However, what I want to write about today is being grateful to my body – being grateful it got me through two seven hour days of hard walking. Being grateful that my fifty-eight year old body is working well enough to do the teetering and grovelling and navigating through terrain without tracks. My body can climb up Mount Shrimpton to two thousand metres elevation and descend precipitous tussock slopes, scrub you have to force your way through and slide down on your bottom. My body can negotiate slippery roots and rocks without my falling on my face or some other part of my anatomy. Better yet, my body can enjoy the exercise.

I think, with regret, of how cruel I was to my body for many years when I was younger. I was quite sure it was not the right sort of body. It was too big with bits that were too flabby. My body did not have blonde hair like all the best females in the story books, or a thigh gap that looked great in a mini skirt, or tiny arms looked good in puffed sleeves (did I really ever want to wear puffed sleeves?). I tortured my body – drank too much coffee, too much alcohol (briefly), didn’t eat enough food in the hope that my body would get smaller, controlled the foods I ate (in the hope my body would get smaller). I achieved no desired result but I didn't conclude I was doing the wrong thing, I concluded I was doing the right thing wrongly – I need to do more of the torture.

I rarely thought about how amazing it was my body could take me wherever I wanted it to go. It could walk for hours and hours and hours, carry heavy weights (a memorable feat being carrying a double rope pulley from a ski lift hundreds of metres down the Temple Basin ski field). My body could build rock walls, ski steep slopes, climb mountains, play a musical instrument. But it wasn’t the right shape.

I’d like to say I’m past all that. I’m definitely past the too much coffee, alcohol or starving myself. However, the legacy of thinking there is the right way for a body to look lives on in my head. It’s a curse that no spell has managed to lift; it’s imprinted in my neurons.

However, I'm hopeful it's not too late. Nothing's too late until you are dead. One small step at a time, one more step actively remembering how this solid body has got me through and continues to get me through. I remain hopeful I will get to the point where gratitude is all I remember.