Chapter 1: ‘The Bucket List’ or ‘I don’t like Monday’

Let’s face it, most Mondays are a bit grim. For most of us, Monday means the carefree attitude of our Saturdays and Sundays coming crashing to a halt on the buffers of the new week. Freedoms curtailed, free will abolished and well worn routines re-established. Normally, coffee and a bleary eyed stumble into work are sufficient to crank the human engine into life.

It might be tough, launching into the new week, but it’s not every Monday that a trip to the Emergency Department is required to get the motor running. However, this was no ordinary Monday.

I blame the early morning email from a colleague demanding my attendance at some project meeting or other, of dire importance to her but of little interest or consequence to me. Such emails always gave me indigestion at the best of times. This was not the best of times. When the pain of indigestion both persists and marches down your left arm it’s probably best to miss the meeting. I decided to politely demur and instead make an alternative appointment with the medical profession.

I had no idea that this particular morning was to be the start of a journey. A journey that took me into the mountains of the Cathars; a journey that introduced me to the high Pyrenean panoramas; a journey that taught me the importance of good socks.
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In my house we now have a big sheet of flip chart paper with objectives and targets written on it in felt tip pen: my ‘bucket list’. The flip chart came about after my discharge from the cardiac care unit when I sat and wrote down some of things I’d forgotten I liked. There is nothing like a close brush with the grim reaper to remind you of the importance of life, of living life and of experiencing life. Sure, some of the things on the flip chart relate to professional achievements – “how do you want to be remembered old boy?” But not all. Right there in the middle it says ‘Do some more long distance walking.’

I am now in my fifties. Since the age of 18 I have done four long distance walks (definition: long-distance walks means a walk that lasts more than a day and requires some form of overnight accommodation along the way, be it tent or luxury spa). So that’s one a decade then, hardly a personally defining activity. But I liked them when I did them. Why didn’t I do more? If my past behaviour and the relentless march of time were any guide, I’d probably manage to fit in one more before various bits of internal or skeletal tissue gave up completely. Something had to change.

Sitting there in front of the fire in mid winter like a five year old with a crayon, I determined that I’d pack in as many walks as I could before…well before what ever else happened. And that is where the journey began.

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