Chapter OneChapter OneIt began more than three years ago, on a golden evening of high summer. I'd started out from Knighton that morning on what was projected to be a six day tramp along the southern half of Offa's Dyke. I've always found I think best when walking alone. And since I had a great deal to think about at the time, a really long walk seemed one way of ensuring I thought clearly and well. Decisions masquerading as choices were closing in around me. Middle age was beckoning, a fork in life's path looming ahead. Nothing was as simple as I wanted it to be, nor as certain. But up in the hills, there was the hope it might seem so.
It was Tuesday the seventeenth of July 1990. A well remembered date, well remembered and much recorded. A day of baking heat and unbroken sunshine, declining to a dusk of sultry langour. A day of solid walking and serious thinking for me, of bone hard turf beneath my feet and hazy blue above my head. I saw no buzzards, as I'd hoped to, circling in the thermals, thoug ...
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