Walking therapy: how lockdown intensified friendship

Two by two, they pick their way through the mud. The quiet lanes and bridleways that were once the sole preserve of lone dog walkers in my neighbourhood are full of couples these days, but they’re not couples in the conventional sense. They’re pairs of friends, nearly always female, happily absorbed in what one of my own favourite walking partners calls the weekly moan.

Until this lockdown, I hadn’t realised that walking and talking was a recognised form of therapy, based on the idea that it’s easier to unburden yourself of something difficult when trudging