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

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

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.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing