According to the pedometer app on my iPhone, I’ve walked 4,867,711 steps since I started using that to keep track. At approximately 10,000 steps a day, that’s far enough to walk from NYC to Las Vegas. I know I’ve walked more than that, because I didn’t start using the Pedometer App until a number of months into the game. And although I wear a Fitbit, I don’t use that to keep score because it’s what I call “an easy grader.” There’s usually a three to four hundred step difference between the iPhone and the Fitbit, with the iPhone being the stingier of the two. That adds up to just under five miles a day.

So I have laps, indoor laps and outdoor laps. Inside a trip from the bathroom to the kitchen and back via a detour around the dining room table equals 100 steps. The front driveway is flat, and six round trips on that from the back gate to the turnaround makes for 1000 steps. The good thing about that route is that I can get up a really good head of steam. In the back yard, two trips around the pool and one down around the two fishponds add up to 500 steps, but 500 steps there take longer than on the flat front driveway.

So why am I telling you this? A couple of weeks ago I wrote about installing handrails on the twelve steps leading down to the back garden and the fish ponds. What I’m realizing now is how much not having handrails there has impacted our enjoyment of the garden.

This summer when we came home and I thought the fish had all disappeared, I grieved their loss and didn’t want to go look at a fishpond with no fish. But once they emerged from hiding and I needed to go feed them, I went down those blankety-blank stairs with my heart in my throat every single time.

By the time the handrails were installed, I discovered I had missed the azalea and the rhodie blooms. Ditto the peonies and the clump of daisies that always reminds me of my mother. The long, tall rose bush that grows against the pool house was already in full bloom as were the bright yellow dahlias next to it. The rails arrived in time for me to discover that the blueberries are ripe and so are some of the peaches.

I saw a headline in the paper today that said the “new gym is exercising solo at home.” That’s not news to me. I’ve never surfed in my life, but clearly, in this instance, I’ve been ahead of that wave.

And I plan on staying that way.