#oneaday Day 775: Perambulation

I've been for a walk out on the Common for the last three evenings. Tonight, I gave myself permission to take the evening off, because three days in a row is solid going, there is no need to go every single night, whatever the "sergeant major" part of my brain might say, plus my feet are a bit sore. Also I want to play Splatoon Raiders, which arrived today. However, I will be getting back out there tomorrow! You'll see that I will! (You probably won't. Unless you're stalking me, in which case please do not do that.)

I've been trying to get over a bit of a mental block for the easiest possible form of exercise, which is just going out for a walk. I do like walking around my neighbourhood — and heaven knows we did it a lot while Oliver was missing — but the unfortunate thing, as I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, is that we live on the top of quite a steep hill, meaning that whichever direction you set out from, you always end up having to climb said steep hill on the way back. Unless you do what I did on one excursion, which is to just keep walking and then catch the bus up the hill before walking the last little bit from the bus stop back to my house.

My trips to the Common are an attempt to get over that mental and physical block. The Common is relatively flat, you see, meaning that you can have a nice walk around it and not feel like any part of the journey is significantly more difficult than any other. There are a few undulations around the place — the route I've been taking is a slight incline on the way out, then very slightly downhill on the way back — but it's definitely manageable for someone in as poor physical condition as I am.

Also it's just a nice place to be. The Common has lots of different little areas within it — pleasantly secluded wooded areas (which I probably wouldn't go into after dark) and a nice wide open bit in the middle, which is where any Common-based events tend to go on. There's often a funfair or something in this big open bit, but right now, it's proper "big sky" territory.

One thing that is a little shocking, however, is how desert-like the whole thing looks right now after the heatwave. The grass is just dead. I've never seen it so bad, and I've always associated the Common with being, well, "green space". And to be sure, all the trees are still nice and leafy and green, but the ground… man, it looks more like what I imagine places like Arizona and Texas to look like than what I typically associate with England. (Important note: I have never been to Arizona or Texas and have also never really looked at photographs of what they actually look like.) It's a barren wasteland, and it's a little disheartening to see.

Still, I'm sure it's not the first time this has happened in recent memory — we've had similar heatwaves in the summer of the past few years, after all, and I actually haven't been to the Common for a while — so I'm sure it will recover as soon as we get a bit of rain. That isn't looking likely any time soon, admittedly, but as we pass through summer into autumn I'm sure it will get at least some of its green back. Maybe.

It is, however, a stark reminder of the fact that we are very much killing the planet. Seeing a desert-like park space would have been unthinkable when I was a child; I grew up with both my primary and secondary schools having access to large amounts of green space, and I welcomed that. It was nice to be able to be outside, and for the outside to feel like it had some life to it — without that "life" being, like, lots of bugs and spiders or shit like that. I have fond memories, both of my early childhood and my teenage years, of spending time just sitting on the grass with friends (and occasionally having farting competitions), enjoying one another's company and the pleasant environment that we were able to take advantage of.

At this point, there is just plain no denying that there are significant issues with the climate. "England's green and pleasant land" shouldn't look like a barren wasteland you'd expect to see dried-up tumbleweed rolling across. And yet that's where we are right now. It's scary stuff, and at the rate we're going I wonder if we'll be able to get things back to how they "should" be — whatever that might be.

Anyway, maudlin thoughts about the fate of the planet aside, I have been enjoying getting out and about. Although it's been pretty warm in the daytime, I've found going out around 7pm has a good balance between having some light left and the air just generally being a bit cooler thanks to the sun starting to set. I've even seen marginal improvements in my own performance over just those three days — not that I'm particularly caring about performance right now, since the goal is just to get out and do something, but it is nice to see that just a little effort can pay off almost immediately.

So yeah. I'm going to enjoy a night off tonight, then get back out there tomorrow. Now I have Salmonids to splat!

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#oneaday, Day 267: Go Outside!

It's funny. I've never particularly thought of myself as an outdoorsman, despite growing up in the country and despite semi-regular trips from primary school and Cub Scouts (yeah, deal with it) to various campsites. This is largely to do with being a nerd, of course, because everyone knows that nerds, like vampires, tend to shun sunlight in favour of the glow of a TV or computer screen. Or sometimes candle-light and books. But books don't glow. Unless they're on an iPad.

Anyway, the point I was getting at is that I appear to have spent most of the last couple of days outside. This is partly due to the Couch-to-5K running programme I've been following which, by its very nature, requires one to go outside to do said running. Today, though, I decided to just go out for a walk. Of course, I had the flimsy justification of putting various GPS trackers on to try and measure how far I went yesterday (3.75 miles, as it happens) but mostly it was a desire to actually go out again. The place I went yesterday—a nearby wood—is a place that's nice and quiet and peaceful and has literally nothing surrounding it on Google Maps. Today, rather than running there (or run-walk-run-walk-ing there, to be more accurate) I just walked and took my time. I had some awesome tunes on for the duration and just enjoyed being out, feeling the breeze on me (until it got a bit cold later) and the feeling of being surrounded by nature. Evidently I have some sort of latent hippie/wood elf tendencies.

Of course, any kind of sudden change in one's routine is normally down to external stimuli, and of course there's one in this case. A few online chats with a very nice person (who may be reading this right now… hello! *waves*) inspired me to go out and spend some time in all this countryside I'm surrounded with. This countryside I grew up in, and pretty much took for granted, and then became a teenager and thought was boring. So I have. So, special person, thank you for being the one to give me a nudge in the correct direction. It just takes the right person to say the right thing and… well, you find yourself in the middle of the woods listening to Shpongle.

