Hi Charioteers,
I have seen that very little is happening on this site these days. When posts are written, by far the most are from Christopher, who writes exceptionally well, yet often on subjects which are heavy or political.
Since Covid I have taken a much needed backseat on writing or commenting about such topics, because I found it wasn’t doing me any good. My views around the covid measures were seen largely as the ideas of a loony conspiracy theorist, many of which have now been vindicated by research and evidence. Excess deaths are increasing worldwide. None of us really know what the lockdowns and virtually forced vaccines were all about. Anyway, here I go again, drifting into the “heavy”.
Over the last year or two, in order to keep away as much as is sensibly possible, from MSM and social media, (I still use Facebook for posting some of the nicer aspects of life, such as holidays, running events etc. As my family and friends are spread over many countries, Facebook is a great way to let them know how we are and what we are up to), I have been doing a lot of reading and hiking.
As we are living in Spain and I have been concentrating on learning to master the language, I noticed that my German was gradually weakening. I still often speak German with Bettina, but as time went on I began to notice that I needed more effort than before to find certain words. In the hope that this was not due to dementia setting in, I began reading books in german again, mostly novels. It seems to have worked. My german is now back with the fluency it once was.
My second main activity, hiking, is a great passion of both mine and Bettina’s. We began a little project to try to walk the complete circuit around the perimeter of the Iberian peninsular. As we began this in 2014, we went away for one or two days every couple of weeks to walk the coast. Now, as we have to travel over 600km to reach our next starting point, we go for around 12 days every 2 months. So far we have covered every inch from Portbou at the French border, down to Mazarron in Murcia. In the Summer months we do the GR route across the Pyrenees, from the Mediterranean towards San Sebastian.
We have completed approximately a quarter of the whole coastline and a third of the Pyrenees route so far in 8 years. Now, we are trying to decide whether to increase the frequency of our trips or accept that we won’t complete the journey before we become too old. I suspect, in the end, we will just continue as we are and let life show us how far we get. The end goal of actually completing the circuit is less critical than the goal of attempting to. We have so many lovely experiences of situations or meeting new people, that it is the journey that gives us pleasure, not the final goal.
Now that I have drifted into waffle mode, if anyone is still reading this, I will finish by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and good health and happiness in 2023.
Oh, one more thing. I shall be going away to Garrucha in Almeria over the Christmas period for the next 12 day coastal hike. We will be having a very quiet time walking along, while everyone is eating, drinking and celebrating with their families.
What will you be doing this Christmas?
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