It was my first proper outdoor walk since hospital, the other day, if you don’t count slowly increasing circular shuffles around our estate. We went to our nearest body of open water, a set of reservoir pools for the canals which have long been referred to locally as ‘lakes’. It was 1^o C and the ground was a mix of frozen mud and slushy puddles, wherever the perimeter path wasn’t gravelled. The first part of the walk was the hardest, knowing it was all still to do, being able to see how vast the irregular circuit appeared to me, adjusting to the rush of cold air into my hesitant lungs with every breath. I stopped awhile to look over the pools, awash with watery sunshine strained through limpid clouds, and I was honestly unsure that I could do this. Maybe just get as far around as I can, have a rest, turn back? My wife suggested we just tackle the nearest and slightly smaller pool to start with, for today. The relief was like a warm gulp of tea.

So around we trudged, dodging the occasional couples and family groups of walkers and their dogs, and the cars which brave the single-track causeway road, an icy bath plunge beckoning on either side of the wooden paling. We meandered down through the kissing gate to squelch along the fishermen’s path. The ditches and brooks which run in to feed the pools were all swollen and overflowing with muddy water from the recent rain and snow. The water was calm and slate grey, reflecting a moody sky, but still welcoming to the wildfowl who seem to prefer the cold water to the muddy banks. I was well dressed and in good walking shoes but nonetheless the cold seeped into my house-softened bones. I was aware of my own quiet panting and huffing, noises I never used to make knowingly on a walk unless we were trying to climb something anti-socially large and steep. At about 1/4 of the way around, I started to feel like my legs were becoming a little numb. We carried on and I realised that actually, they had begun to warm up and loosen out a little and that what I was feeling was how your legs are supposed to feel when they are getting a decent workout!

We made it all the way around and I got a few lovely photos as a bonus. It was the single largest number of steps I had taken in one go, not just since Covid, but from a month before that. I must admit I was properly tired out afterwards and needed a mug of hot chocolate back at home to recuperate. It was just so good to be out and about again, with water and sky and nature and that piercing clean air, as refreshing and reviving as the sweet, cold trickle of oxygen from a nasal canula – that last little one you don’t really want to give up, just in case, just in case…

I’ve admired the likes of The Body Coach TV – YouTube but somewhat from afar (!), chivvying everyone on to get off of their sofa-sagging bums and move about more, and I have even pinched a few of the quick daily exercise tips from BBC Breakfast and am gamely struggling to do these each day a.k.a. when I remember and can be bothered. Keeping going even if you don’t think you can – and not beating yourself up when you cannot – seem to me to be pretty important in navigating the path back to being okay with how you feel.