Spending a month in Scotland when I was sixteen beiing supervised by the hardest man I ever met - an ex-SAS sergeant. He introduced me to the outdoors, showed me how to identify flowers, signs of fauna and encouraged a fascination with the world that has informed the rest of my life.

Sailing a boat in a storm off Corsica, knowing for absolute certain that I was going to die (literally, not just as a figure of speech or a bit of hyperbole to add flourish to a story). I didn't.

Realising too late that I was losing my best friend and a big chunk of my kids.