On the limits of self-deception

[fivemack]

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.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I saw that, but was unfortunately on the wrong side of the river, and there are no bridges between Bottisham Lock and Dimmock's Cote ... there's a sign at Clayhithe indicating that one should get onto the correct side of the river because there is no bridge between Bottisham Lock and Upware, but I read it as saying that I should be on the left-as-the-river-flows-Elywards side, and the pub is on the right-as-the-river-flows-Elywards side. So I walked from Bottisham Lock to Ely on the left side, and it looked to me as if the route on the right side might be straighter: is it?

There's something resembling a pub called the Fish and Duck about a mile and a half beyond Dimmock's Cote on the left side, but it's shut.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

I don't know about straighter; I've never walked on the west side of the river. The path follows the river except for a small stretch from just before Upware to after High Fen Farm. This includes one very muddy field (pretty much regardless of the conditions of the rest of the path).

(S)