Steps

I'm walking a lot.  Apparently it is a great surprise to most people how much I walk.  Yes, I do still have a car, and I do keep it gassed up, and every week or two there is some reason why I need to take the car somewhere.  But I try to walk as much as I can for any regular activities where it's possible to walk. So, a walk of five kilometres (so a round trip of ten kilometres) is a regular thing.  No, I am not keeping track of exactly how far I have walked in total.  (Well, the other day I did a rough estimate, and I've done more than two "Caminos" so far this year.)  Yes, I'm spending hours walking.  And no, for people with busy lives, this amount of walking is probably not something that they could do on a regular basis.

So, I'm doing a lot of walking.  But even I am surprised at far how far out of my way I will go to avoid steps.  Or even a curb.  I will walk quite a ways down a curb so that I can get to a driveway, or a wheelchair ramp, so that I don't have to do even one step up onto the curb.  It's not always possible, of course, and, yes, I will step up onto a curb if necessary, and I will do stairs if absolutely necessary.  But it's surprising how far I will go to avoid any kind of steps.

I mean, isn't this kind of weird?  I'm walking for miles and miles.  It's not as if there is any problem with my legs.  Although I do find when I walk several kilometers, and then sit for a while (during Old Guys Coffee Morning, for example), that it takes a little while to get moving again when I start moving again.  Okay, that's just the cost of getting old.  Old age is not for wimps, as Gloria's Grama Campbell used to say.  Frequently.

I find it all the more surprising, since during some previous times of exercise regimes (and, oh yes, I have had them), steps were my preferred form of exercise.  At one point I was climbing a thirty storey building, ten times in succession.  So yes, I have walked up an awful lot of steps in my time.  So finding that now steps are something I will go a long way to avoid is a bit surprising.