I did something Sunday morning I hadn’t done in a couple of weeks.
I went out for a walk.
I like walking. It’s good exercise, and it gives me a chance to just relax at the same time. But for the past two weeks, the smoke in the air made it basically impossible to go out for a walk.
To make matters worse, on July 1 I somehow managed to pick up a cold. Well, I should say, the cold I’ve had off-and-on for the last six or seven years got worse.
I was coughing and had a runny nose on that Saturday, so just too be on the safe side, on Sunday I did a home COVID test with the kit I still had.
It came back negative, so that was one less thing to worry about.
As I said earlier, I’ve had this cold off and on for the past few years, since before COVID. That made it kind of interesting when COVID hit, as I was walking around sniffling and sometimes coughing, and explaining to people, “No, I don’t have COVID. I have a cold”.
I still noticed people giving me a wider berth than normal, but with everyone wearing masks, it wasn’t so bad.
The problem with this cold is it doesn’t come in as a full-fledged cold and get it over with. No, what I get is a sore throat for a few days, then some coughing for a few days, then a runny nose.
Anyway, I went out for a walk on Sunday, but I had decided a couple of things very quickly after I started. First, it wasn’t going to be a walk along one of the longer routes I have in the neighbourhood. Second, it was going to be at a somewhat slower pace than normal.
I had noticed when I started there was the smell of smoke in the air, so I figured I would make sure I only breathed through my nose. That’s the way I usually pace myself anyway, but on Sunday I wanted to stick to that rule for sure.
I did, and I even passed a few other people out walking. Some of them may have been walking every day for the past couple of weeks; some may have been like me and just started walking again.
Whatever, it felt good to get outside again, even if things weren’t fully back to normal. We can always hope.