A Young Brain in an Old Chassis

It is ten to seven on a Friday morning, and I am out walking.

That might not sound particularly remarkable, but I haven’t walked properly for weeks. The heat here in northern Bosnia has been relentless. By eight in the morning, it can already feel too hot to do anything sensible, and even at nine in the evening the temperature has often remained somewhere in the high twenties.

During the day, we’ve seen 37 or 38°C.

At 73, I simply can’t deal with that in the way I once might have done.

There are one or two other health niggles too. Nothing dramatic, but enough to make me realise that I am slowing down.

I don’t particularly like admitting that.

This morning, though, it is an unusually cool 14°C. I am wearing a jacket, and there is a slight twinge in my right knee. Not pain exactly. Just a little reminder from the body that it is there.

On 19 September, I am supposed to be joining another 12-kilometre walk. Whether I shall manage that remains to be seen.

I have all these grand ideas, you see.

I think the problem is that I have a young brain in an old chassis.

In my head, I can still do everything. Long walks. Hills. Adventures. Perhaps even the Camino de Santiago. I follow several older walkers online who have completed it, and every time I see them, I think: I could still do that.

The reason I haven’t is not a lack of will. It is more a lack of financial resources.

So, a year or two ago, I created my own version of the Camino here in the village.

Every day, I walked six or six and a half kilometres with my Nordic walking poles. The route had no dramatic scenery or mountain passes. I walked from the house to the main road, back past the house, and then continued along another local track before returning home.

It was flat, repetitive and entirely my own.

The first few days were easy. Then came the aches and the inevitable pain barrier. Once I pushed through that, it became enjoyable. I would return home sweating, tired and feeling wonderfully alive.

Of course, everything seems more enjoyable when you look back on it.

Slowing down without giving up

The difficulty is that, in my mind, slowing down feels rather too much like giving up.

And I am not ready to give up.

I have been putting on a little weight, which I don’t like, so this morning I dragged myself out of bed while Tamara was still asleep. The dogs looked thoroughly confused by my behaviour.

I am walking in Birkenstocks with a pair of priglavci inside them — traditional knitted slippers worn in this part of the world.

It probably looks ridiculous, but it is surprisingly comfortable.

My modest plan is to walk early in the morning while it is cool and perhaps take another gentle stroll before darkness falls.

Not speed walking. Not training for an expedition. Just moving.

Perhaps that is what slowing down should mean. Not stopping, but finding a different pace.

A date that has followed me through life

Today is 14 August.

That date has meant something to me since I was about 14 years old.

People who know me will know how much audio and broadcasting have shaped my life. I may have spent decades as a soldier, but part of me never escaped the excitement of British radio in the 1960s.

Beginning in 1964, commercial radio stations started broadcasting from ships and old military forts outside British territorial waters. To a young boy listening at home, it sounded revolutionary.

They played pop music hour after hour. Some broadcast around the clock.

This was at a time when the BBC offered young listeners very little pop music. Perhaps an hour of Easy Beat on a Sunday morning and another hour of Pick of the Pops later in the day.

Two hours a week, if you were lucky.

The offshore stations changed everything.

Then, on 14 August 1967, the British government introduced legislation designed to close them down.

My favourite station was Radio London. Its final hour was broadcast between two and three that afternoon.

I can still remember listening as its theme tune ended at precisely three o’clock. For a moment, all I could hear was the empty hum of the transmitter.

Then that disappeared too.

Silence.

The station was gone.

I have a recording of that final hour, and in some years I have played it at exactly two o’clock UK time, wherever I happened to be.

One hour of completely self-indulgent nostalgia.

There is a podcast episode coming about that period and how the excitement of offshore radio became part of the rather winding broadcasting road that eventually brought me to Bosnia.

The valley at sunrise

As I am thinking about all this, the sun is appearing over the valley.

Despite the heat and drought, parts of it remain green. The Vrbas and Turjanica rivers run nearby, although the Turjanica itself is now dry. Perhaps there is a high water table beneath the fields.

The wheat has already been cut. The maize is still standing, glowing in the early morning light.

This really is the golden hour.

A track leading uphill to a little group of houses has recently been covered with fresh asphalt.

We live in a good municipality. Tamara often says that the mayor, regardless of political affiliation, does get things done for the local community.

Then again, elections are coming in October.

It is curious how roads are repaired and improvements suddenly appear shortly before people go to vote.

Perhaps it is all entirely coincidental.

Perhaps.

The beginning of something new

The podcast finally feels as though it is settling into a rhythm.

It is being heard in quite a few countries now. The numbers aren’t enormous, but they are real. There are more than 400 unique listeners, although I suspect the genuine core audience is probably closer to 60 people.

I am very grateful for every one of them.

My newsletter, on the other hand, has moved up, down, left and right over the years without ever finding a consistent identity.

I think it may finally have found one.

The Sunday Sip.

On Tuesdays, Substack will carry the latest podcast episode: what it is about, where you can listen and how you can support the podcast.

Sundays will be different.

The Sunday Sip will be a brain dump. Thoughts from the week, small observations from Bosnia, moments from village life, memories, mild irritations and whatever happens to pass through my head while I am walking.

A little like this.

Perhaps my grandchildren may even read these one day.

My granddaughter Alice visited us a few months ago, and we took her to the beautiful Bliha waterfall. She was enormously impressed by it.

Today, I must send her a recent photograph.

There is currently almost no water there.

Reports suggest that nearby mining activity may have diverted or interrupted the flow. I need to investigate that properly before saying much more, but the disappearance of such a magnificent waterfall is deeply troubling.

Bosnia has no shortage of beautiful places.

What it sometimes lacks is the determination to protect them.

Back at the gate

I pass the village bus stop on the way home.

It is used only during the school term. A bus collects children for the morning school shift, returns them at lunchtime, then collects another group for the afternoon shift.

Once, a full-sized coach came into the village.

Now it is a small minibus.

There simply aren’t as many children living in rural communities anymore.

And with that slightly melancholy thought, I arrive back at our gate.

Two kilometres in 22 minutes.

Not bad, I think, for a 73-year-old who hasn’t walked properly for several weeks.

Now it is time to make coffee, sit outside and watch the rest of the sunrise.

And perhaps tomorrow morning, I will do it all again.