Challenged to Walk

Some smarty pants at F's head office in London decided to set a challenge for everyone in the company, to walk, run or cycle (collectively) enough miles to connect up all their offices around the world - a 'virtual' challenge.

Just as an aside do you find the word 'virtual' gets used in lots of ways it shouldn't?

There is nothing virtual about the challenge.  The challenge is very real - get off your arse and walk, run, or cycle (or all of the above), and a bit of swimming thrown in, (otherwise how are you going to get the 'virtual' team across the Atlantic?).

They have to accrue 25,000km (give or take a couple of hundred) within the next 12 weeks to satisfy the challenge set by Smarty Pants.  Of course there is no compulsion to take part, but F happens to like and respect Smarty Pants, and has taken part in all the very real physical challenges the firm has set for charity fund raisers over the years - 3 Peaks, South Downs Way in 24 hours, London to Brighton Bike ride, 100 km of the Thames Path Walk in 24 hours, ....  This one is not a charity fundraiser.  It is just a 'stop lurking about indoors' sort of challenge; a look after your body and your mental health sort of challenge... you get the picture.  It's the sort of thing favoured by those ever optimistic, bouncy, excited, excitable, Tiggerish types who go in for team-building and Myers-Briggs exercises. 

Whatever your views on 'virtual', the latest challenge has the virtue of getting me a lot more trips out in the backpack.  F decided to contribute 5 walked kilometers per day during the week, and 50 cycled kilometers in the weekends.  She regards that as easily achievable, and anything extra will be bonus.  Her walk to work and back would normally be 5km per day - so no big deal - and her weekend cycling (when it was not a question of permits to go out and not crossing municipal boundaries) hovered around 50km anyway

Before this challenge reaches its conclusion it is going to get too hot here for either walking or cycling, so she might need to put 'some in the bank' in the early part of this.

Last night we walked to the end of the road and back (4km) - so we have some photos of things that randomly caught the eye there and back.

F just liked the 'juxtaposition' of the palm and the agave thing.  I prefer to contemplate the undergrowth.

They are building something out there - someone is protesting an extension to the cruise ship terminal, so maybe this is the start of that extension.  That's Salamina in the near background, and a mountain of the mainland in the distance.

Hydrofoil from Aegina with the container port in the background.

Two stripy chimneys.  Pay attention, that tall skinny one will reappear soon.  (That is a photo over some part of the naval college so it was probably lucky we didn't get arrested taking it.)

Oh bother - that palm tree again; on the way back

Repurposed cafe tables....Tiggerish cat with a view on the world (look closely at the reflections - you can see the sea behind us), and a spot in the last sun of the day.