Daily constitutional or bootcamp

The rain has let up a little and we decided to go for a walk. Just outside the gate, we met a few oldies (my age ☺) from the retirement village further up the street, who kindly enquired whether we were also “taking our daily constitutional”.

I nodded and smiled. My daughter seemed confused by this exchange and I explained to her that they wanted to know whether we were out on our morning walk. The expression originated long before her time and she found the meaning mildly amusing.

Daily constitutional:

It also frequently refers to a morning bowel movement. Its a euphemism for a bowel movement. From a time when using the bathroom meant going for a walk to the outhouse--the original meaning was still "going for a walk", but this idea was used in the euphemism for going to the bathroom. - englishstackexchange.com.

There you have it! 😄

We went dancing along the train tracks which I wrote about in my blog post  Secret Railway Line – Nature Reclaims What We Abandoned. “Dancing” is also a euphemism. The grass was wet and my feet began to slip around in my rubber flip-flops. So I tackled the two kilometers of my ‘constitutional’ barefoot, all the way stepping (dancing) around small stones with sharp edges, broken glass, bindweed and lizards. But this was no hardship; I was still able to admire the view of the beach and ocean.

After a while, we came across a couple of hadedas sunning themselves at the entrance of a well-kept path leading down to the beach. When we drew closer, they started walking down the path at a leisurely pace. We followed them and took some nice pictures of the path, the entangled tree roots and the beautiful orange hibiscus flowers lying on the ground.

At the exit to the beach, the hadedas posed for more pictures and then took off, flapping their wings and uttering those peculiar harsh cries. We decided to go home via the beach.

The beach route really works your muscles, walking in the loose sand and doing a little rock climbing in places. Then we still have to cross the main road and walk up a steep hill to get home. The last part we completed in short stages and took some time out to rest along the way. This has been our daily routine for the past few months since we moved here and the neighbors in the area are used to us sitting on their sidewalks, sipping from our water bottles.

Back at our gate and very tired, my daughter says rather crossly: ‘That was no daily constitutional. You should have told the oldies that we are on bootcamp’.