I read an article on Facebook this week which explained that the biggest single predictor of longevity was not being lean and athletic, but, quite simply, the number of people who greeted you, and with whom you exchanged pleasantries, in your normal daily life.
If this is so then I suggest that anybody who fancies immortality should probably get themselves a couple of dogs and take them for a walk through Windermere every morning.
Of course we all woke up this morning to the Siberian winter that has replaced Brexit as the chief topic employed by the media to whip us all up into a frenzy of anxiety. That is not to say that it is not jolly cold, Mark went out to the dustbin in his flip-flops this morning, and regretted it. All the same, I thought that it was disappointingly un-terrifying. We have got about four inches of silvery, powdery snow, mostly accompanied by glittering ice-blue skies: but occasionally bursting into little flurries of snowflakes, driven by gusts of biting wind.
With this in mind I thought that I would like to take the dogs up the fell this morning. I was not supposed to do this. I have, as you know, got an irritatingly sore knee, and there was some concerned discussion about whether or not such a journey would be a wise idea.
It had been jolly uncomfortable yesterday, but after a good night’s sleep it felt quite a bit better this morning, and I could walk all the way up the stairs with hardly a trace of a limp.
We called Number One Son-In-Law for his opinion, and he suggested witheringly that if I cut the leg off my trousers I could combine the prescribed ice pack with the walk and thus get the best of both worlds: but I do not have enough trousers for this to be a realistic option.
Of course I was going to go for a walk no matter what anybody said. It was snowing far too excitingly to stay at home. My Inner Five-Year-Old was bouncing around, longing to go and make footprints and look at my breath hanging in the icy air and make my fingers numb.
The thing is that Mark’s Inner-Five-Year-Old is about twelve, and takes its supervisory responsibilities very seriously. His friend Ted said that the roads were too bad for them to go to work straight away, so he decided that he would put his big coat on and come with us.
We trekked off through the park and up the hill. I didn’t run anywhere because of the knee, and because of the thick ice underneath the powdery snow. The dogs dashed about snorting and snuffling, and occasionally limping with the cold when they got bits of ice stuck between the pads on their paws.
Everything was fine for a while. The thing about going for a walk in the snow is that you can see exactly how many other people are doing the same thing. Around the village there are lots of tracks, fewer going up the hill, the occasional lone dog-walker on the path: and then none at all once you get out on to the open fell side. I am the first there every day.
I was not surprised about this today.
We turned off the path and up the fell and the wind whipped into a steady, icy blast. The higher we went, the harder it became, snowflakes stinging our exposed faces so hard we could hardly open our eyes. Every step twisted my knee a little further and sent a little jolt of pain shooting up my leg.
We got to the plateau just below the top before Mark noticed this. He stopped then, and said that we should turn back.
I protested my fitness to continue, but he was having none of it. The wind was blowing hard. The snow was falling thickly and starting to drift in the hollows, and it was becoming harder and harder to see where they were. He pointed behind us to the slope we had just climbed, and already our footprints had gone.
Of course he was right.
We set off back down, which is when he took the photograph. It might not be my finest moment, but it made him laugh.
Reaching Windermere again was like coming into a different world, sunny and hospitable and full of cheerful people going to the library and the post office. I limped back through the village with the far-seeing air of those who have stared into the face of terrible peril and survived.
Mark said that maybe now I might consider resting my sore knee.
I have spent the rest of the day writing letters.
