There are days when you have a plan, and days when that plan gets changed. Sometimes that change leads to what I think of as lucky walks. This week had one of those.

I had booked our car for a service, and was expecting that it would be an hour or two, enough time to go for a short wander nearby and grab some breakfast. When I dropped it off, however, I was told that it would actually be 6-7 hours. What to do?

Since it was a lovely early autumn day, I decided to walk home and come back for the car later, giving myself about a 10 km walk. I took a wandering, back-streets path through Leslieville and Riverdale, Cabbagetown and Rosedale. It was wonderful, seeing the leaves coming into colour, hearing kids laughing in playgrounds, smelling the autumnal tang of turning leaves.

And in walking, I couldn’t help thinking that I was a really lucky person. Lucky to have the time to wander like that. Lucky to have the opportunity. Lucky to live in a great walking place like Toronto. Lucky to have my health to enjoy it.

Someone famous once said (Edison perhaps?) that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I think there’s a lot of truth in that, and I do think that to some degree we make our own luck that way, by being prepared. So while I wasn’t thinking about a long walk when I dropped off the car, on that day, in that place and time, I got lucky and took advantage of it.

Those lucky walks are probably the most fun of any of the walks that I do. They happen when I’m not looking for them, when a window of time and chance presents an opening, like the hint of a path in a forest, and I just have to take it.

I like that. Life gives you lemons, we know, but life also gives you luck. Take a walk and embrace it.