14/04/2026
Good evening Horsham. Practice director Dom here... As many of you will know, I do tend to take a slightly relaxed approach to life where possible - which is why, if you happen to walk into Clockhouse Podiatry at the right moment, there is every chance you’ll find Michelle and I dancing in receptionwhen we are, in theory, supposed to be doing something much more productive.
We’ve always liked the practice to feel warm, friendly and human. We take what we do very seriously - but we don’t take *ourselves* too seriously, and I think that’s part of what makes the practice what it is. We like to share what we’re up to, we like to do the odd silly thing from time to time, and apparently I remain deeply committed to making questionable decisions in public.
So, in that spirit, I thought I’d let you all know what I’m up to in May.
Because I have, for reasons that remain deeply unclear, decided to do another very long walk.
There is, I have come to believe, a very specific human mechanism designed not for survival exactly, but for repeat bad decisions. It is not the same as optimism, which at least has a noble ring to it, nor is it quite denial, which tends to be more immediate and personal, like insisting a pair of trousers still fit when they are in fact engaged in active conflict with your waistline. No, this is something else entirely: a sort of selective amnesia that descends after any sufficiently terrible undertaking and quietly edits the record until what remains appears, if not pleasant, then at least survivable.
It is, I suspect, the only reason people ever voluntarily do hard things twice.
Back in 2018, in what can only be described as a failure of adult judgement on a truly impressive scale, I walked from Cambridge to Sdm* Total Therapy Studios in Horsham. This was, at the time, presented as a meaningful challenge involving charity, determination, grit, resilience, and all the other noble words one wheels out when trying to disguise the fact that something is fundamentally a very bad idea. In reality, it was a long, painful, ridiculous expedition undertaken by a man whose body had not been adequately briefed on the matter.
It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Harder than exams, harder than tax returns, harder even than trying to explain to a broadband provider that “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” is not in fact a comprehensive engineering philosophy. There were blisters of such complexity they deserved their own medical records, emotional lows of Shakespearean depth, and moments when a passing hedge seemed like a perfectly reasonable place to simply lie down and remain.
And yet - because the human brain is a deeply unreliable archivist - time has done what time does. It has blurred the misery, softened the details, and left behind only the more manageable parts: the camaraderie, the support, the strange pride, the occasional absurd hilarity of it all. My friend Katie even persuaded me to write a book about the experience, which means the whole ordeal was committed to paper and distributed to innocent readers who, through no fault of their own, had to relive it with me. Some of you even read it. A few of you claimed to enjoy it, which was kind and, frankly, suspicious. Naturally as I write this, I'm reminded of the writing experience, which was consistently more enjoyable than the walking part.
But back in 2018, having completed this monument to poor planning and physical discomfort, I declared - with all the solemnity of a man who believes he has learned something - that I would never, ever do anything like it again.
So anyway, in May, I am going to walk the Solent Way.
This is not, on paper, quite as deranged as Cambridge to Horsham, but only because paper has no understanding of my actual fitness levels, which currently sit somewhere between “desk-bound” and “slightly winded by stairs.” The Solent Way, for those unfamiliar with Britain’s long-standing national tradition of calling difficult things “pleasant walks,” is a coastal footpath running from Milford-on-Sea to Emsworth. It stretches for roughly 100km along the southern coast of Hampshire, taking in salt marshes, harbours, old villages, sea walls, ferries, estuaries, marinas, and a frankly unreasonable amount of opportunities for my knees to make formal complaints.
The plan - and I use the word in its loosest possible sense - is to walk it over four days, from west to east, starting on a Monday and finishing on a Thursday. This has all the pleasing neatness of a military operation, except for the fact that it is being undertaken by someone who has not, in any meaningful sense, trained for it. I have, of course, thought about training. I have discussed training. I have even looked at footwear with the grave intensity of a man who believes that purchasing the correct sock is essentially the same as preparation. But as with many things in life, there comes a point where one must either do the thing or continue talking about doing the thing until old age takes the decision away. The Clockhouse team, it is fair to say, are kindly livid about this.
