Leg injuries aside, the walking route to the stores isn't one that doesn't require a person to be paying attention, and even to be careful about where one steps. Although there are parts of the route that are pleasant enough for walking, there are enough parts of it that aren't all that pleasant - or at least not pleasant without accompanying "paying attention". There's just that kind of tenseness added in enough parts of the route to make it a "generally not-all-the-pleasant" a walk. Being able to do the walk without also having to buy groceries (and shop by weight and/or length of time out of refrigeration concerns) is (probably needless to say) more pleasant and enjoyable.
One thing that I used to do before I did the leg injury was to go walking super-early in nice weather and do little more than have breakfast out. Sometimes I'd pick up a thing or two while I was near the stores, but my main reason for walking was being out in the morning air and having that chance to just be myself and have a little breakfast and coffee.
I have no doubt that in a lot of ways walking has been good for my health. In other ways, and considering the circumstances, I've often joked that it's killing me. That's not such a joke in all ways.
After the leg injuries the need to pay attention and be careful about where I stepped and how has been a bigger and more important factor.
Before the leg injury the walk TO the store was always far more enjoyable than the walk home with whatever bags I had. I was accustomed to walking as many as over a hundred miles a week (without feeling it). The reality was, however, that carrying more weight often meant holding a hand or arm in some awkward way; or just generally feeling more uncomfortable because of the weight and/or awkwardness of any packages/bags. It was always a balancing act between vowing to shop as little and as light as possible while also not wanting to make an unnecessary trip because I hadn't bought enough on the previous run.
There are/were a couple of small stores not far from the end of "Street B", so more pleasant runs for "a thing or two" to just those closer stores were what I did in-between times. Much of the time (and mostly a matter of weather), the walk to those closer stores was reasonably pleasant. I'd get something to eat or some coffee, and kind of enjoy the walk. There was a time before I began doing any online work when I was receiving a weekly check. That wasn't handy because it sometimes involved an extra trip that I didn't necessarily feel like making, but had to make, if I wanted to get the cash. I've got a whole set of "horror stories" related to that "era", but I won't get into those here.
The entire picture changed once I did the first leg injury and then "added injury to injury" when three years of relying mainly on the "good" leg set it up for its own injury. It wasn't until the Fall that led up to the third anniversary of the first injury when I was able to start working on making the walk again; but it was just about exactly at three years that I did the second injury. It was also Winter. I won't get more into the injuries here, other than to say that it took the "second leg" just about two years to get awfully close to "good as new feeling" The "first leg" was mostly at "good as new feeling" too, although it needed strength built up. Also, however, there were "spin-off elements" that made the "getting back" process more complicated and less straightforward than the less serious injury.
In any case, it was right before the string of last Winter's record-breaking snow storms and cold that I was able to make the walk to "Street A" effortlessly and quickly (and even without the knees getting painful from the cold weather). The Winter didn't just mean slowing my progress in getting the injuries REALLY back to good as new and without having to worry about how much weight I was putting on the "first" one. It also meant my not walking for so long that I just generally got out of shape in terms of being able to walk a few miles without "the usual" (not necessarily related to the injuries at all) muscles feeling it. That meant I had to wait until Spring to first get "the usual" muscles used to walking very far at all (and regardless of what shoes I was wearing) AND building up strength in the "first leg" so that every ounce of weight beyond my own didn't seem to make a difference to the leg.
In April I could go out walking, but I had to wear different shoes than I wear at home. That meant when I was able to go walking I'd "get leg muscles going" by changing shoes. Then, when I'd be at home and wearing other shoes, I'd have to let the legs have three days before feeling better. During those three days I'd get the "first leg" thrown off by "walking funny". The weather in April wasn't all that great, so there weren't all that many days or nights when walking was good anyway. Then there were weekends when I went out with someone in a car even though the weather would have been great for walking.
It was May when I could finally stop wearing the heavier shoes and just wear the sandals that I wear at home. That's when I stopped "throwing off" the leg injury every time I went out walking. So, as of May, where I was was that I needed to put finishing touches on strength-building in both knees/legs; BUT because I was generally out of shape as far as walking long distances went; ;that, combined with the injury-related need to build strength (and as far as I can guess) essentially turned all attempts to walk into a large muscle work-out.
If the walk that has generally always required a certain amount of "paying attention" and thinking and planning was what it was before the injuries, you can probably imagine how much more thought, planning, and paying attention has been required first after the injuries and later, once they were pretty much healed but in need of building strength.
It was in June (yes, JUNE! - last month) when the injuries finally got to where how much weight I was carrying in my bag didn't affect them. I would say that the injuries were good as new, but they still needed finishing touches on that strength-building thing. That wasn't however, about how much weight I was carrying in my bag. It wasn't about "basic walking" either. It was (and still is) about "the finer point" of stepping down from a curb or step while holding the knee "straight ahead" (rather than turning kind of sideways on stairs). Another area of strength building I still need to do is with climbing up, for example, extremely steep steps. As it is I'm fine with regular sets of stairs now.
Frustratingly enough after the Winter, what I've been left with as of June has been that the leg injuries are pretty much all squared away as far as routine walking goes (and with the limited exceptions I mentioned above).
I'm going to write a separate post about what amounts to a whole new set of "issues" related to being able to make the walk (whether a mile-and-a-half round-trip, three miles round trip, or something in-between) effortlessly that have become evident and/or emerged and/or developed once I got to where the injuries felt "good as new", got used to the walk (provided I haven't been carrying too much weight and a result using an awkward set of muscles to do that).
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