What are your favourite physical activities or exercises?
My favourite physical activity is simply walking. I know that sounds very vanilla, but that’s me. I’m not a rock climber. I’m not a gym person. I don’t crave the adrenaline of extreme sports. I just like walking.
For more than fifty years I played competitive football. I loved every minute of it — the movement, the camaraderie, the thrill of being part of a team. I’ve always been a relational person, and team sports suited me perfectly. There is something about shared effort, shared momentum, that felt deeply natural. I belonged to it.
Now that I’m older, I still look for relational movement, but it takes a gentler form. These days, walking is where I find it.
Most walks involve the dog. She adores running free, sniffing every inch of the path, wandering among the local ducks (she never chases them), but she cannot resist chasing ibis. There is something joyful about our morning routine. She explores the world with her nose; I explore it with my thoughts.
Walking is surprisingly creative for me. Ideas seem to loosen and flow with each step. Recently I placed second in a short story competition, and the seed of that story came while we were out walking. I wasn’t trying to be creative; the idea simply arrived, as though it had been waiting for movement to coax it into daylight.
But walking is also deeply relational in ways that go beyond the dog. Even though I live in an area undergoing massive high-rise development, I cannot walk anywhere without seeing someone I know. People meet and reconnect in all sorts of small, gentle ways — a wave from across the road, a conversation at the lights, a shared smile at the park. Walking keeps me part of the neighbourhood’s living fabric.
In the end, walking isn’t vanilla at all. It is the most human thing I do. It keeps me connected, keeps me thinking, keeps me moving at a pace that allows the world — and people — to come into focus. It may be simple, but it’s rich with relationship, creativity, and life.
The Afterword 
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