It’s July, halfway through the year, so time for a quick look at how my January Habits are going.
And they’re not going particularly well. Rather than going into too much detail now (and having nothing to write in December). I’m just going to do a quick yes/no to whether I’m on track.
So there you have it. I may or may not try to restart some of these again, but I will have a full update on what’s been happening/not happening in December. Don’t hold your breath.
When I said in my last post that I would update the following week, I hadn’t intended it to be a month, but here we are…
Anyway, I did it! I walked 100 miles in less than 48 hours! (Technically I did it in 46 hours 26 minutes.)
The worst part was the lack of sleep. So many times I wanted to stop by the side of the path and have a nap (which I knew would be the end of my adventure). The final morning was very much a struggle not to fall asleep, even whilst walking. Despite being in a terrible state after finishing, I felt absolutely fine after a good sleep.
Other walkers told me of their previous (or current!) terrible experiences with getting blisters or other foot problems. I just relied on my trusty Darn Tough socks and Merrell shoes (and a bit of tape on the hotspots). Absolutely no problems for me.
Here’s some things I learnt:
Walking with other people is easier. Joining with a couple of other people for the final 25 miles made it much easier.
It’s also easier when one of those people has already practiced the route and knows which paths to take where.
Every checkpoint is further away than it feels it should be. Especially once my GPS watch battery had died and I had no way of knowing exactly how far I had gone.
Will I do it again? I’m not sure. It definitely wasn’t a “fun” experience, but I can say that I have now completed the challenge (and have the certificate to prove it). But I could also become one of those people who has done the event twenty or thirty times…
A year later and the event is back on again, but as an actual in-person (not virtual) one this year. If everything goes to plan, I should be walking 100 miles between Friday morning and Saturday evening/Sunday morning.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to familiarise myself with the route (by just studying the instructions and the maps), but it’s quite hard not being able to see it for real. That’s the main disadvantage I see compared to last year when I knew the route well and could do it without looking at any maps at all. This year I’ll be trying to navigate completely new territory in the dark which will be testing in its own way, let alone with the walking. But the main advantage I see of an in-person event over the virtual one is having frequent checkpoints with actual people who can cheer me on and provide food (so much less weight to carry).
That’s not to say that it won’t still be really hard, but I’m trying to think positively. And if you want to track me, you can do so here (walks starts 10am on Friday). I’ll let you know how it went next week…
Last year, I wrote a post about how I had switched from using an annual travelcard to pay as you go for my public transport journeys. Well, it’s now time to look at how my travel in 2021 compared…
In 2021, I kept with the “pay as you go” approach and racked up a total of £1425.85 in journeys. That’s an increase over the £1354.30 in 2020 and is higher than the 1.6% average fares increase last year. A quick check shows I took 370 journeys in 2021 versus 322 in 2020. It’s more complicated though as different journeys have different prices and fare caps and so forth, but it does suggest that 2021 was definitely a year of being out and about more.
But what about comparing my pay as you go travel to the price of a travelcard? In 2021, a zone 1-4 travelcard (with a handful of additional journeys) would have cost me £2153.20. Therefore I saved over £700 by not taking that option. A wise choice and it looks like I’ll be sticking with it again this year.
Come back sometime next year and I’ll update on 2022 changes…
On Sunday evening I was out for a walk to pick up some milk and looked up to see an almost-full (96.2% illumination) moon. What was different though was that the moon was red. I took a photo with my phone, but it turned out so terrible that I just deleted it.
I rushed home to get the proper camera out. My longest lens is only 250mm so the moon is still very small (1000mm would be better), but I took quite a few photos. Looking at them now, they don’t quite seem that sharp. I’m not sure if it’s just not quite in focus (a longer lens would help) or if it’s blurry due to camera movement (I had to use my smaller tripod as my balcony isn’t big enough for my more sturdy one), but here’s a couple of the better ones:
The moon was definitely less red by the time I finished taking photos and much less red than when I had first seen it when I was out. I imagine that it would have been back to normal not too much later, so definitely a thing of being in the right place at the right time.
(And if you’re wondering why the moon was red, it was probably because of the Saharan dust.)
Back in October 2020, I started walking the 78-mile Capital Ring (in segments, I’ve not been continually walking since then…). This week I had my first free weekend in a long time so thought I’d walk the next leg (sections 9-11). I knew it had been a while since I’d done the previous leg, but when I checked I discovered I hadn’t been out on the trail since April 2021, almost 11 months ago.
