It's easy to identify wrong choices after the event but it's important not to lose your life to regret. Every door you choose to open, leaves not one but many closed. Who is to say which of the others would have led to better paths? If real life gave us a video game's opportunities to go back and make other choices, even three lives might still not be enough.

At dark times in my marriage to the late Mrs P., I sometimes remembered a time at university when I considered ending our relationship to pursue another woman. In those fantasies, the alternate Mrs P. and I lived happily ever after in fairy-tale style. In truth, that potential relationship would have had its issues too. I might well have married the other lady and found myself fantasising that I had chosen Mrs P. instead.

In a way, the last six months of the late Mrs P's life were the best of our marriage. The problems that had often made us miserable were put into perspective. Faced with the real problem of her cancer, they hardly seemed worthy of the name. Just as we'd grown together in the struggles of our early lives, the shared focus on her survival brought us close. As I took care of her in ways she'd never imagined I could, her insecurities about my love disappeared. Focusing on her care made me, for a while at least, less selfish. Things that might once have made me angry suddenly seemed far too trivial to fret about. Some of that perspective never left me. I am a calmer man than I was if not a wiser one. 

When Mrs P. died, I discovered how complex grief is. Among many things, I grieved the loss of my hope that one day we'd solve the problems of our marriage. It may well have been a forlorn hope; clung to rather than embraced. Perhaps if she'd survived her cancer our new perspective might have made for a perfect marriage? But she didn't. In these matters, as in so may, you just can't tell, so why waste time speculating?

In the month since Mrs P. the Second left me, I have experienced grief again. I have wished I never met her. I have cast aside every happy memory in dark thoughts. Yet the truth is she may well have saved my life. In my grief at the time I met her, I was taking no care of myself. That I lived to experience this new loss is painful but without her I might not be here to experience it – or anything else.

We don't learn much from success in my experience. It tends to make us complacent and stale. It was the success of the Kodak company – proprietor of arguably the world's best-known brand – that made its leadership dismiss digital photography when one of its employees invented it. Off he went to a competitor and off they went into the dustbin of commercial history.

When I look back on my life, I realise it was the errors and losses that helped me grow. In fact all that was best in my career arose from my very worst mistake. I have often used that story when counselling friends and colleagues worried about career choices. I tell them "make the best choice you can, but don't worry too much. The bad choice might lead to great things too."

With that positive thought I wish you all, gentle readers, a very happy new year. I hope that 2022 will be a better year for all of us.

I apologise for posting once more about my personal life. It’s not in my nature, I hope, to overshare. The Oprah Winfreyite idea that everyone has a personal “truth” that it’s somehow brave or noble to bare disgusts me. It’s self-indulgent and morally-corrosive. Having begun a sad story here however, I didn’t want to let lie the impression it must have left.

I have felt sorry for myself since that post. Apart from two doctors’ appointments I’ve stayed home alone thinking dark thoughts and kept away from friends and family. There was perhaps an element of improper pride in that. I didn’t want the people who love me to see me broken. 

Today I had a drink and a meal with an old friend. A simple and yet a powerful thing. We touched on my grief and my reaction to it, but mostly we talked of things I blanked out in my self-pity. It was enough to help me see that, though I’ve suffered a blow, my life is still good.

We began, for example, to hatch a plan for a trip to Japan — for whose culture and food we share an affection. I would love to make that happen and document it here. COVID has put travel (and blogging about it) on hold but it would be good to do more. To take better photos, a wise man once advised, “stand in front of more interesting stuff”. It would be good to dust off my photography gear and do just that.

Yes it’s hard to be rejected by someone you love. It’s sad when a relationship breaks down, for whatever reason. Being dumped is certainly not good for that self-esteem the Winfrey-ites value above all but so what? How we feel about ourselves is often a poor guide. The Kray Brothers did not lack for self esteem, for example. The world might have been better if they’d had less of it. Amour-propre used to be considered a bad thing.

Ultimately there’s no value in being with someone who doesn’t want to be there. The only good human relationships are consensual. That consent having been unexpectedly and disappointingly withdrawn, a good libertarian must blink back his tears and move on. My soon-to-be-ex wife has her story and I love her enough to hope, in the end, it’s a good one. I’m sorry I won’t be in future chapters but hey ho.

Thank you, gentle readers, for your words of support and encouragement. They helped. I apologise to those of you (and those of my family and friends) who reached out directly and were ignored. I did not mean to spurn your help, I just wasn’t ready to handle it gracefully.

I am sorry to have troubled you here with problems that were no concern of yours. Please let’s say no more of it and move on with dignity.

