Crazy Cherry Bakewell

Saturday afternoon. Having finished my job-list I had a Cherry Bakewell with a mug of tea and read a bit, then figured I needed to do something so got the bicycle out and figured an hour or so's ride before dinner. Within minutes of starting out the heavens opened. I tried in vain sheltering under a handy tree.

Wearing my thin cycling shorts and T-shirt, I took the latter off before it got too wet and stowed it in my pannier and continued my ride bare-chest thus demonstrating the efficacy, in a rain storm, of removing rather than putting on more clothes. It worked. It continued to rain steadily for almost the whole duration of the 13 mile ride backside of Knockalt. True it was a bit cold, but not so cold as it would have been wearing a saturated T-shirt. Speeding down the long downhill to the main road was awesome and scary; the rain stinging my skin and with my eyes screwed almost shut.

Doubtless drivers that passed me thought I was crazy but, if being different from the status quo equals crazy, perhaps I am.

The Cherry Bakewell and tea was good. The mad cycle ride was good. And the long, hot shower upon my return was good.

Why do people wear shoes?

I've been doing this barefoot running lark consistently for several years, and now find myself increasingly going around barefoot for normal activities too. Ali and others (even myself) are still a bit embarrassed about me going around unshod so sometimes I don shoes just in order not to cause offence. And of course I wear shoes when necessary for protection. But I am more and more convinced that the main reason people wear shoes is cultural. And what a poor reason given all the disadvantages of wearing shoes see here or here or here.

As an example, in church I feel at liberty to remove my shoes when sitting in the congregation (and I note that others do) but apparently I have to wear them if I go to the front to lead a song or whatever. Whereas with Moses it was the other way about. Strange.

I've noticed that more people in the community here are going around barefoot, albeit mostly only indoors, doubtless feeling freer to do so following my example - help! - what have I started?

Once I thought it might be dangerous to drive barefoot. But I now find I have much better control when barefoot. Try driving whilst wearing gum-boots, or operating delicate machinery whilst wearing heavy gloves, as an indication of the antithesis.

So maybe I had better make it clear - I am not going barefoot in order to be rebellious or to start a trend. I am doing it because I want to and because it is good for me, same reason as I eat ice cream or read a book or go for a bike ride. Whilst I feel sorry for folk that are enslaved by shoes and I try to keep away from their consequential smelly feet, I have no intention to proselytize. Why should I? - they seem to be happy with their lot.

I suppose my mother must have ingrained in me the need to wear shoes. Back in those days maybe it was only paupers that went barefoot. My mother also taught me to dry myself most completely after taking a bath or a swim and to take great care to clothe wisely when in the rain for fear of contracting some terrible disease. But I have found that being out in a rainstorm is actually pleasurable and the less I wear the better, that the killer is getting cold not getting wet. So now I rarely use a towel after swimming. And how good it is to swim when it is raining!

I wonder how many other things I continue to do - preconceptions - for no better reason that because I was taught to?  Not that this is necessarily a bad reason for doing stuff.

Barefoot running and Rain

At 0530 this morning till a while ago it was raining reasonably hard - probably the wettest run this year.  I did the usual forest route (5 miles).  And yet it was warm - anything above about 15 degrees C registers as "warm" as far as I am concerned (else, in Ireland, it would rarely ever be warm!).  When running barefoot, the wetter the better: the stones feel less sharp and one's feet stay clean despite mud, whereas trainers would collect the mud and be rotting.  When warm one can afford to be scantily clad, whereas wet clothes feel horrible.

Such times remind me of "...and Mowgli, with the rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms, leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired buffalo" (Letting in the Jungle). My parents had the blue, cloth-bound edition "All the Mowgli Stories" illustrated superbly by Stuart Tresilian.  Ever since first reading that line I have sought the experience of a hard, tropical rain storm.  


And of "Kim yearned for the caress of soft mud squishing up between the toes..."