I have seen something that few people have actually seen.

I have seen myself walking.

When you think about it, to see yourself walking is about as rare as seeing the back of your head, but I am one of the privileged few. I have seen loads of photographs of myself but this is the first time I have really seen myself in action in full glorious high definition technicolour. That’s what comes of having a damned CCTV camera.

Two things have become apparent. The first is that the old hair is beginning to thin a bit at the top. That doesn’t bother me too much. The other is that I walk with a fierce stoop. I walk as if I were constantly examining the ground in front of me for piles of dog shit [which in fairness I usually am]. I suppose it is one of the consequences of being over six foot tall? For example, Herself is a foot shorter so if we are walking together [in the good old days] I have to stoop to hear what she is saying all the way Down There.

I suppose I should have realised I had a bit of a hunchback from the photograph of myself up in the mountains that I use at the top of this site?

I’m not vain. I can happily walk around the village with my hair uncombed [or unwashed], wearing slippers and with my zip at half mast. But at the same time I don’t particularly want to look as if I were carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, even though I usually am.

So I have started retraining myself. I throw my shoulders back and walk with my head held high.

I keep cracking my head off the door frames now as the old doors here are built for midgets [or presidents?] and are considerably lower than normal.

Another reason I learned to stoop?