The second Mrs P., who led me from my grief at the death of Mrs P. to a new and briefly happy life, has left me. She met a new man at her work. 

Our age difference (almost thirty years) was always a risk. For years before we married I told her that – good though it was for me – our relationship would never work for her in the long-term and that she should find someone more suitable. A religious friend told me I was selfishly putting my own happiness before hers; denying her the prospect of a full life, children etc. I was too weak to take his advice to break it off for her sake.

Perhaps it really was selfish on my part. I tried not to fall in love with her, but failed. I convinced myself that she knew her own mind and that – crazy though it seemed – I was blessed. So much for that nonsense.

Today I am paying the price. I am the old fool there is no fool like and this feels like the end of more than just my marriage. When I told one of my best friends – a younger man I mentored long ago – it was noticeable how quickly he passed from sympathy to boasting of his own achievements. In that moment, I felt like a wounded old lion, skulking off into the veldt to die alone.

My sense of loss is in some ways greater than when Mrs P. died. She, after all, did not choose to leave me. That thirty year relationship was fraught at times and far from perfect. I was no more the ideal husband than she was the ideal wife, but – robustly critical as she often was – she did not reject me like this. Unlike our daughters whose reaction to my remarrying was implacably hostile. They refused to come to the wedding and have mostly spurned me ever since. Another price I pay for folly.

I am not sure what this development means for an already-faltering blog. In COVID times, it's become apparent that the vast majority of my fellow-citizens are as far from my view of politics, economics, justice and morality as it is possible to be. I was already posting infrequently because I felt my cause was lost. The pontificating of a broken and bitter old man is even less likely to win anyone over. 

I shall read and write a little every day. I shall exercise and try to take care of my health. I shall focus on my hobbies and perhaps make a solitary road trip or two. The story took a dark turn but it is not ended yet. 

I started this blog sixteen years ago today. Since then I have written the equivalent of several novels in short posts mostly about civil liberties. The British Library is archiving it apparently. One day an historian may analyse just how wrong I was about everything. The Don Quixote in me hopes he'll instead explain how wrong politicians, apparatchiks and social "scientists" were not to agree with me!

Their mightiness in comparison to swordplay have never been clear to me, but I've had occasional indications that my words might have made a difference. I can only hope so. In terms of prosperity and life expectancy, humanity continues to advance, so maybe our political errors don't matter as much as my worries suggest. I must hope for that too. 

Anyway, if you have been, thanks for reading.

Rather than give up on my exercise regime during Lockdown #2 (a mistake I made during Lockdown #1), I resolved to walk the Thames Path in sections from Hampton Court to Canary Wharf. Walking is less efficient as exercise than swimming. According to my tracker, today's walk burned only the calories I would usually expend in swimming for an hour. In fairness, I have done better than that on other, longer sections – but all the walks took more time too. I have never enjoyed physical exercise. I only do it as medicine. Walking costs too much for my taste.

Work on the Tideway (aka the "Super Sewer") and the presumably-furloughed employees who usually open the gates through Docklands housing developments subject to daylight hours rights of way, meant I spent too much time out of sight of the river. Today this was often just a Thames-proximate Path. On a couple of occasions I took the opportunity to go down alleyways that led to a river view, only to have to come back to Wapping High Street, or wherever, to resume my non-riparian stroll. 

I was surprised by how smart Wapping is. Huge amounts of money have clearly poured in since the days when locals bemoaned the closing of the docks post-containerisation. There are elegant wharf and warehouse conversions; some of them by Housing Associations so not (intentionally) occupied by the wealthy. Even the social housing (always detectable by the state of the balconies, even though the cars outside – often Jags and Mercs these days – are no longer a reliable signal) seemed mostly very pleasant. Rather than an area of deprivation, it looked (after considerable redistribution of wealth, presumably) a very agreeable community to live in. It's nice to know someone's enjoying the proceeds of my lifetime of work, I suppose.

I spent some of the most fun times of my life working on the negotiation of lease for a major initial tenant in One Canada Square (the Canary Wharf Tower). The banks who financed the development had committed to lease there themselves, provided x,000 square feet was let to other banks by a deadline. I suppose they wanted to make their borrower prove that the Wharf would work as an extension of the City of London. Our client was a bank and its lease hit that limit – as it turned out – in the last hour before the deadline. Our client's negotiator didn't know the details, but had sensed that something was up. He procrastinated to get us as close as possible to the deadline to maximise his negotiating advantage. Such was the landlord's desperation in the end that our lease was ridiculously favourable. I had a lot of fun devising imaginative, plausible (but impossible) demands to help him delay. 

