Thursday 15 November 2007

Origins

Maybe the urge was born very young. Aged 10 or so, as well as nurse and missionary, my career ambitions included ‘Pioneer’s Wife’. Striding westwards over the prairies beside a covered wagon, I would be capable, adaptable and brave. I must have just read Children on the Oregon Trail or Little House on the Prairie. Whatever.

As my ambition subsided into that of travel journalist, I grew more cowardly. The realisation of death as a possibility was sobering. And before I’d had time for any real, rip-roaring adventures, I’d developed Raynaud’s: for the last fifteen years I’ve watched for my fingers and toes to go white and brittle and snap off at the least cool breeze. When we were very little, Dad made up bedtime stories for my sisters and me about “the Pobble who had no toes”. Maybe that’s to blame.

So I fret when the thermometer dips towards 10ºC and take thermal gloves for a summer holiday in Tuscany. Going for a walk, however, sounds like a domestic-scale adventure, just right for me. You open your door, put one foot in front of the other and keep doing that until you arrive. How hard can that be?

But why, exactly, are we setting out in January?

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