Walking

Another occurance on Wednesday - yes quite a significant day for lots of reasons! On Tuesday night I had eaten out with a friend at a place just up the road from my house and had a glass of wine - and since our work cars are insured with a company that you can't have any alcohol and drive them, my friend dropped me home (lovely night, by the way). What that meant was that I walked to Fairfield to catch up with my old housemate ... then walked to Westgarth Bapts for lunch - between those two places I saw someone who has been coming to St Paul's on a Sunday night and managed to have an excellent conversation with him about his work and life as a single dad ... then on my way to Westgarth saw and spoke a bit with one of the people who comes for lunch who goes for walks during the mornings - and that was quite significant relationally. Then as I walked home I smiled at a neighbour who was going up to the corner shop, and then a little later as I walked up to get the work car from where I had left it the night before I met her in the street and had a conversation - the first we've had where we introduced ourselves etc.

All very interesting - one of the many reasons I've decided not to have a car is exactly these reasons but I've so often needed the work car for work related things and when it's sitting there it's so hard not to use it just to drive to the shops etc. But this kind of episode just shows the neighbourhood, community, incarnational value of walking (not to mention fitness!).