On the limits of self-deception

To convince myself that there was nothing wrong with my left knee, and because the sky was blue and the sun warm, and to try to blow away the mathmo's-block that's been afflicting me at work for the last two weeks, I decided to walk to Ely.

This raised five issues:

• The walk to Ely is essentially twenty-five kilometres along a meandering raised flood-defence bank


• Except that it's been rerouted and five kilometres of it are now a straight line through a series of uninteresting fields, so there isn't even the hope of herons


• The last place you can get a drink is Cleyhithe, about six kilometres in, and I hadn't brought a water-bottle


• A strong and other-than-warming wind blew essentially from the direction of Ely for the entire day, though this did mean there were some kids in sailing dinghies clearly having enormous boom-swinging fun practicing tacking just downstream of Bottisham Lock


• My left knee is not in fact as excellent as could be hoped for, and after 25km I found it was quite painful to walk up Castle Hill to go home; more specifically it's quite painful to bend the knee for the first few degrees from straight if I've put any weight on it. Does anyone know a good Cambridge physio who takes non-sporting patients?
  

I got to Ely, trains to get back existed (their absence has been an annoying common factor of many of my trips to interesting places too far to round-trip on foot or by bike), I'm back home now; it was a rather pointless trip to Ely since I got there at seven, well after the cathedral closed to visitors.

I weigh about ten kilos more than I'd like to, which cannot be good for my knees, but know of no calorie-burning exercises which don't significantly involve the knees; can any of my readers help me on that?

I think I'll have a nice hot bath now.