Geoff Hill - The Road to Gobblers Knob: From Chile to Alaska on a Motorbike

At the age of forty-eight and a half precisely, I decided to retire at the height of my fame.

Only to find that I hadnt reached it.

Faced with such a shock, I did the only thing possible, and had a mid-life crisis.

In any case, it was about time, and all the signs were there. I was in the middle of my life, for a start. Unless I got knocked down by a bus, of course. Then, buses being what they are, immediately knocked down by another one.

I had also started sighing deeply when I drove past my old university, or picked up a photograph of myself as an international volleyball player, a disturbingly distant quarter of a century ago. Not to mention flicking through sports car magazines in Sainsburys and attempting to do thirty press-ups in the bathroom after a few beers on a Saturday night.

Are you all right, dear? You look a little flushed, my wife Cate would say as I reappeared in the living room and sank onto the sofa.

Bear in the bathroom, love. I had to wrestle the machine gun off him before I could throw him down the stairs.

Of course. Now whats really the matter?

Oh, I dont know. Im just overcome by a feeling these days that Ive made a complete failure of my life.

As in international sportsman and winner of so many writing awards weve had to get the mantelpiece reinforced twice? That sort of failure?

I know, I know. I just have this nagging feeling that I could have done better.

Listen, count your blessings, and stop struggling so much. Weve had the happiest of years, and youre just having a mid-life crisis.

See? I thought so.

Now, men deal with a mid-life crisis in different ways. Some die, like Jackson, one of my best mates from university, perishing on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, his heart giving up the struggle in much the same way as the complex hydro-pneumatic suspension systems of the ancient Citrons he had loved in life.

I could have done the same, but Ive always had an unnatural fear of death, if only because it stops you finding out what happens next.

I could have bought a red sports car, but it would have clashed with my nose.

So I did what Cate said, and counted my blessings. And she was right. We had just had the happiest year imaginable. After five years together, wed got married in September, followed by a glorious honeymoon in Slovenia, where Id rowed her across Lake Bled to the wooded island there, carried her up the ninety-nine steps to the little white church, as Slovenian grooms traditionally do with their brides, then rung the bell three times and wished for a happy and successful life together. After Slovenia, thered been Venice, then home on the Orient-Express, one of the great experiences of an adult life, particularly as Id blagged my way into not paying for it by selling our honeymoon rights to Wedding Journal magazine for a fiver. Which I could ill afford.

In work, Cates PhD and research project was going well, and Id been named Northern Ireland feature writer of the year and finished second in the uk travel writer of the year award in the Over 6 6 section.

Oh well, I said, at least Im a bloody good travel writer.

Two days after Christmas, I went back to work as the features and travel editor of the paper I worked for and sat down at my desk. It was ten in the morning, and mid-life crisis or not, I was the happiest man in the world.

Little did I know that by two minutes past, I would be the unhappiest.