I had plenty of time on my 17-mile walk to think of three reasons why it had been so long:
1. I’ve been busy doing other things
Last Summer, I spent most of my time training for a marathon. It’s hard to find time for a 17 mile walk when you also need to do a 17 mile run on a weekend. Last year, my focus was on the marathon. This year, that’s not a problem I have to balance.
* Walking along a dedicated trail or route, rather than just walking in general.
This is what 1500km of walking looks like. I replaced my walking shoes this January after two and a half years of use.
3. It’s just on the wrong side of London
I live in south-east London. The Capital Ring starts in Woolwich and goes clockwise around the city. At the end of April 2021, I was 56% of the way round. To do anymore of the walk I would have to travel all the way across London to get to the start of the walk and then the same to get home again afterwards. It sounds lazy, but an hour and a half journey either end of a walk isn’t particularly tempting. Not a reason not to do it, but when the walk isn’t on your doorstep, it’s hard to remember that it’s still to be walked.
Although now having completed Saturday’s walk, I just have another 17 miles to go to get back to Woolwich. But when that’ll be, I’m not sure.
About a month ago, I had to go away for a week and the easiest option was to drive there and back. Shortly after pulling onto the main road, the car gave a warning noise and a “check tyre pressure” light came on.
I definitely didn’t have a flat tyre, because I know what that’s like. It could have been a slow puncture (which I’ve also had before) or could it have been that I hadn’t checked the tyres recently and they had all just got low. Thinking it through, the last time I filled the tyres was before Christmas, and I’d driven about a thousand miles since then so it could be that. But my car had also been serviced more recently and I’m sure they check the tyres then. What if the garage had inadvertently done something to the tyres?
Anyway, I turned the car around and headed to the petrol station. I didn’t particularly notice any of the tyres were low when I topped them up, but the car was parked in such a way that I couldn’t see the pressure gauge. This seemed to fix the problem and I drove off on my way. I was however concerned about what would happen if the warning came on again, particularly if I was on the motorway. Fortunately this didn’t happen and I made it home at the end of the week fine (if you count having COVID as being fine).
Fast forward to this week and I had to take the car out again (although only for a local journey this time). The warning light came on again. So this time I decided to take it to my nearby garage.
“Do you know which tyre it is?”
I really didn’t have a clue. “I think it’s the front right. But the pressure should be around 30, except for the dodgy tyre.”
He pulled out his pressure gauge and stuck it on the front right tyre. “19 and a half.”
Clearly my intuition on which tyre was correct. The mechanic looked for punctures but didn’t see anything. He then noticed that pushing on the tyre valve let out a load of air.
Turns out there was a small hole in the valve stem so every time the tyre went round and the valve wobbled, a very small amount of air leaked out. A short time later and a replacement valve stem had been fitted. Much cheaper than a new tyre and the warning light has now gone off. Problem solved!
This week, my flat has been fitted with new windows. That’s pretty exciting in itself, but it’s meant a few other changes around the house.
My bed was previously in the corner of my room with its headboard in front of the window.
To allow the workmen to get access to the window frame, rather than just moving the bed away from the wall, I decided to rotate it 90 degrees to now be along the long wall of the bedroom.
Apart from having to rearrange the rest of my furniture to fit around it, it’s created some big questions that I’ve been struggling with all week: Firstly, should I leave it like this? Secondly, which side of the bed should I sleep on now that I can access it from either side? Thirdly, what should I do with the massive pile of things that were dumped at the end of the bed and are now (metaphorically) floating around the room?
I’ve not slept the best since moving the bed, but sleep quality has many factors and I’m not sure I can pin it on this one change. I’ve not fully transitioned yet as I still need to optimise the new layout (my bedside reading light isn’t plugged in and I probably need to shift the whole bed slightly closer to the window), but I could easily switch it all again and get back to what I’m used to. But it’s probably only for a few months so maybe it’s not worth it and I’ll just leave it as it is for now. Or maybe I should go back to the old layout that worked better and I was used to. Let me know what you think in the comments.
The news keeps telling us that inflation is high and the price of shopping is going up. But can we trust the media, and just how high? Well, I went through 8 months worth of grocery receipts to find out.
