Exercise sceptic

My only regular exercise is a 30 minute daily walk. I've never done anything more systematic than that, and I'm still fairly healthy at the age of 76 - apart from the usual aches and pains that affect us oldies.

• I don't do yoga
• I don't do pilates
• I don't do tai chi
• I don't have an exercise bike
• I don't work out
• I don't aim for 10,000 steps a day
• I don't do marathons
• I don't go jogging
• I don't cycle
• I don't swim

Mind you, if there was a gym in the immediate neighbourhood I might very well use it, but there isn't. The nearest gym requires a car journey which I would rather not have to make.

I suspect that a lot of exercise regimes don't actually make much difference to your present or future health. It's probably more the case that it makes the person feel good or they like the sense of self-discipline. At any rate that's how an exercise sceptic like me explains my sedentary lifestyle.

I certainly don't need to exercise surplus flesh away. My weight has remained constant for over 40 years at around 11½ stone - the ideal weight for my height of six feet. Strangely I always shed several pounds overnight. It seems that my body uses a lot of calories concocting the weird dreams I'm saddled with.

I suppose that's one benefit of all the cricket and rugby I had to play at school - I left school in good physical shape and not covered in flab, like so many of today's podgy youngsters.

Mountain fever

As soon as spring is sprung, my thoughts turn to the dazzling beauty of the Mourne Mountains, and it isn't long before I find myself driving down to Newcastle and clambering up those wild slopes for the umpteenth time.

The urge came yesterday, when I spent an ecstatic four and a half hours trudging up Slieve Binnian (747 metres) in a mixture of mist and brilliant sunshine, gasping at the incredible views across the Mournes and across Ben Crom and Silent Valley lakes.

Why are people drawn back time after time to these soggy, windswept lumps of rock? For me, it's a kind of spiritual cleansing, a kind of purging of the soul from all those everyday pressures that can set my nerves jangling and my mind racing. I guess we all have our own spiritual pickmeups. For other people it's God, or Mozart, or cocaine or even Celebrity Big Brother. All I can say is, when I'm up on one of those peaks, drinking in the scenery, walking briskly, listening to the infinite silence, I feel uplifted and revitalised.

How strange that a few years ago I had never set foot in the Mournes, having spent most of my life in the unrelieved flatness, the merciless horizontality of London - and never realised what I was missing. I would stroll round the feeble hillocks of Hampstead Heath, fighting for space among the jostling throngs of nature-starved Londoners, and kid myself it was some kind of recreational high. Mountains were as far removed from my everyday life as icebergs or koala bears.

Even the slightly undulating Cotswolds were several hours' drive away through miles of gridlocked traffic on fume-ridden motorways. Whatever tonic effect they might have would be instantly extinguished by the soul-destroying grind of the journey there and back. No surprise then that I'm firmly ensconced in Northern Ireland and have no wish whatever to return to the vast concrete jungle that is London.

And I haven't even mentioned the Antrim coast road - according to some tourist surveys, even more spectacular than the Grand Canyon or Machu Picchu. Say no more.