Plods & Posts

Daily writing prompt

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

Well clearly I had to answer this one as it’s ultimately what my whole blog is about! However anyone who has read any of my previous posts, or even this site’s tagline, will know that walking is how I endeavour to maintain my health and well-being so don’t worry this post isn’t just me reiterating that same point.

Even though I have only had this blog for about a month I’ve come to realise that this is also helping me to maintain my sense of well-being. This week I have spent some time looking at how it’s functioning and was startled to see the site load time was rather slow, which led me to the discovery that I have been a complete nincompoop as I have not been optimising my images – oops! So after spending some time compressing and re-uploading my images, I then switched to a new design template which also seems to be helping with the load time.

It was after doing all of this that it dawned on me that I must actually be enjoying running my own little blog or else why would I bother about optimising it? When I had the original idea of setting up a blog I had assumed I would do the occasional post and had also prepared myself for the possibility that I’d get bored of it or run out of things to write about. I mean how much is there to say about the benefits of going for a walk?

Well it would seem I have quite a lot of say about it! In addition to the 12 posts I have already published I have about half a dozen titles sitting in my drafts waiting for me to flesh them out. Walking & writing (or plods & posts – yes I do love a bit of alliteration) seem to complement each other as I will generally have the idea for a post while I’m walking but then when I’m writing it up it will spark supplementary thoughts to expand upon the original notion. Well that’s the theory at any rate.

Of course it’s possible that walking and writing are simply ways for me to avoid doing all the dull things I’m meant to be doing, such as cleaning or weeding, but I’m choosing to take the more positive view that these activities are good for my health and well-being. Seriously though anything that keeps us from doomscrolling and gives us a chance to step-back from life’s pressures has to be a good thing.

That’s how I stroll.