I do what I do instinctively, and that’s me. If you like me, that’s fine; if you don’t like me then don’t watch me.

Although the vast majority of walkers never even think of using a walking staff, I unhesitatingly include it among the foundations of the house that travels on my back.

Mostly, two miles an hour is good going.

Every walk of life falls under the Testicular Imperative: Either you have the world by them, or it has you.

Details of the many walks I made along the crest have blurred, now, into a pleasing tapestry of grass and space and sunlight.

Even in these mercifully emancipated decades, many people still seem quite seriously alarmed at the prospect of sleeping away from officially consecrated campsites, with no more equipment than they can carry on their backs. When pressed, they babble about snakes or bears or even, by God, bandits. But the real barrier, I'm sure, is the unknown.

The best dress for walking is nakedness. But our sad though fascinating world rarely offers the right and necessary combinations of weather and privacy, and even when it does the Utopia never seems to last very long.