Around and About

I hope that Dr. Robles will give me the green light to begin running next week.  But in the meantime, I have been able to continue to do some light work around the house and yard, such as painting and gardening.  Yesterday I filled the last vacant space in our garden beds with some green bell pepper plants, and at the same time I covered the just-sprouting green beans and the thriving sweet potatoes with a product called DeerBlock, an almost-invisible mesh made by the optimistically-named company Easy Gardener.

It was easy to install, in fact.  This product worked on the hostas we had planted along our road two years ago until something - perhaps a State-road mower - caught the entire 50-foot roll and dragged it completely off them.  So we have pretty much given up on hostas below our driveway since then.  I enjoyed seeing this puzzled-looking specimen depicted cartoonishly on the back of the  package, staring forlornly through the impregnable DeerBlock erected in a fence-like manner.  "Foiled again!"

I have also been walking nearly every day.  Since Sunday, I have walked fourteen miles, which is probably more than I would have run.  Every day, I change the route just a little, exploring streets on which I rarely run (an oversight that I have vowed to remedy when I begin running again).  There are always interesting people out in the mornings, most of them familiar faces.  Jack K. was walking up the Fifth Street hill.  "Isn't that Richard?" he asked, shading a hand over his eyes.  "I almost didn't recognize you, wearing pants and walking."  I told him that I was enjoying the slower pace; it permitted me to stop and talk, as I was doing at the moment.

Near the public restrooms, a woman whose name I do not know but who is a regular morning walker said something similar:  "I didn't recognize you with your clothes on!"  But my most interesting encounter today was with a slim young woman walking north on Fifth Street, to whom I said good morning.  She hesitated a moment, as young women should do when speaking to strangers, and asked me if I knew where Old Edwards Inn and Spa was located.  "You're going the opposite way," I said.  "It's this way, downtown on Main Street."  She turned and we walked together for a few blocks.  "Where are you from?" I asked, detecting a British accent.

"England," she replied.

"Ah, England!"  And I told her about our upcoming trip.  "Where in England?"  It turned out that she was from Birmingham.  "What one thing should we not miss seeing when we are there?" I asked.  She told me Stratford-Upon-Avon, where we are going.  But the closest we will be going to Birmingham will be Liverpool, 100 miles to the northwest, a fact that I confess I discovered on Google Maps when I returned home, so lacking is my knowledge of British geography.  I also learned that people from Birmingham are called "Brummies," a term derived from the city's nickname of "Brum."  How I wish I could have surprised that young woman by saying that I thought she sounded like a Brummie!

I finished my walk and drove to Bryson's Food Store for a few groceries, and found the parking lot filled with 25 or 30 motorcycles, some of them appearing to be vintage, their riders standing around visiting with each other; they looked like they were having a wonderful time!  One or two waved at me as I drove by in the Mini with the top down.  The day could not have been more beautiful, cloudless blue skies and unseasonably cool temperatures, into the 40s earlier but now in the mid-50s.  As I was getting in the Mini a few minutes later to leave, I heard one of them shout in a loud voice, "LET'S ROLL!" and engines began to start up.

A good day for rolling!  And for wandering around and about.