Recently on holiday I did a very bad thing. I nearly left the Fawn to die on a precipitous mountain path in the Canary Islands because she was having a terrible attack of vertigo that was threatening to spoil my fun.
No, worse: it actually did spoil my fun. Now that I’m old and boring I desperately need little jabs of adrenaline to remind me I’m still alive, and this particular route was doing the job quite nicely. Although it’s actually so undangerous that even my eightysomething dad can do it, it’s reasonably steep, it’s gobsmackingly picturesque, and it does now and then give you at least the illusion of a thrill because if you were to slip over the precipitous edge you’d definitely, definitely die.
My point was: ‘But you won’t die because the path’s broad and you won’t fall off.’ And the Fawn’s point — the vertigo sufferer’s point — was: ‘But I might.
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