Tackling the stairs adds up to a peak achievement

THERE are 15 steps to get up to my home office, which I tell myself are useful physiotherapy.

I climbed them a dozen times yesterday, which doesn’t sound much but it amounts to an ascent of 180 strides. And what goes up must come down.

It’s certainly much more than the flight in St Paul’s cathedral, which is only 88 steps, and more than climbing Nelson’s column, 168 steps, though I grant you the view is better. Over a week, I must clock up more than a thousand, and every couple of months, I scale Ben Nevis, 6,700 steps. Last year I reckon I conquered Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak.

I have some way to go before I can equal the world’s longest staircase, by a railway in Switzerland, which clocks up 11,674 steps. Why am I bothering you with these arcane statistics? Honestly, I’m not taking a rise.

It’s just that I think of things to write about all the time, and what comes into mind comes out on paper.

And yesterday I was thinking what a bloody tow this is, up and down the stairs. Wee Willie Winkie it ain’t. It can be hard work for an old body.

Still, I wouldn’t swap it for a bungalow. A proper house has an upstairs and a downstairs. The staircase in our home is 3ft-plus wide, with a rail on each side so I can pull myself up.

I joke that there is enough room for His and Hers stairlifts, but not yet.

Before I completely lose your attention, here’s another statistic. This is the 600th entry in Routers’ diary, since it began way back in the pandemic days of March 2019.

Honestly not many people know that, and even fewer wish to know it, but there you go.