Today, Monday 20th Aug 2007, I started the day with a visit from the RAC to fix my driverside window which had become stuck on Saturday.

I was going to take the car to a garage but had a nightmare about garages in the early hours of the morning which made me wonder if my insurance might cover the window problem. It did.

The RAC man fixed it in under an hour from my time of phoning.

The rain was drizzling down this morning on my walk but I only saw one slug at slugs’ paradise – the area near the pillar box where Clarendon Way meets Marlings Park Avenue. This is a favourite area for slugs and snails in rainy weather!

I passed the taxi which used to advertise Flora and suggest going for a walk to improve the health of your heart.

It now advertises space: “Find the space you need – access self storage all over London.”

In my view having space is also good for your health. Space allows you to organize your life so that you can find the papers etc that you need when you need them with the minimum of hassle.

Space allows you to focus on one project at a time instead of being overwhelmed by too many projects surrounding you at the same time.

Today, Sunday August 19th 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood. It had been raining so there were a couple of slugs and a snail on the pavement.

I passed a Renault parked not far from my house. There was a request in the back saying “Please leave space for my wheelchair.”

This reminded me of the story of the Texas University Track and Field coach, Bev Kearney, who was a passenger in a tragic car accident.

The driver nodded off for a few seconds and crashed the car killing two passengers.

Bev did not have a seat belt on and was thrown free. Her injuries were horrendous. Doctors told her she would have pain and complications from then on. She refused to accept their predictions and set herself goals for recovery which she began to achieve.

She only accepted a wheelchair when she was told it would help her get to rehab. She only allowed positive thoughts into her mind and excluded all negative thoughts.

Her attitude and hard work proved the doctors wrong. She became a successful track coach once again.

One commentator wrote:

“They thought I would be paralyzed,” Kearney said of the aftermath of a tragic automobile accident that claimed the lives of two close friends. Yet guided by her sheer determination – some would describe it as stubbornness – Kearney not only proved her doctors wrong, but became an even stronger inspiration to others, both on and off the track.”

She was the type to believe that the impossible could become the possible and became an example of this belief herself.

Today, Saturday Aug 18th 2007, I walked down Eltham High Street. I gave some money to a friendly and charismatic man who sells the Big Issue.

He said “Good luck to you!” and then as an afterthought:
“Good luck to your family!”

People’s families are so important. Many of us don’t realize this until most of our relatives have died but at least we had families and they can influence us even after they have passed on.

On ITV’s X factor show, an incredibly talented singer aged 32 appeared and stunned the panel of judges with her effortless singing.

The reason she appeared on the show was that she had found
an application form for the competition in her father’s papers after he died. He clearly had recognised her talent and wanted her to make the most of it.

There is always someone worse off than us and the singer in the X factor. Many are orphans and never meet their parents or their relatives.

It is always worth considering how much worse off we could be even when we have minor mishaps. Today, as I drove my car away from Eltham I pressed the window button too much and the electric window got stuck and would not resurface!

I was surprised at how much this tiny misfortune upset me and thought again about relativity. I could have had a car accident like a friend of my step brother who died recently in an accident even though he was very fit and active and had just retired.

My stuck car window was just a minor inconvenience. When I got home I attempted a repair which did not work. Eventually, I stuck some plastic bags around the window to keep the rain off and decided to visit the experts next Monday morning.

Sometimes, of course, a mishap could come on top of a strings of mishaps and then it becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back. But even then, things could probably be much worse.

Today, Tuesday 14th August 2007, I walked around the neighbour at noon and just before midnight.

Many slugs and snails were on the pavements as the rain had been heavy. The wind was strong but warm after dark.

I walked in the road where possible to avoid treading on the snails and slugs.

On BBC 1 this morning there was some discussion about the benefits of walking.

A recent study in Ireland shows that walking for half an hour three times a week can have considerable health benefits.

Walking is the most painless form of exercise. Half an hour a day can lower your blood pressure, strengthen your heart and lungs and help control diabetes.

It can also make depression less likely especially if you walk outside. What is crucial is to walk a little faster in a way which leaves you slightly breathless.

Other studies show that exercise is also the best way to turn back your aging clock.

I have a friend who walks with his terrier, Rosie, in the local woods. He has just reached his 90th birthday but looks no older than seventy. He has outlived two of his terriers who were also called Rosie. He now walks with Rosie III.

The only person I met out in the neighbourhood this evening had a large golden setter with him. The power of dogs to motivate people to take them out of the house is enormous.

This morning I met N who used to walk regularly in the woods until her dog died. She only occasionally shows up there these days. But she, like Charles does not look her age.

I think, in her case, gardening has replaced walking as her main means of exercise.

I walked round the neighbourhood at about 10 a.m. this morning – Friday 10th August 2007.

It was a sunny but cool day – ideal. I met Trevor, a gardener who has had a stroke recently. Like me, he is finding it hard to lose weight and is now on the Slim Fast diet.

Such diets may lose weight fast if you follow them religiously but some of the diets people follow do not make it as easy to lose weight as they claim.

