It's been a day of superlatives. It started off with a hearty breakfast of fried egg with beans on toast. Later in the morning I set off on a walk with Dave and Ellie. How on earth anyone finds his or her way around this part of the world is beyond me. The roads are narrow and winding and the hedges on both sides are so high it's impossible to see what's on the other side. In Alberta I'm used to straight roads, with the mountains to the West so I know where I'm going - here I don't.
I can never come to Brookmans Park without learning something new about computers from Dave. People often wonder why I, as a Canadian, have a UK Yahoo account - that’s courtesy of Dave. This time he decided I should have a blog for my diary, which has been kept since early1981 when I moved to Nigeria. It started off on an ancient manual typewriter and then I progressed to an IBM with the ball. When I returned to Canada and moved to the Arctic I bought a tiny Mac Classic computer and printed out my diary. Since then I’ve saved my diary on disks, which might be a problem in the future. For the last few years I’ve written it directly onto my iPad. This worries me as things tend to crash. Now I’ve got this new blog which I do by writing an email to my “secret” account and magically it goes into a blog which I’ve created using Google. It’s all quite amazing so let’s see how long it lasts.
On our walk, I mentioned to Dave that the glass face of my Fitbit had cracked and he said his had too. He also mentioned that he got a free replacement. Straight away he delved into his archives and sent me the link to Fitbit so I could request a replacement. After taking photos of my Fitbit and writing a few words I received a message from the support people saying they were sending me a new one. I’ve passed on the information to nephew Richard, who showed me his Fitbit with the same crack. Yet another magical thing by visiting Dave.
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| Time for a new Fitbit screen |
We walked along footpaths and wider roads that have been used by farmers for years. The walk was number 55 in Dave and Ellie's collection, The Ayot North East Loop. We saw a lady with two Spaniels, a man carrying his baby in a sling on his chest, and two people on bicycles; I don't think the lady was impressed when we refused to get off the path. The scenery is beautiful with a different view every time there was a gap in the shrubbery. What fascinated me was the rolling terrain and the fields of different shades of green, gold and brown. I learned about a local river which is known as River Mimram. This is one of only 200 rivers in the world that are known as a chalk stream. I'm told around 180 of them are in the. UK. It was very shallow and clear, flowing over a pebbled base; watercress grows in the water and they've existed since Roman times. I would have liked to have sampled the water but Dave said there were cows upstream. In the photo above you can see the river. It's a nice photo but I do feel as if I look like a gnome.
