My mental state

Blisters. Ow.
Blisters. Ow.

Not good at the moment and mainly linked to my physical state. As a result of walking well over 100 miles in 7 days (doesn’t sound like much? Well, I climbed two 1000km high slopes and did 33 of the miles in one hit yesterday) I have the sorest feet in the world ever. In addition, my shoulders are red raw from carrying my rucksack, I’m tired from lack of sleep and I’m going mental at the scale of what I’ve undertaken.

7 days down, 60 or so to go.

Now, I know I can walk 33 miles in a day. This is twice what I’d reckoned on so I should be able to finish The Walk in half the planned time. Only if I walk that far, my feet self-destruct and it takes days for them to get better. If I only do 17 miles, then I arrive at some town with nothing to do all afternoon and evening at 2pm. I wait around for sunfall, find a place to camp (if I’m able) and try to sleep far earlier than I’m used to.

Then I wake up when the sun rises and repeat. I can’t carry a load of books as they’re too heavy. I can’t spend evening in cybercafes as it’s too expensive (if I can find the things). I don’t know people in the towns and most don’t have hostels, not that I could afford to stay in one every night anyway.

Plus, there’s a lot of people back home I miss like hell and I can’t wait to see you all again. If I could do this walk in a month, I would do. The worst thing would be to have it take longer than I’ve planned.

If I had someone (or someones) with me, it would definitely help. It’d be an adventure, a lark. But instead it’s just me (partly my own fault, I did have at least one person volunteer to join me but he was a dodgy-sounding guy from Ghana who was trying to get me to send forms to the embassy for him and stuff). You try walking for 33 miles with nobody to talk to. Along a road so you can’t read as you have to watch for traffic. When the only scenery is fields.

What the hell have I set myself up for? I am now in Turin a day ahead of schedule – good. But knowing I’ll need to spend an extra day here to sort my feet out – bad. And that I still have at least 60 days left – worse. And I can’t realistically speed that up. Worse again.

Anyone want to walk with me for a few days? Spread it out between everyone here and it’d only be a day or so each!

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Sick of boobs?

I’ve spent some time in France, now, and they do indeed show boobs in a lot of TV adverts, most often shower products. Thing is, you then go to Italy and they use them to advertise anything from eggs to car wax.

Of course, I’m male so nothing can put me off boobs. Or can it? One joy of the south of France is that woman can and do sunbathe topless and you get to see some cracking norks out there. As I was plodding along near Menton on the first day of The Walk (donate money now or the aliens will kill you) I saw one particular woman stood at the beachside, naked but for a teeny thong.

She was ninety if she were a day.

Ninety and sun-baked. Wrinkled like a Plasticene prune someone had run the prongs of a fork over. And her boobs… not so much puppies as oven-dried, shaved armadillos.

I shuddered, I looked away. I looked back, just to be sure of what I saw.

This was it. Off tits for life. No more boobage. Gone. Wasted. Another fetish to hunt for.

Then I saw this really fit number with a corking pair lying down a few yards away.

*phew* Boob lust maintained.

And we’re off!

Yes, I’m running late… But I had to get one post up to thank Delphine and her family for the last week or so. They’ve been hugely accommodating, allowing in some weird guy who barely speaks their language, feeding me (very well!) and allowing me full use of the internet. I had a great 3-day trek to get me used to the camping and walking and I’ve had an otherwise lovely chilled time.

So now I’m about to wolf down some breakfast, finish packing (without the tent – going to gamble it shows up today and Delphine can run it out to me) and get on the road. OK, so I’ll start later than I intended but I’ll just walk fast to make up!

Not sure when the next post will be but I’ll try to keep you all up to date as I go.

What a funny old language

I’ve been around a few places recently and I’m currently nesting in France. As I’ve been around Europe a lot in the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a lot of similarities (and differences) in the languages – mainly Spanish, German, French and Italian. Don’t get me started on the Eastern European ones as I’m simply baffled by the whole fricking lot of them.

But the one that raises the most questions? English. It’s weird. I mean, I love it, but it’s weird.

Take the following two examples posted at www.espressotranslations.com. In English, we say “window”. This translates into the following words in various languages:

French – fenêtre
German – Fenster
Italian – finestra
Spanish – ventana
Dutch – venster
Latin – fenestra
Greek – parathyro (in “Greeklish“)

OK, Spanish is a little off but the rest are obviously hugely based on the Latin. Where the hell did we get “window” from? And to throw another spanner in the works, why do we resort to the Latin root for the word “defenestration” (the act of throwing something, usually a person, through a window)? OK, “dewindowation” looks and sounds crap, but still…

Want another example? Try “blood”:

French – sang
German – Blut
Italian – anima
Spanish – sangre
Dutch – bloed
Latin – cruor, cruorem
Greek – aima (in Greeklish)

Now in this case, English seems to be in the slight majority for a change. French and Spanish have joined forces and Latin’s sat there wondering why nobody is listening to it. On the other hand, what’s the English term for blood-letting? It’s “exsanguination”. So we hop roots to another source again. Argh.

I’m no language expert, though I find them interesting. Anyone got any ideas where these to-ings and fro-ings come from?