Solvitur ambulando

The phrase Solvitur ambulando, meaning 'it is solved by walking', is attributed to Diogenes the Cynic, a Greek philosopher of the 3rd century BCE who made a virtue of poverty and believed that action was preferable to words.

As I walked to the bus stop today I spied this heavily laden man walking down the road towards me. I could tell from his gait and from the way he was festooned with makeshift baggage that he was no ordinary hiker and I crossed over to greet him. I wondered if he might be a 'gentleman of the road' (a tramp or a hobo) such as is rarely seen these days but no - in the 10 minutes or so before my bus arrived he briefly sketched his story.

David habitually takes long walking holidays, carrying his tent and bed roll, and keeping mainly to quiet lanes and byways. In the past he used to roam around North Wales but this time he decided to stick to the gentler terrain further south and so far he has meandered down from Aberystwyth on his way back to home - he didn't appear to have any set itinerary. He explained that three years ago he had a heart attack and after three weeks convalescence he found that his usual 30 minute daily stroll to the local shop took him 90 minutes. He has been rebuilding his stamina ever since.

I remarked that he appeared to lack any of the high tech, lightweight equipment that long-distance walkers normally choose. Well, he said, you see them get out of their cars, walk a couple of hours and then drive home. That was not his style. Originally from Lancashire he had worked hard all his life to put food on the table for his family. His jobs were always tough, manual ones and he used to despise soft options like cooking. But 18 years ago when his marriage broke up he moved to Pembrokeshire and took a job in the kitchen of a care home, loved it and stayed there 15 years.

My bus hove into view at this point and I had to take my leave. I watched him amble off down the road at a steady pace heading for Fishguard and where next?

This amiable man reminded me of the many great pedestrians there have been, such as Thomas Coryate, the Somerset rector's son who made it on foot to India in the early 1600s; George Borrow, who wandered the length and breadth of Wild Wales in the mid 19th century, hailing and conversing in self-taught Welsh with every peasant and preacher he met; and, more recently the incomparable but unclassifiable writer Bruce Chatwin whose love affair with nomadism engendered his quirky travel tales, in particular the novel Songlines in which he celebrates the ambulant cosmos of the indigenous Australian people and sets out his own beliefs in the essentially peripatetic nature of humankind.

I hope this man is healed by his walking. I think so.