Wednesday 27th January

How many dog walks along the same old paths! Too many! Unseasonally warm and wet everywhere. Sweating on the inside and drenched on the outside, but it is not Burma 1942! I am not dodging mortar, grenade or sniper. An hour and a half is sufficient this day! I am back to Leeds to check into 69 - mailman bring me no more blues. Then continue to work on these waterlogged boots. The amount of conditioners, cremes and wax I am forcing on these things, but I will introduce water repellency and bring life back to my expensive Meindl Bhutan three season size 10.5s. It appears to be breathing new life where I thought they were a goner! Such a mistake not to treat them prior to their first wearing! No one in Cotswold's told me I'd need to start at the very beginning. This has been such a wet winter, and mud can be so acidic, that they've no chance. I've not developed trench foot, but I had no traction traversing Spofforth Golf course, Green Haggs Lane or Crimple Beck falling at every opportunity this Sunday.

I am tired, dirty and, no doubt, smelly. It's a short hop back on the X98 to the Hi-Rise.

How long will I walk each day from Canterbury in this heavy going?

...

Have I just discovered my water heater was on since I moved into 69? Bugger! Better late than never! That blue swine who sold off our utility rights so now we're at the beck and call of corporations for our warmth, cleanliness and sustenance. Most of the income I have is taken by these utilities. So in essence the government taxes the healthy ones to pay the underbelly to keep the corporations wealthy beyond belief. Slowly we've all become slaves to corporation: including our elected representatives. But most business is now run by their systems so we're run by machines really. I just paid my bills to this computerised inhumanity. Isn't the basic needs of any individual warmth, safety, nourishment and companionship? And all the rest empties the planet until it is more holes than whole.