UMMER was a blast! With an early finish from work, I could be on the hills to the east of Manchester before half the city below had finished eating their tea, with a good three to four hours of daylight remaining. But as the season drifted inexorably towards autumn, the once warm evenings became shorter and cooler, and I felt the darkness closing in around me like a pack of hounds circling a fox. Indoor gyms and swimming pools held little attraction, and weight gain and cabin fever loomed large as the sedentary months of
