On Saturday, I met the for the first time someone who had to join the Hitler Youth at the age of ten. He’s a great man, and the only septuagenarian that I know that drives like the devil herself is on his tail. Lots of overtaking without hesitation on winding country lanes.

Here are a few of my favourite things: chopping wood, burning wood, fresh air, booze, fires, axes, unmentionables. I got most of these things at Over Phawhope bothy. There was an added bonus in that the four Dutchies who are normally in such places murdering Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’ were not there. On the downside, this meant

I was asleep in a bothy (stone shelter) when a walker opened the door and asked where the kitchen was. Next to the bleedin’ sauna and snooker room I didn’t reply. It must have taken a few seconds before my pungent trampy odour hit her nose, for she paused a moment before abruptly departing. The