Passersby may have thought I was appreciating the architecture when the sight of that building made me smile today, but in truth I was remembering the only time I was paid to take the p*** for months. I know some of you think that's what lawyers always do,  but I promise you that was the only time for me!

My health club opens next Wednesday and I have two swims booked, b.v.*, already. So my walking days are (I hope) over. I can't say I have enjoyed the activity itself, but I have enjoyed getting a sense of the shape of London. I had been to many of the places before, but had not fully understood where they were in relation to each other. Walking through a city will fix that for sure. In fairness to walking, you can combine it with photography – and you can get to see new things worth photographing. Swimming's no good from that point of view. Still, I shall be going back to it – and motoring to my photoshoots!

The photos from the final day are here. I hope you enjoy them. 

*Boris volenti.

This is one of the shortest sections of my planned walk, but richest in photo-opportunities. From the MI6 Building to the Houses of Parliament, Lambeth Palace, the more famous bridges, City Hall and (more poignant to me) the various buildings I worked on when I was a young property lawyer.

My then firm was neither one of the genteel Inns operations handling aristocratic estates nor one of the corporate City outfits where "dirt lawyers" are looked down on. Our reputation was on the aggressive side (snobs were known to call us "spivs") but I believe it was the best place to learn the ways of the racy, exciting real estate business that is still (even after almost a decade of retirement) the world where I feel most comfortable. It was my experience at that firm that made me feel far more a real estate person than a lawyer.

I wouldn't bore you with the details of old deals even if professional ethics permitted, but I remembered them fondly today in all their long-forgotten details. There is one building featured in today's photographs which has such complicated subterranean boundaries that I'd bet I am still the only person who fully understands them. I remember the reaction of HM Land Registry when I suggested to them that they could only be properly represented by a hologram.

There's a life lesson that I reflected on today though in how little all those things we agonised and fought about matter now. I missed key moments of my daughters' lives to deal with issues the people fighting over them have long forgotten. I hope my daughters are wiser than I was when their time comes.

The walk barely needs describing. The most casual visitor to London will recognise most of the landmarks featured so the captions to the photographs will suffice. If you can't name a prominently-featured building, then I took a fee for legal advice in relation to it!  The photographs are to be found here and I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Kew Bridge is close to home. I crossed the bridge to the steps I ascended, exhausted, at the end of Monday’s walk and set off. I’ve spent a lot of time on this section of the Thames near my home in Chiswick, but never on the opposite bank.

The guide book I’m using to plan my days says:

This is one of the greenest and most beautiful lengths of the Thames Path, with no irritating diversions. Just after Kew Bridge the path passes Kew Pier, from which boats depart for Richmond, Hampton Court and Westminster. The following stretch is pleasantly countrified, along an unmade track with trees and flowering bushes on both sides, which at points join up to form a canopy overhead.

I passed Mortlake and the local cemetery where it’s likely my earthly form will one day be incinerated, and walked on to Barnes, where the cultural references include blue plaques for the founder of the Royal Ballet and Gustav Holst plus a Stormtrooper from Star Wars on some local’s balcony. 

I ate my sandwich lunch, prepared by Mrs P2, on a bench outside St Paul’s School. A Remembrance Day service was in progress, ending with The Last Post. I’d been feeling footsore and sorry for myself but this reminded me of what a real problem was and inspired me to take on the final march for the day.

After Hammersmith Bridge (closed for emergency repairs to the great inconvenience of locals) I passed the London Wetland Centre and had the chance to see progress on the new stand replacing the one where my seat used to be at Craven Cottage. Having been excluded from my football home by our COVID tyrants it was quite nostalgic to see the place. From there it was not far to my destination and the bus home from a stop on the middle of the bridge. 

Today’s pictures are here. 

I was quite proud of yesterday’s effort but before I could blog about it received an email of encouragement from a long-time reader who told me he’d had a similar idea for lockdown and had walked the South Downs Way from Eastbourne to Winchester. That’s eighty-four miles and he did it — not in twelve days as I plan to do mine — but in five! His last day of walking was twenty-nine miles. I feel embarrassed now to describe my paltry stroll, but can only say well done, sir! 

I returned to Teddington Lock, where I finished on Friday, and set off on the sylvan South Bank path. I hoped to make it to Kew Bridge but decided to get to Richmond first and see how I felt. Rain was predicted but didn’t arrive. At Richmond it just didn’t seem like enough of an effort so I pressed on thinking I would stop when I’d had enough. The path had no earlier options to end, however, as it ran alongside Kew Gardens. I’m a member there and could have cut across — if there was an entrance on that side. There isn’t, or at least not until half a mile from the end. Exhausted I sat on a wall and ate my sandwich then pressed on. It was seven and a half miles and (while fit readers may snigger) it was almost beyond me. By the time I got home having taken a bus from Kew Bridge Station, my total for the day including to and from Overground Station and bus stop was eight and a half miles. 