For those who are keeping up, this person is also the person who bullied me (not very hard) into picking up a copy of Firefly and then sat until the early hours with me yesterday watching it "with" me. Which was nice. But also made me forget to write my blog. Although that was mostly my own fault for not writing it earlier and then engaging in a conversation I knew would continue for quite a long time.

Anyway. Yes. Going outside is good. So do it. Especially if you've just finished watching that DVD box set or beaten that game you were playing. Don't pick up another one (yet)—open that door and go and enjoy the lovely mild Autumn sunshine and the crispy brown leaves under your feet. Unless you live in the city, in which case you can go out and enjoy the howling Autumn Peugeot chavmobiles screaming past at all hours.

I have been outside most of today, so I now have no guilt at settling down under a warm duvet with a mug of hot chocolate and a Firefly box set. Can you say the same? Can you?

Oh, here's some photos. These were taken using the iPhone 4's fancy-pants HDR setting and haven't had any processing done to them. Enjoy! I'm off to watch aforementioned Firefly.

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#oneaday, Day 163: You are...

Queen's Park (on a bench), 9:10pm

You're sitting on a sturdy, lichen-covered wooden bench that looks like it's been here for a good few years. The wood is faded and scratched, both naturally and through human intervention. The initials of teenage sweethearts are carved into the surface of the wood, last remnants of a long-forgotten memory, a past romance.

You're at the east edge of the park. Further east is a tall hedge, behind which stands a tall, orange-and-glass-fronted apartment building.

To the west, a large stone column rises up to the sky amidst brightly-coloured flower beds. Atop the column is an intricate-looking sculpture, featuring roses, arches and what appears to be a Christian cross.

To the south, behind the swish-swish-swish of passing cars, you can just hear the sonorous tone of a ship's horn signalling its departure from the docks.

To the north, the cars swish past in the opposite direction, this patch of road encircling the haven of green calmness in which you find yourself, the sounds of the passing vehicles your only reminder that you're in the middle of a busy city.

On the bench is a bottle of milkshake.

There is a discarded coffee cup here. Ants are crawling around the coffee cup.

?>GET MILKSHAKE

Taken.

?>DRINK MILKSHAKE

It's not open.

?>OPEN MILKSHAKE

You unscrew the cap of the bottle. The scent of chocolate mint, trapped inside the plastic for so long, wafts out and caresses your nose with its sweet yet pungent aroma.

?>DRINK MILKSHAKE

The thick, gloopy milkshake slides down your throat smoothly. The scent of mint wafts through your sinuses.

?>LOOK AT COFFEE CUP

There are ants all over it, crawling in and out. It's empty, though. What could they see in it?

You feel a little itchy.

?>GET UP

You stand up, and realise the ants have taken a liking to you.

You feel pretty itchy.

?>BRUSH OFF ANTS

You do your best to brush off the ants you can see. Your skin still feels like it's crawling, but you think it's just your imagination now.

?>LOOK AT COLUMN

It looks like some sort of memorial, though to what you couldn't say.

?>CLIMB COLUMN

There's nothing to grip onto. You'd just slide back down. Unless you were Batman and had a Batarang or a grappling hook or something.

?>INVENTORY

You don't have a Batarang or a grappling hook. Nice try.

?>SIT

You sit on the bench.

?>THINK

You stare into space and let your mind wander. Thoughts of all the things you want to happen flow through your brain. The people, the places, the events. Things said, things unsaid. Hopes, dreams, regrets. It all rushes through your head like a miasma. It is both pleasurable and terrifying at the same time.

A single tear falls from the corner of your left eye and plops onto the ground silently, its impact drowned by the sounds of the city.

The feelings pass. You're not sure if you feel any better.

?>GET UP

You stand up.

?>NORTH

You find a gap in the hedge which surrounds the little park, and step back out into the noise of the city at night. It's like a different world. The bright lights, the blur of the passing cars, everyone going about their business, somewhere important to be, someone important to see.

Except you. What do you have? Where should you go? The answer remains out of your reach… for now, at least.

*** THE END?***

You can RESTART, RESTORE or QUIT.

?>_

One A Day, Day 20: >LOOK

Hill Top

You stand atop a gently-rolling hill that is fairly featureless aside from a few bramble bushes, some small, dead-looking trees and, just next to you, a small stone monument.

There is a wooden bench here.

I'm in the Great Outdoors, specifically the New Forest, though the bit I'm in right now isn't very foresty. After the week that was, the peace and solitude is just lovely. There are very few people here, and the ones that are here are the type of people who politely say "hello" to you as you pass, even though you've never met them before. They also have dogs with names like Gladstone and Horatio.

It's striking to me, sitting here now, just as it was when I went to Lepe Beach to take those photos the other day, that there isn't a game out there yet which has got "the great outdoors" right. Games like Oblivion, World of Warcraft and numerous other open-world adventures and RPGs have tried, but none quite capture this feeling of peace and solitude. (Perhaps because wherever you are in an RPG world, you're only ever a stone's throw from something that wants to kill you.)

Actually, to say that no games have pulled this off is inaccurate. The games that do it best are interactive fiction titles, they of the complete lack of graphics and the only minimum system requirement being an imagination that still works.

Up here, I'm particularly reminded of Andrew Plotkin's "A Change In The Weather", the only game I know of where your final confrontation is with a thunderstorm. Of course, right now it doesn't look like I'm going to have to race against time to prevent a rickety old bridge from being washed away, but the atmosphere is the same. Peace. Quiet. No-one but you. And definitely no needy, whining, squabbling children, stick-up-their-arse inspectors or faux-concern headteachers.

Sitting here, you can say "sod off" to the world, and no-one can do a damn thing about it.