"Something's just occurred to me", I said.

"What?"

"This might have been a really stupid idea".

"Yeah", Karim replied sagely. "I was thinking that".

That was about thirty minutes in, perhaps a mile down the path. It was a strange realisation, made all the more strange because it hadn't occurred to me before. Perhaps it had, but I wasn't paying attention. Perhaps I was just distracted by the thought of having three weeks away from my pub, with a pack on my back again after two years. Because it wasn't until the bag was on my back and my back was halfway up a hill that I had pause to catch my breath and think that maybe three weeks sat on my arse would have been the better choice.

We got lost three times on the first day. Lee, a friend of mine and fond walker, veteran of the Pennine Way and other long walks, told me it was impossible to get lost on the Pennine Way. When I told him about it, he admitted that he had been wrong. What he had meant to say was that only an idiot can get lost on the Pennine Way. Fair point. I don't think I helped the issue by only looking at the map once we were most definitely lost, and then of course having no idea where we were...

By lunchtime I had developed a small blister on the back of one of my feet. It turned out that my 100% blister free guarantee socks were a load of old b******s. Not to worry, I thought. One small blister can't do any harm. It hardly even hurts.