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

Freed from the pressure of haste, the tyranny of film, and now the restraint of clothes, I found myself looking more closely at what went on around me.

Mostly, two miles an hour is good going.

Life should be an unfinished business.

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.

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

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.