We went to the Sneyd Arms in Keele Village, and yet again, Nina's initial claim to me about the quality of the food was incorrect. Positively delicious, though they were out of cider, which was highly disappointing, wound up accepting their offer of a Lancaster Blonde for the same price, but it just wasn't cider and both Nina and I wound up leaving half of it behind. I would have been fine with beer, if it had been what I wanted initially; but I had ordered cider because I wanted cider, so to get beer instead was just a disappointment to my taste-buds... I'm sorry for letting you down, oh trusty taste-buds...Anyways, it was Oliver, Nina, Fanny, Duran and I who went. I rather enjoy trying to explain food related words to Duran (ie/ "what is grilled?" "Grilled is a way of cooking. Burgers are grilled") because it requires some imagination; simply defining the word doesn't generally help, but giving a common reference point does. I suppose it would be easier if we could just tell him what the Cantonese word is, but where's the fun in that?
Talking about Duran reminds me, I had some things from Scotland I had wanted to talk about then didn't wind up mentioning. I suppose first I'll talk about the one which was brought up by the mention of Duran.
Asthma, I don't like it, but it's a fact of my life and I deal with it. When we were in Scotland, specifically Edinburgh on the Saturday, we had set out in the morning, and I was keeping them going at a good clip, despite my not actually really knowing how to get up that massive hill to where the castle was. We wound up taking a wrong turn and having to take a nice big set of stairs up to the right road. No problem. From there, we continued through this great little market and along the road under the castle in the unshaded and blazing heat, then we found the stairs that led up to the Royal Mile after practically bounding up them, I was completely out of breath; so much so, I couldn't talk for a moment when we were at the top of the stairs. When I gestured "one moment" followed by a hand emphasizing my difficulty breathing so they knew why.
Duran exclaimed "Oh! You're out of breath? You should exercise more!"
cue glare "Or, you know, stop being asthmatic; whichever you think's best," I said.
I suppose, in hind sight, I shouldn't snap like that, but I was hot, tired and having trouble breathing, my thoughts weren't exactly at their peak. But that just bothers me so much. I have exercised more here than I think I did all last year. I'm walking a significant amount daily, and even more on weekends (to the tune of ~60,000 steps this past weekend alone) and have been so happy that I've managed to do so without killing my knee (more on that in a moment) but no matter how much I do, my breathing will always be an issue. I could probably become a triathlete and still be disproportionately out of breath after most activities; and people would probably give me "you should exercise more" as the great solution. It just irks me that people assume it's your fault, rather than considering for a moment that perhaps there is some underlying problem. Maybe that's just me.
Second, my knee.
My knee has this problem, it's too flexible for the muscles trying to hold it in place. I can actually rotate my upper leg separately from my lower leg to the tune of a little more than 90 degrees (as in, my knee and thigh are pointing one way, while my shin and foot are pointing a little more than 90 degrees in a completely different direction). This is what they call Not A Good Thing, and while you'd think sitting would avoid the problem, my knee actually gets stiff and painful from sitting in say a theatre seat, bus, rail or airplane seat too long (usually being unbearably uncomfortable at just over the 1hr and 30 minutes mark). As for walking? Normally, after a absolute MAXIMUM of 12,000 steps, my knee gets out of alignment and is painful and difficult for the next week or so. I've been working on it, doing exercises to try and resolve the issue, strengthen the muscles holding my knee in the proper position, but the ones my doctor and chiropractor gave me weren't really helping. However, after starting to do WiiFit in the last few months of school I started to notice an immense change (I credit the chair position and rowing squats, and try to do them often), and now, here in the UK, where I carry my PokeWalker (see image) with me everywhere, I've noticed changes that make me oh so very happy!
Remember Cardiff? I wound up putting my knee out at around 17,000 steps (5,000 more than usual) and wound up doing around 13,000 more steps that day (total for that Saturday was just over 30,000), even on the bad knee. I thought I'd be out of commission for at least two weeks because of the point I allowed my knee to get to. It was more painful than it'd gotten before and I was worried I'd really over done it. Even so, without even cutting into my steps per day, after 2 days, it was 100% healed! I have never had it get that much better that quickly! I've brought my walking stick with me on all the trips since, and haven't managed to put my knee out again once! I've done so much walking; on flat terrain in London, on ridiculously hilly terrain in Edinburgh and Stirling, and it hasn't gone out since! It probably has something to do with the fact I've been bringing and using my awesomely spectacular walking stick, but still.In Edinburgh and Stirling, I experienced something that I don't think I can remember ever experiencing before: I walked so much, took so many steps, went so far, that my legs were actually in absolute agony from pure exhaustion. You'd think that'd be a bad thing; your muscles were worked so hard, that they were actually in pain from exhaustion? Ouch! But no! My knee hadn't given out! I'm so used to walking any little bit and being basically incapacitated by the pain from my knee, that being able to walk enough that my legs are dead from exhaustion and not joint problems just feels like such a miracle! I think it was quite possibly one of the greatest feelings ever... I hope I can continue to experience it! For once, I feel like I might actually be able to do these things unhindered, like I used to.
Come on knee! You can do it! Keep it up! ^.^
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