saunter

Well of course, I could link to everything at Ramage at the moment, but shall restrict myself to this link about walking. (Among other links where you can wander around the theme)

Despite its ubiquity in the everyday walking is an activity obscured by its own practical functionality. It is employed literally and understood metaphorically as a slow, inefficient, and increasingly anachronistic means to a predetermined end. Rarely is walking considered as a distinct mode of acting, knowing, and making. As its necessity diminishes and its applications rarefy, the potential of walking as critical, creative, and subversive tool appears only to grow. Conceived of as a conversation between the body and the world, walking becomes a reciprocal and simultaneous act of both interpretation and manipulation; an embodied and active way of shaping and being shaped that operates on a scale and at a pace embedded in something seemingly more authentic and real.

I'm about to borrow a Labrador and have a saunter.
Footnote: It's so nice to have a labrador's soft benign frame beside me again after months of battling with a blue heeler and a tiny terrier who doesn't display the same pleasure in walking as a big loping labrador. This dog, on loan for a fortnight, still has the dumb puppy in him, but has that innate good humour where his tail wags steady as a pendulum, his mood set on happy around the clock.
In comparison, Flo seems as neurotic as a cat
Walking becomes functional when you have to wrestle with that.

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Comments: saunter

I was perplexed as to why you were ".. about to borrow a Labrador and have a sauna ".

I'm sorry - I'll read that again.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at April 27, 2005 05:37 PM

I think a mooch is a level slower and more aimless than a saunter. But I can't be sure.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at April 27, 2005 05:38 PM

You know, FX, when I wrote that sentence I saw its proximity to sauna or something 'saucy' anyway, vaguely, but was quite attatched to it nonetheless.

(Maybe it was just a subliminal memory of making Doug (the dog) stand in the steaming bathroom while I showered as a cheap cure for Kennel cough)

And I think I think I was rather lazy all round yesterday. Turned out to be more of a mooch than a saunter as this dog loves to sniff at EVERY marked spot along the way. And because he is borrowed I can't let him run freely while my mind wanders and mooches aimlessly. Rather disappointing.

But still a labrador all the same. Their loping joy is infectious.
Posted by boynton at April 27, 2005 05:49 PM

Er...I think I think anyway...
Posted by boynton at April 27, 2005 05:50 PM

"....while I showered as a cheap cure for Kennel cough.."

Hope your kennel cough is getting better.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at April 27, 2005 08:40 PM

I could not swear to its efficacy, even after a night on the tiles...

The annoying thing was that he had been vaccinated but still caught it. (A blue heeler's cough is infectious.) So I was reduced to trying folk remedies "off of the internet" not wanting to cough up more money myself...
Posted by boynton at April 27, 2005 11:32 PM