Sunday, January 12, 2014

one foot in front of another



Rick and I try to go for a walk daily, although we do walk for all our shopping. Today we combined the walk with a trip to the train station to buy his ticket for Toulouse later in the week.

The station hadn't opened after lunch but was slated to do so within the next few minutes, and I suggested we take a walk and look at a house that has always intrigued me. It borders on being a château and is only slightly smaller than Downton Abbey. "Let's mosey back," he said.

I wanted to know what a mosey was. He decided that mosey was slow enough that buns didn't jiggle. Since we are both wordsmiths we started playing with the different ways to walk (My housemate loves words too so we have fun as well.)

There are so many words for how we put one foot in front of another.

Let's pretend we want to rewrite Jack and Jill went up the hill. They could Jack and Jill ambled up the hill.
Jack and Jill marched up the hill. Jack and Jill (        ) up the hill.

Amble to walk slowly in a free and relaxed way

March to move along steadily usually with a rhythmic stride and in step with others (we tried to decide

Meander a winding path or course but I can meander through a wood easily on a sunny day.

Mosey  to walk slowly in a free and relaxed way (we decided which was faster, an amble, meander or mosey)

Power walk  walking with a speed at the upper end of the natural range for walking gait (definitely causes bun jiggling) I always thought that walking was one thing you could do without buying anything but now they sell walking sticks. I still find sticks in the forest that work just as well and cost nothing. Could even use them in the fireplace afterwards if I hadn't closed up my fireplace to prevent the Tramantane from coming down the chimney.

Ramble to move aimlessly from place to place

Saunter to walk about in an idle or leisurely manner (has an attitude)

Strut to walk with a pompous and affected air (that really has an attitude)

Stroll to go from place to place in search (I don't see the need to search on a stroll. Of course when I took my dogs for a stroll the place(s) were trees, bushes, fire hydrants)

Trek to walk usually for a long distance (backpacks not obligatory but water bottles should be)

Walkabout a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work (also when employees seem to disappear during the workday)

Walkies what Brits tell their dogs they are going to do when they take them out.

Wander to move around or go to different places usually without having a particular purpose or direction.

Maybe Jack and Jill decided they didn't want to go up the hill at all and went home and drank hot chocolate.

2 comments:

Susanne said...

We use stride quite a lot, it's what my husband does when he goes for a solo walk around Bath - the city we moved to 4 years ago. He uses it as a word to express his ownership of the place and how much he loves living here!

DL NELSON said...

oops forgot stride