I’m sure that any poll of a small or large sample of people would determine just about a 50-50 split on the preferences they would have for either the sea or the mountains.

Both environments have their beauty, their challenges, their tranquillity and their dangers.

I am a person who has no swimming prowess. My first swimming lesson was at the age of 14 and a pool under the supervision of a director who did not know how awful a 14-year-old felt to be practising the basics of aquatic performance along with six and seven-year-olds. Her telling me that I was awful at swimming was both a confirmation and a humiliation.

I leapt out of the pool, swore loudly at her, took off and never looked back when it came to swimming, the sea, watersports or anything else that had the beachfront.

My preference is definitely for hills and mountains.

On our family farm as I was growing up, was a great big hill or someone saying to me. It’s that at no great distance behind our house. Relatively speaking, the hill was quite tall. It was rough and rugged but laced with trees. It had several grassy knolls and also a slope that was well grassed that one could slide down during the winter months when the grass was green.

As a young child and a person merging into my teenage years, I spent a great deal of time, many many hours in fact, up that hill. Sometimes it was roving, sometimes sitting and contemplating, and on other occasions because of its elevation just taking in about a 280 or 90° scope of the world from where I was perched. I could see many aspects of our farm, the road beyond our boundary, neighbouring farms and so on.

The beauty and the majesty of hills and mountains do it for me.

I am the hills and mountains man