My views on how our daily exercise quota is being used by a good many of our fellow citizens have not gone down particularly well with everyone. But then, why should they? My views are only my opinions based on my feelings and observations. Events of the last week have done nothing to suggest I should change my mind, though.
My feeling is that the exercise quota is being abused. It’s supposed to do what it says on the tin: to let us get out and take some exercise. But I can’t help thinking that some people are using it as an opportunity to get better at running and cycling. I don’t think that’s quite in the spirit of things, either.
I am not sure running and cycling huge distances is consistent with the message that we should ‘stay at home’. The message isn’t ‘stay at home but if you fancy a cycle ride or a run into the middle of nowhere you can’. My joints are in too bad a state for me to run any great distance and my bicycle is in need of major surgery, so I am stuck with a variation on the same boring walk every day. And if I drive somewhere else – and I am seriously considering doing this – to take some exercise in a quiet, isolated place, PC Plod is likely to tell me to go home again. That’s fair, isn’t it? Hardly.
I have nothing (much) against joggers, except for the ones who pollute social networks with constant narcissism and self-promotion, and particularly the majority who realise that social distancing actually applies to them, as well as mere pedestrians. It’s the ones who buzz past, sweating and wheezing, so close that you can almost touch them, that really bug me. Similarly, most cyclists do their best to co-exist with a road system that was never built with them in mind.
For personal reasons, we had to drive to a relatively remote place, not that far from us, which involved driving down some narrowish roads. There were cyclists aplenty, all neatly kitted out in lycra and helmets, but many took a wide berth on already narrow roads. Our journey to the countryside came under ‘essential travel’. I am not clear that theirs was. And driving back through small towns and villages, as well as through Bristol, many believe that traffic lights were only for motorists. I am not suggesting that all cyclists are like this, but my God they give the rest of them a very bad name.
Given the dangers that cyclists face at the best of times, I fear for their well-being, whether through their own recklessness or that of motorists who should but don’t know better. If they get injured out in the sticks, and I really hope they don’t, imagine the additional pressure on our already overstretched emergency services? (I should add for balance that many motorists are not exactly covering themselves in glory at the moment by driving at excessive speeds on the much quieter roads, in town and in the country, although I have to say the roads have appeared to be far busier in recent days, so perhaps that might slow them down a little.)
Add to my whinge list, skateboarders. I watched one slow-witted boarder careering along the forecourt of Bristol Parkway train station last week, forcing passers-by to hurriedly step into the road to avoid being flattened. On the basis of what government instruction is skateboarding appropriate?
If the government thinks it’s okay to let joggers and cyclists to venture out into the wilds, then please let us city folk drive out into the wilds, too. Or, if this is going to be a meaningful lockdown in the real sense of the word, make exercise mean exercise – a brief walk, a brief jog or a brief walk. For many people, who live in high rose blocks and flats, they have even less than me. It just doesn’t seem like we are all in it together.
