“Shall we take an umbrella?” I asked as I put my head out from my studio door.

“Is it raining?” inquired Chris. (He doesn’t like to be cluttered with paraphernalia when out for a walk, in fact he’d prefer to go coat-less unless it’s actually raining.)

“No, but there are these big drips – it has been raining,” I admitted.

Chris agreed it might be prudent to take my pink umbrella and then I remembered that I always get wet when my husband holds the umbrella so I urged him to take his big black umbrella also. He paused, probably remembered my usual complaints about peculiar angles and different heights, and he located his own, grand scale, umbrella. But we didn’t need them at first; on our way out we just used them as jaunty walking sticks.

In truth, it wasn’t the best day to go out walking. Yes, we’d had one false dawn since our arrival back from Australia – on Friday – but the weekend was dismal, cold and wet. Yesterday we didn’t even step out of the house. I put on my new cuddly warm jumper (only size 10 and half-price, maybe because they got the sizing wrong!) and developed a kind of sleeping sickness that made it impossible for me to move from the sofa until bedtime. Chris, too, had sleeping sickness but less severe than mine and he discovered he could muster the energy to use the television remote control. What a terrible day it was, but I managed to stay awake for “The Love Bug” movie and laughed at the same things I found funny as a child.

So you see, we needed to get out for some exercise this morning, no matter the weather; especially as I’m embarking on another new diet – the Dr. Mosely “Eight-Week Diet Plan” (except that I shall have to do it for life because my inclination is always to put on weight!). I call it “The Black-Shirt Diet” because of another famous Mosely. It sounds quite easy because you can eat anything… except for normal bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Put like that it doesn’t come across as easy but I must “endeavour to persevere”, as Chief George said in the Western, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”. And, thank Heaven, you can eat low GI bread, (which is not to be confused with short American soldiers who might, nonetheless, be quite tasty!).

Of course it rained and we were glad that we’d brought along our individual umbrellas. Chris carried his sturdy umbrella in his unusual, up and forward advance, fashion whilst I opted for the lower, keep dry all-round, method. Chris exaggerated that I nearly had his eye out and caught his ear twice; I couldn’t help it – my smaller umbrella seemed to have more prongs. But it was all said good-naturedly and the wetter it became, the more we laughed; the exercise made us exhilarated and we were rather pleased that, unusually for us, we had come prepared.

We were not the only people walking to and from Dawlish Warren in the rain this morning. Several others greeted us on their morning constitutional. Our comrades with umbrellas were particularly chipper and smiley, one chap raised his umbrella in a grand gesture as if it was a hat; the ones without umbrellas smiled wryly as if to say they would “endeavour to persevere”. All this walking has made me hungry. Now if you’ll excuse me I must try to find something to eat!