Walking the Prince Consort
28 February 2011
So this morning The Prince Consort will wake up heart broken. Yeah, right. It’s storming outside, and there are tornado warnings. I won’t be taking him on a walk today.
The Prince Consort is making an heroic effort to give up smoking. His doctor is pleased. After three weeks of effort, his blood pressure has already dropped 20 points. I am pleased. But on Friday, Dr. P ordered The Prince Consort to start walking.
Since Track and Field in high school, TPC has done no recreational walking, running, jumping. Golf yes, but then I’m the only one who gets out of the cart and walks a distance to my ball, hits, walks a short distance to my ball, hits, walks a short distance, and on and on. In other words, golf is not providing that walking experience for a good golfer like The Prince Consort. But I’m getting calves like a weight lifter.
Despite my golf handicap, pun intended, I’ve been out daily walking for years. So, I thought we’d start His walks slowly. Saturday morning I set off for my solo walk, faster and longer than I planned for TPC. I got home to collect TPC, and we headed up the drive.
I proposed a mildly hilly short walk to the right out of our driveway. But, NO. TPC wants to hike down to the river on the steep, steep, steep utility road. So, okay. We do. It’s a pleasure to admire the views down the hill and across the river as we walk. The landscape has changed since we trudged down in the snow a few weeks before. We hear the waterfalls that sprang out of the palisades after the recent hard rains.
But all careful strolls come to an end, and we have to walk home. That’s up hill. UP the freaking hill.
The former pleasant stroll downhill turned into a contest for who could come up with more reasons to stop every minute and a half to examine something we didn’t see on the walk down. As if. Much stopping and turning and pointing silently, because neither of us was willing to gasp out words. A lot of jacket front zipper adjusting in place of actual chest grabbing. Neither of us was going down as the Wimp. And we were Definitely Not hitting that life extending three miles an hour vigorous walk goal.
We concentrated on crawling home, and preserving life.
We made it home. And the next morning and the next walk rolled around. The Prince Consort didn’t quibble about the relatively flat short walking route to the right out of the driveway. He was very flexible. In fact he flexibly voted to shorten this walk by ten minutes and two small hills.
As we cruised home, a car came up from behind and slowed. It was Dr. P. He congratulated TPC on walking. TPC accepted the praise, leaving out yesterday’s crawl home, and the abbreviated route today. I wondered if Dr. P thought to specify for how long TPC was to walk daily. Over the last four-hundred-fifty years of marriage, I’ve learned details and specifics are Very important. My suspicion is Dr. P forgot.
Kath
