Welcome to Best Foot Forward

Embark on an undertaking with as much effort and determination as possible!

  • Still Alpine friends

    Providence, in the shape of an extended ski season and a bit of spare cash, allowed me and my son the opportunity of a trip to the French Alps together. Great though the opportunity was there is still a dynamic between a fifteen-year-old and his father which doesn’t always spell harmony and it was with…

  • Yoga is a union we should all be part of

    “You don’t get me, I’m part of the union…” So said the Strawbs in their hit single in 1973. Hippie songs to one side what’s this got to do with anything? Well, have…

  • Can walking help to restore your own mind to ‘factory settings’?

    I once wrote a book. To my great delight it was very successful running to two editions and being sold all over the world and in numerous languages. What always surprised me though were the positive messages I received. One young man called Tomas from Slovakia wrote to tell me that he read the book…

  • Can Alpine Climbing teach us something about relationships?

    In Alpine Climbing the primary aim is to ‘always come down or descend as friends’.  Anyone who has seen Brad Pitt in the role of Heinrich Harrer in the mountain scenes of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ will know how not to do this! Whilst it sounds like a really simple notion it is in fact…

  • In defence of wellies and brollies

    There seems to be a general consensus that to go walking you must wear big, heavy boots and only use a jacket to keep you dry. Wellies are for kids, farmers and horse riders and umbrellas are for use in a strictly urban context, or so the thinking seems to go. And yet Nicholas Crane…

  • Tell me why no one likes Mondays… ways to motivate yourself.

    Apparently one of the reasons that we don’t stick to New Year’s resolutions is the fact that we make them at the wrong time of year and in the wrong state of mind. It’s dark and gloomy outside, the festive season has been and gone, you probably eat, drank, and spent too much and all…

  • Listen to your stomach… and the Army

    There has always seemed to be a myriad of sayings attached to the Army and walking but probably the best known is Napoleon’s assertion that ‘An army marches on its stomach’. As someone who likes his food and can easily get ‘hangry’, hunger induced anger, I always bear this in mind for myself and others,…

  • To be Frank, my history with mindful walking

    Back in the early 90s I quit my glamorous job in advertising and set off to go travelling, little did I know that it would lead me to many things including mindful walking. I use the word glamorous somewhat ironically; everyone thought the world of advertising was but I had come to realise that it…