Sunday afternoon walk

When I was a child, we used to be dragged out for a walk every Sunday afternoon. There were times when I was young enough to take a scooter, or my fairy cycle (they don't call them that these days, do they?), and scooting or cycling round the quiet streets of Hyndland was all right, as Sunday afternoons went, but for some ten years of my life it was a given that we'd walk - Hyndland, Broomhill, Victoria Park - and I hated it. On Saturdays we'd walk to the library and back, which was purposeful and fine, but these melancholy winter walks depressed me. I was relieved when I was old enough to use homework as an excuse to opt out of them.

Now we still walk on Sunday afternoons, driven, perhaps, by the same demons that afflicted my parents, but we walk in the hills, up glens, along shore roads, and I love it. Even when the weather is grimly chilly, like today, there are moments when the sky clears and the Firth of Clyde is spread below the hills as the light fades and we forget the weather and simply enjoy being alive.

Half an hour later we were caught in the most ferocious hailstorm.