This was only the second time in my longish life that it had happened… I woke up, tried to get out of bed, and found I had lost the use of my legs.
The first time, ten years earlier, had been after an op and general anaesthetic. Now I was just turning 70 and it was the morning after I'd walked 18 miles in one day – on Europe's great pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.
My immediate reaction was slight panic. My next was to ask myself again: what am I doing here? The answer was that friends (much younger) had asked me to join them for the last five days and 71 miles of
