Testing

Went for a walk round the coast today. Testing two things, Campbell's new boots and my old back.

Since I hurt my back this time last year (mainly caused by coughing for around 7 weeks following a chest infection and a nice episode of very brittle asthma) I've been slowly sorting the various problems out. Regular tai chi, the help of my physio and a programme of core exercises has got my back in much better shape and I'm now starting to look at getting back on my bike and maybe even playing racket ball again.

However the one big thing that seems to knock me for six is walking for anything more than a very short distance. So today we went for a walk around the shoreline to the other side of Burray and back, via a stop at the Fossil Centre for lunch. Not a huge distance, approx 6km, but it was as much as I could have managed as my back was definitely nipping. I did need to come back and do some gentle stretching exercises followed by a lie down for half an hour but there was no major pain that evening and the next day I felt a wee bit stiff but a swim and some tai chi sorted that out. So far so good!

As for Campbell's boots, they passed the test with flying colours.

And the pic, it's just a cow from the farm up the road but for a moment we thought we were in La Mancha