Janathon Day 7 : Camminando in Campagna

Or in English, Walking in the Countryside. However, first a big WHOOP WHOOP! Yesterday was my first day in 2015 without wine. Those of you who have been to Puglia will know that Pugliese wines are very very good. Even the sfuso (the bulk wine that you get through what look like petrol pumps) at €1 a litre is more than acceptable. Bottles of wine with all sorts of commendations can be had from €4.50 upwards. Wine with meals is just a part of our way of life. Despite that yesterday I achieved my first wine free day in 2015, we won't visit how many I managed in 2014! The incentive, tomorrow will be the weigh-in after my first complete week on Janathon. Let's see those scales go down.

I am a poor sleeper and was concerned how, without the wine I would get to sleep. For the last week our so I  have been listening to Deep Sleep with Andrew Johnson, an app I am running on my Hudl (Android Tablet), every night with varying degrees of success. It certainly didn't work the night of the crash, bang, rattling. Last night though, it really did the trick; whilst listening to Andrew drone on with his oh so relaxing voice, I dropped off half way through. Unfortunately I was sleeping on my back and woke myself up almost immediately with a big snort. Happened twice before I rolled over, after that sleep came quickly, and with it vivid and tiring dreams, involving running around from place to place by train and plane, with tons of baggage. All of it which required specially printed labels, the printer broke down and I couldn't get all the parcels in my luggage allocation. At which point I gave up ..... time to dump the excess baggage? Do dream activities count for Janathon exercise? My legs were certainly tired this morning.

I woke up early this morning .... 4.07 am according to my Hudl ; it seemed a bit strange as I could see the sun rising up out of the Adriatic. Eventually, having given up trying to get back to sleep I wandered off to the kitchen to make my early morning hot water and lemon (grapefruit this morning) to find the real time was 7:37 am. After much fiddling about I gave up and took off the Automatic Time Update and set the Hudl clock manually.

I had errands in Torchiarolo, mainly to collect a package from the Post Office, a long awaited ChromeCast Key, designed to send tv, videos etc from your devices to a tv screen. Walking both ways is currently beyond me, cycling is okay, but even though the wind has dropped to a very fresh, strong breeze it is still too windy for me to get on my bike. I was dropped at the Post Office, eventually picked up my package (regular visitors to Puglia will know that a visit to the Post Office or Bank are undertakings not to be taken lightly, everything is done in what should be called "Puglia Time".)

Best foot forward I strode back through the town and out towards home. Today my walk took me through the olive groves, out into the country, a change from my Adriatic strolls. Puglia is not called the bread basket of Italy for nothing, olives and grapes abound. It has to believe that these stunted, apparently, dead plants in the foreground will grow abundantly and next summer will be providing masses of grapes.

It may be less windy but it is still cold, I was even wearing gloves, maybe a first for me since we arrived in Puglia. I didn't quite make it home before the OH rolled up behind me in the car. I could have persevered for the last two kilometres but my legs and feet were aching so I gave in. Not too shabby an attempt all the same, and the pace is picking up.


So that is it for today I think, 10 squats this morning, maybe a few more later but these thighs really are aching. I spent half an hour or so clearing up the rubbish blown up our roadsby the strong winds and weeding the garden. Both involved a lot of bending and picking up, does that count Janathoners?

The Hudl? On manual time setting it is losing about half an hour every couple of hours, what is going on?

A domani ..... the weigh in day!