So: the thing will be done.
I’ll be heading down on the Sunday and staying overnight in Milford-on-Sea, which feels appropriately civilised - a final evening of bedsheets, plumbing, and conventional mobility before the coast and I begin what will almost certainly become an increasingly strained relationship. From there, I’ll head east in four broad chunks, each one carefully designed to be “equal-ish,” which is walking-language for “probably fine until it absolutely isn’t.”
The route itself is gloriously, unmistakably British. This is not the dramatic, operatic coastline of travel documentaries where rugged men in expensive waterproofs stand on cliffs and speak in hushed tones about geology. This is a more familiar and, I think, more lovable sort of coast: sea walls, little harbours, old ferry points, shingle, mud, weather-beaten promenades, villages with suspiciously expensive ice cream, and the occasional pub that appears at precisely the moment a person begins to question the whole concept of movement.
There is something deeply reassuring about the British coast when viewed on foot. It has all the charm of a country that has never quite decided whether it is a maritime power or simply a collection of damp people peering at the sea. One moment you are walking through nature reserves full of birds and wind and open sky, and the next you are negotiating a slightly awkward bit of waterfront path behind a row of bins and a marina called something like The Admiral’s Quay. It is, in other words, real. Slightly scruffy, occasionally inconvenient, and all the better for it.
There will also be ferries, which adds a pleasing note of adventure while in practice mostly means “a small boat I very much hope is running.” The route involves crossings around places like Hythe, Hamble and Gosport - all of which sound faintly fictional, as if they ought to be home to retired colonels and a highly specific sort of dog. Should any of these fail, I am assured there are alternatives involving taxis, bridges, and mild irritation. This is the kind of contingency planning that feels robust in theory and faintly ominous in reality.
Accommodation-wise, I shall be staying in proper places each night, which is important because I have reached an age and temperament at which “roughing it” sounds less like character-building and more like poor administration. The intended stops are sensible, coastal, and close enough to the route to avoid adding unnecessary bonus mileage to an already ambitious undertaking. There is no camping involved, because I have no desire to spend the evening wrestling with nylon in a field while pretending this constitutes freedom.
And I should say - crucially, from a podiatry perspective - that my feet are almost certainly going to take an absolute battering.
Which does at least mean I will be in the right hands afterwards.
One of the things I’m most grateful for at Clockhouse Podiatry is the team around me. While I’m off making spectacularly poor life choices along the south coast, I know full well I’ll be relying on the wonderful team here for support, advice, sympathy, treatment, and no doubt a fairly relentless level of “well, you did choose to do it.” If anyone is going to get me patched back together afterwards, it will be the people I work alongside every day.
And honestly, that feels rather fitting.
Because while this may technically be my silly idea, one of the nicest things about doing something like this is that it never really feels like you’re doing it entirely alone. There’s always support, encouragement, messages, check-ins, and people quietly willing you on - and I know from last time just how much that matters when you’re somewhere between “heroically persevering” and “mildly limping into the nearest village.”
And so here we are again: on the brink of another entirely avoidable expedition.
I am, as previously established, very unfit. I am underprepared. I have not become mysteriously younger, lighter, or more aerodynamic since last time. There is every chance that by day two I will be moving with the grace and mechanical confidence of a wardrobe being pushed across a carpet. But there is also, I suspect, something very good about setting off to do a thing that is difficult, faintly silly, and just beyond one’s comfortable limits.
Not because suffering is noble - it generally isn’t - but because there is a strange joy in doing something gloriously unnecessary. In taking yourself, your doubtful knees, and your extremely average cardiovascular system off along the British coast simply because it seemed, at some point, like a good idea.
Which, history suggests, is exactly the sort of thing I should never be trusted with.
So that’s the plan. Four days. The Solent Way. The wonderful British coast. Questionable fitness. Dubious preparation. Probably some weather. Almost certainly some regret. And, if all goes well, a finish line in Emsworth and the deeply satisfying knowledge that once again I have chosen the most inconvenient possible route to personal growth.
If nothing else, it should at least make for a decent story.
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