freiburg vs Bayer Leverkusen (26 January 2013) Germany is one of those pleasures I discovered late in life, like tinned artichokes. My first ever visit was for the Hamburg Marathon in 2005, followed soon afterwards by the series of work trips to Dusseldorf. I liked it then, and I like it now. Enough to think about living there one day. From where I currently live, the border is less than an hour away in the car, so I have few excuses for not visiting more often. It’s the Tower of London syndrome — the UK’s most popular tourist attraction with 2 or 3 million visitors a year, but a place I’ve never been to, despite living … …
The learning curve is as steep as some of the hills on this walk. After last week’s aimless perambulations above Bühler, and the spirit-shrivelling dehydration, I made a couple of small adjustments for this weekend’s outing. I dug out an old compass, last used in the Yorkshire Dales in the nineties, and found a water belt of more recent vintage to ensure easier access to fluid out on the trail. I repeated the format of previous weeks, first driving to the day’s destination, then making my way to the start point by public transport. This week I was aiming for Urnäsch, still in the Kanton of Appenzell. According to the typically detailed Wikipedia article, it’s a less cerebral place … …
I can’t now recall whether I’d ever even heard of Appenzell before I moved to Switzerland though it’s renowned within the country for all things pastoral — its beer and cheese for instance, and its velvetty, undulating topography. And then there are the countless ancient rustic Swiss traditions — like making it impossible for visitors to park a car for more than 15 minutes in one place. I was here just two weeks ago with M, when the hills, and the famous appeal of the region, were hidden by a thick curtain of rain and fog, and the highlight of our afternoon was a visit to the supermarket — its car park had proved irresistible. Now, in the sunshine, this … …
#flickr_badge_source_txt {padding:0; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif; color:#666666;} #flickr_badge_icon {display:block !important; margin:0 !important; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;} #flickr_icon_td {padding:0 5px 0 0 !important;} .flickr_badge_image {text-align:center !important;} .flickr_badge_image img {border: 1px solid black !important;} #flickr_www {display:block; text-align:left; padding:0 10px 0 10px !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#3993ff !important;} #flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:hover, #flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:link, #flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:active, #flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:visited {text-decoration:none !important; background:inherit !important;color:#3993ff;} #flickr_badge_wrapper {background-color:#CC66FF;border: solid 1px #000000} #flickr_badge_source {padding:0 !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#666666 !important;} www.flickr.com runningcommentary.net’s Alpine Panorama Walk – Stage 1 – Rorschach to Trogen photoset The plan was to leave Horgen by 08:00. Waking at 6, this should have been a comfortable target, but of course … …
Something’s afoot. Me. For 3½ weeks I’ve been eschewing alcohol and chewing vegetables instead. Leafing through my vegetarian cookbook a month ago, I realised that my quarterly campaign to make a public fool of myself was long overdue. Or was I just sensibly easing my way to twice-yearly shame, on the way to a more rational annual humiliation? This time at least, I was able to negotiate a one-month news embargo. I should have done this before. When purchasing previous metamorphoses, there should have been a nasal voice at my shoulder asking: “And would you like to include dignity protection with your transmutation, Sir?” I didn’t quite make it to the month because I want to write something about a … …
What’s this? I’m back in London, at the Hole in the Wall pub, near Waterloo Station, surrounded by work colleagues, warning me that something odd has happened to the boss in my absence. And next morning, at the wine shop, the aristocratic Charles greets me wearing a red velvet dress, high heels and a curly blonde wig. Part of a procession of brief inexplicable episodes. It was the one with the bottle-throwing folk singers chasing me through deserted Tube tunnels that finally woke me. I was relieved to open my eyes and totter downstairs into the wintry Swiss sunlight. Truly relieved. A weekend lie-in is fertile ground for dreams, but I rarely treat myself to one these days — and … …
End of a difficult Week 7/60. The bad news is that my nutritional discipline melted, just like the cheese on Wednesday’s double portion of lasagne. For the first time in six weeks, my mornings have begun with overflowing bowls of muesli, bran, banana, nuts and dried fruit. Not exactly unhealthy, and I’m still resisting lactose, moistening the mix with a splash of soya milk and a spoonful or two of yoghurt-like…. quark… thing. But a bellyful of fibre isn’t the ideal starting handle. It sets a tone for the day. It’s an ultimatum; a note shoved across the counter — Gimme more of this carby stuff, or else... The other bit of bad news, not unrelated, is … …
Week 6/60, and an accidental stumble on this straight and narrow path. I treat myself, if that’s the right phrase, to a sort of unhealthy meal. Egliknusperli with rice and roasted peppers is not exactly deep-fried Mars Bars with maple syrup, but there is some deep fat frying in there somewhere. Egli is perch, from Lake Zurich. I knew that much. When we go for lunch down at the Marina, I feel obliged to eat the local residents, but I was too stupid to remember that knusperli means ‘crunchy’. So it’s battered fish, and yes, deep fried. And with glossy white rice. But those roasted peppers and green salad clawed back a small brownie point or two. Not that … …