I should first point out that this is my personal inflation level and yours will depend very much on what you buy. Fortunately for this investigation, I generally always shop at the same place and buy a lot of the same items each shop.
The dates themselves aren’t important, but the trends are. All items normalised to a starting value of 100% as of June 2021.
There’s some items I buy most shops and these are shown in the graph above. Bags of apples have fluctuated the most, varying between £1.10 and £1.60 over the last few months, probably because apples are often on sale. The next highest increase is for the small packs of cherry tomatoes which have gone up 28% (the large packs have only gone up 8%). The price of cheese also varies depending on what form it’s bought in. A 400g block of cheddar is now 23% more expensive than June last year, whilst packs of pre-sliced cheddar are only 11% more expensive. And 6 pints of semi-skimmed milk have gone up almost 10% in price, but 4 pint bottles have only gone up 5.5%.
Of my non-regular items, I discovered this week that 220g cans of Branston baked beans have gone up 37% after being stable for ages (was 40p per can, now 55p). In other big swings, wholewheat penne has gone up 27% from 55p per bag to 70p per bag.
Of fruit and vegetables, the only item which hasn’t changed price is cucumbers. Cucumbers have remained at a constant 43p for a standard non-large, non-organic cucumber. This is the same price as my local low-cost supermarket so I wonder if there’s some price competition going on here. (Loose onions have also stayed the same price, but I haven’t bought them for a while.)
And the one item that has come down in price is 1.25kg of sweet potatoes. Last June these cost £1.50 a bag, but they now cost just £1.11 a bag, a 24% reduction. And this one does have a sticker they’ve price-matched the low-cost supermarkets.
Long-life items such as cereal and toiletries appear to have remained relatively constant (or gone down), but I only buy these when they’re on offer and then I stock up for a while when I do, because that just makes sense. So fresh foods is really where the impact is going to be felt.
So is inflation real? Yes. How bad is it? Well, it depends entirely on what you buy (and in what packaging).
Full data (for items I’ve bought at least twice in the last 8 months):
Disclaimer: These prices are the most recent price I’ve paid, not necessarily their current prices.
Was
Now
Change
Apples (6x Royal Gala)
1.20
1.60
+33%
Bananas (Loose)
0.73/kg
0.76/kg
+4%
Baked beans (Branston 220g)*
0.40
0.55
+38%
Bacon (8 slices of back bacon)*
1.25
1.50
+20%
Branston pickle (small chunk)*
2.50
2.50
0%
Bread – Kingsmill 50/50 sliced
1.00
1.00
0%
Bread – Wholemeal seeded loaf
1.10
1.20
+9%
Cereal – Special K (Peach and Apricot)*
2.00
2.00
0%
Cereal – Raspberry and Yoghurt Crisp*
1.50
1.50
0%
Cereal – Shreddies*
3.00
3.00
0%
Cereal – Weetabix Mini (Chocolate)*
2.00
2.00
0%
Cheddar (400g)
1.70
2.10
+24%
Cheddar (10 slices)
1.70
1.90
+12%
Cherry tomatoes (330g)
0.70
0.90
+28%
Cherry tomatoes (500g)
1.25
1.35
+8%
Cucumber (whole)
0.43
0.43
0%
Deodorant*
1.46
1.75
+20%
Milk – Semi-skimmed (4 pints)
1.09
1.15
+6%
Milk – Semi-skimmed (6 pints)
1.55
1.70
+10%
Pasta – Wholewheat penne*
0.55
0.70
+27%
Onions (Loose)*
0.85/kg
0.85/kg
0%
Pasta bake sauce*
1.70
1.00
-41%
Shampoo*
3.50
3.50
0%
Shower gel*
2.20
1.25
-43%
Sweet potatoes (1.25kg)*
1.50
1.11
-24%
* Item bought infrequently or only when on offer so may not be accurate of complete trends.
Two years ago, a new thing called “coronavirus” was appearing in the news. One by one, all in-person events got cancelled. Sometimes to be replaced with virtual alternatives, sometimes with the promise that they would return when able. I remember a particularly depressing day when I went through my calendar and deleted pretty much all future events.
This week though, I’ve been filling up my calendar again with the events and activities that I want to do this year. Some of them I’ve booked, some of them are just tentative. Some of them I’ll do, some of them won’t fit in with other plans.
Either way, it feels really good to be able to plan ahead and to have things to look forward to.
