I'm a Christmas rambler, and I'm not ashamed to say it

[VaGner!]

After dashing about all year, a winter stroll is the perfect tonic

If proof were needed that I am no longer young and hip, it is my newfound passion for a ramble.

As an angsty teen, and later as a perennially hungover student, I deeply resented family walks, which were compulsory at this time of year. To me the fuzzy, neither here nor there period between Christmas and New Year was best spent sleeping till noon, then transferring to the sofa to watch an old movie - preferably Planes, Trains and Automobiles - and work my way through a chocolate selection box. Instead I was dragged on several bracing strolls - blown to bits along the seafront at Brighton where my grandparents lived, or ambling...