There is of course, never any point in crying over spilt milk - the key is to learn from failures and then to keep going.

Will I spend my life in a wheelchair? Tottering around my lounge, instead of running up mountain passes or navigating glaciers?

It is no use crying over spilt milk.

No one will pay you for planning an expedition at first: you have to work in pubs at weekends so you can pay the gas bills. I joined the Territorial Army, which paid me when I turned up to drill nights, and so did my wife.

After my heart attack I thought, is this it?

I go on expeditions for the same reason an estate agent sells houses - to pay the bills.