I've been doing a lot of walking lately. One day last week I calculated that simply going through my normal daily routine, I covered almost 10 kilometres. That's a lot. I'm used to riding my bike, but the quantity of snow and ice have grounded me. My bike fortunately has a cosy, covered corner in which to sit out the winter, but others are not so lucky:
In England, especially in Durham, I became expert at navigating on foot the narrow pavements (or sidewalks-- see Lynne Murphy's wonderful blog on transatlantic differences in the English language: http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.ca/). These paths were constructed, many of them, in a pre-industrial age. It was hard work, perhaps not quite as difficult as the building of the pyramids, but certainly no picnic (and a lot colder and wetter than toiling in ancient Egypt). Workers thus made things only as big as they absolutely had to be, unless they were constructing, say, a cathedral (http://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/), which allowed a century or two's leeway for completion, was funded with pots donors' money, and had God's glory to satisfy.
My good friend K, the one whose home I shared until she gave me away to my current husband, taught me the art of navigating the thin paths that bordered cobble-stoned streets, so treacherous for the ankles. Durham is, for most of the year, full of university students who are thoroughly absorbed in themselves and to whom we oldsters (their teachers) were pretty much invisible unless we were stood at the front of a classroom (and even then, sometimes...). But K brooked absolutely no nonsense. I remember a particular instance when she and I hurried along the North Bailey, outside St. John's College, so close to the stone walls of the students' rooms that we could have reached in to nab a can of lager from the bedside table had their windows been open. Less than an arm's length separated the buildings from the cobbled road. K and I walked next to each other until three female undergraduates hove into view, when I stepped behind K politely to make room. The three girls chattered and giggled, unaware, crowding together, taking up the full width of the pavement, gormless, expecting, if they expected anything, that we would magically vanish, or at least get out of their way by stepping into the street. But no. K came to a full stop in front of them. They stopped too, surprised, and suddenly quiet. 'Well?' K enquired, severe and yet at the same time civil, a quintessentially English demeanour. The three blushed, mumbled, and formed an untidy single file that allowed them to pass us. Boys were a different story; as long as they were not (too) intoxicated, they instinctively seemed able to make room around them for others. I attribute it to years of team sports.
I acquired further skills traversing inadequate paths, rocky roads, and unexpected stairways when I began propelling first a pushchair (stroller), and then a double pushchair. There was a terrible moment at the top of some steep, unavoidable stairs by the Kingsgate Bridge, me eight months pregnant with one baby, a sleeping toddler in the buggy, and late to pick up the eldest from school. A boy student came to my rescue and I dissolved in tears of gratitude. (Ever since, I always offer to help people with strollers, however suspicious I may seem.)
All of this experience navigating difficult terrain is proving extremely helpful in the current endlessly snowy conditions here in Toronto. Our formerly wide-enough North American sidewalks have shrunk drastically from all the piles and drifts. We thread our way along narrow trails between frosty white hummocks. Stairs down into the subway that seemed perfectly manageable are now slick with ice and gritty with salt. My training on the mean cobbled streets of the Durham peninsula is serving me well. Holding my own when confronted by oncoming pairs and triplets of oblivious Canadian students requires just as much firmness as on the inadequate paths of northern England.
I have not yet perfected K's glare, though.