My photos are to be seen here if you’re interested. Even through gritted teeth I found the route beautiful in Autumn colours. 

I grew up around clandestine Conservatives behind Labour lines in the North. The North-East of Wales to be precise, but the border was in sight and our TV came from Manchester. My family were old-fashioned Tories; God, Queen, Country and leave business alone (except when it’s foreign and shouldn’t be allowed). I was forbidden coca-cola because there was nothing wrong with dandelion and burdock. My family were mostly that kind of provincial c(C)conservative. 

Apart, that is, from an eccentric great aunt who had been Labour all her life. In 1946 she had voted for her brothers’ transport company to be expropriated. Of course she used the euphemism “nationalised” but she knew - and relished - what it meant. She used to say such endearing things to studious young Tom as “children educated by the state should never be allowed to leave the country - you owe us and should stay to pay your debt.” She was against private education too, so rather insisted on this imprisoning debt. I think the imprisonment was part of the appeal to her controlling nature. Unlike the rest of our family of tradesmen, shopkeepers and truck drivers, she worked as a civil servant and looked down on us money grubbers scornfully even as she grubbed our money.

She was a terrible advocate for her party; far too openly authoritarian and far too liable to speak of the masses as cattle. She was a snob too. Even as a Socialist young man, I thought her ideology sprang more from contempt for the masses, than from love. They had to be helped, poor dears, because they were so obviously bloody hopeless. How lucky they were to have her. Recognise the type? It's not new.

My teachers were more effective recruiters. Of all those who taught me from the age of 4 until I left University at 21, I think only two were Conservative. I can’t even be sure about the first one - a French teacher at secondary school - as it was scarcely a safe admission to make so far inside the Labour heartlesslands. There was just something about her demeanour that suggested it. As for the second one, he was an eccentric homosexual law lecturer; about 500 in gay years. He tucked his shirt into his underpants and pulled them up above his trousers. He was in advance of hip hop fashions, perhaps, but the overall effect, when combined with a tendency actually to drool in the presence of attractive male students, was off-putting. Perhaps he was a double agent making Conservatism as unattractive as possible? He said sensible stuff about the Berlin Wall at Debating Society though - to jeers from Leftist students. After the fall of the wall, leftists affected always to have opposed the totalitarian excesses of the USSR and Warsaw Pact but believe me it was all “our socialist brothers” back then. There were leftist opponents of the Soviets in my university — the Trots who thought the Revolution had been betrayed and should be continued ferociously forever. Over at Oxford at the time, Tony Blair was one of those.

By the age of 12 or 13 I thought I would vote Labour when the time came. By 14 I was reading a grovellingly flattering biography of Marx. By 15 I was reading the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital in translation. I heard the siren words “from each according to his ability; to each according to his need” and — for a while — I was lost. As an earnest young intellectual bathing in big ideas, I thought I was going to change the world. Of course as an adolescent male seeking to assert his independence from his father, the fact that my Marxism made him a villain was a bonus. Poor Dad. How he worried about me. How embarrassed he was when I was suspended from school for my revolutionary activities (selling Free Palestine and The Thoughts of Chairman Mao on school premises and being Welsh chair of the Schools Action Union, which organised the only school pupils strike in British history under the slogan “Don’t take the cane, break the cane!”). It was all from love of the masses of course. I didn’t see that I would be delivering them into servitude to a grim regiment of people like my steely-eyed great aunt — merciless and free from doubt or moral restraint. 

There was one good consequence of this nonsense. The late Mrs P. was no communist herself but, years later, she said she was first attracted to me because I was the only boy she knew “who was at least trying to think”. If I had never been an aspiring Maoist thug, there would be no Misses P today.

If Ricky Tomlinson, his band of thugs and their pick-axe handles had not turned up on the building site where I was working in my school holidays I don’t know if I would have continued on that path. I have compassion for my deluded enemies partly because I think “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” I hope I would have read myself out of the foul swamp I’d read myself into but had I arrived at University a leftist, I might well have been lost forever. There were many clever fellow students there who read nothing that challenged their Marxism and I could well have become their mindless comrade.

Just as my daughters owe their existence to Mao Tse-Tung’s sociopathic violence so I owe my classical liberalism to Ricky Tomlinson’s rough thuggery. It's funny how these things go.

To be continued...

The Last Ditch (Archives): The opening shot.