I think losing weight is always going to involve huge effort and sacrifice. It will also involve a lot more exercise than one thinks.

Unfortunately many things in life are hard to do and that is why not that many people do them. Michael Angier writes:

“In terms of getting it done, I think there are FOUR kinds of
people:

1. Those who never start.
2. Those who start but give up too quickly.
3. Those who start, work hard and hang in there, but aren’t
flexible enough with their strategies to complete the
project.
4. Those few who start and continue to persist with a
willingness to change tactics in order to get it done.

Michael urges people to “Determine to be one of the few who DO instead of the many who DON’T. Be your word. Do what you resolve to do–every time.”

I expected a home delivery from Sainsbury’s so I reached home before 11 a.m. I read yesterday that in the future, there will be no shops. Everybody will be buying what they want on the internet and having it delivered to their houses! Maybe I am part of the wave of the future. My sister is sceptical about this!

Today, Monday August 6th 2007, I headed into the local woods again hoping to meet up with friends whom I had not seen in months.

I was fortunate to meet Reg and Charles with their dogs, Poppie and Rosie. Rosie is the third ‘Rosie’. Rosie two was run over in the woods some time ago.

Charles is now 90 but looks twenty years younger. Reg was also looking well. It was good to meet them both again. Sadly Don who owned Silver the peaceful alsatian has died. His alsatian passed on before him.

I walked on along my usual route past the field where sheep were often feeding. There were none there today. The foot and mouth virus has struck Britain again recently but has not affected Kent yet. Hopefully, it never will.

I met several people I did not know. We exchanged polite greetings. I was amazed to see how well the heather patches had grown. They were planted a few years ago and have looked straggly and unsuccessful for some time.

But now they look luxuriant and gloriously purple. Sow and you shall eventually reap even if it looks like nothing much is happening in the meantime!

Many people give up their training or diets etc because they feel they are not making much progress. If they keep going, one day the progress will seem only too obvious.

Today, Friday 3rd August 2007, I took the pavement route again at about 10 a.m. It was a hot and sunny day.

I met up with a friend in Kevington Drive who was cleaning his
partner’s car. He did the job very thoroughly. Like his dad, he does not cut corners.

Others may not see us cutting corners but we will know we have not done our best and the results of our efforts will be inferior to those we are capable of achieving.

Jonny Wilkinson, the great England rugby union player, does not believe in cutting corners either He will practise for up to three hours after every one else has gone home:

“Cutting corners is not my way. I reason that if I train harder and better than anyone else, I will come out on top. Others might get lucky every now and again but, the way I look at it, life has to provide a reward for all the effort in the end.”

My car washing friend and I spoke about the house in Marlings Park Avenue that was about to be demolished. He mentioned that property developers sometimes buy a house and let it go to rack and ruin so that they can buy out the people who live on either side.

They will then have a lot of space to construct several houses and make a killing. They are happy to pay a £1000 fine every 6 months for not maintaining their property properly.

Hopefully, the man who owns the house is not one of these ruthless property developers. We shall see what happens. The house is due to be demolished on Aug 11th.

I walked on homewards as I was expecting a delivery from Sainsbury’s between 11 and 12. I found time to chat to one of the neighbours opposite for the first time in twenty years.

He was balancing on a board placed on a platform which allowed him to trim his tall hedge. He nearly fell off as he bent over to shake my hand.

He has lived opposite for thirty years and my sister and I have lived in our house for about twenty years. He was about the same age as me and had the same first name as me.

However, he differed from me in that he loved the sun. It spurs him to action. In my case, the cold is much more likely to spur me into action.

Another neighbour walked by – the father of the car washer I had met earlier. I asked him what motivated him to be such an action man.

“I like to go to bed at night thinking that I have done a good day’s work,” he said. He also enjoys working and does not mind doing similar jobs because he finds slightly different challenges in each task. Like Jonny Wilkinson he is truly an action man and an example to us all.

Today, Wednesday August 1st 2007, I walked along Marlings Park Avenue and into the woods soon after 2 p.m.

It has been over half a year since I have walked regularily in
Petts Wood.

Returning was like coming home. It felt as if the woods were welcoming me back.

I walked through the trees to the bridle path and along the
bridle path to the shortcut through the bushes to the Willett Memorial. There were some puddles left from the recent rain.

I met a good looking, blonde lady and her dog in the shortcut. We discussed the fact that the hot and humid weather today was similar to the kind of summer weather you would expect in July.

I did not see any of my usual friends but they usually walk in the woods at about 11 a.m.

I came out of the woods not far from the top of Leesons Hill and walked down the hill to the entrance to Marlings Park Avenue that leads on to Leesons Hill.

Before I reached home I had a fairly long chat with a neighbour whose son is living in the West of Scotland at the moment.

“There’s nothing there!” she said, “But that’s what he likes!”

“What about the midges?” I asked.

“There are many times when they are not around,” she said.

Perhaps I and many others spend too much time focusing on the annoying little things that go wrong rather than on the quiet beauty that surrounds us in the hills of West Scotland and in the woods of England.