A walking companion who already knows, and a flask of tea

Two hours out, a hill of no particular difficulty, a flask, and a conversation that does not have to begin with an explanation. That is what I am after, and I have been trying to arrange it for the better part of a year.

Sixty, out towards Bolton, retired in the spring after a working life that took up considerably more room than I ever let it. My wife and I have had an open marriage for thirty one years. It has been settled for most of that time and it is settled now, and neither of us is looking for anything at all.

What retirement took away was not the work. It was the twelve people I saw every day without having to arrange it. My wife has her own friends and always did. I built almost nothing outside the two of us, and I am paying for that now, at a point in life when starting is harder than it was.

So: somebody to walk with. Once a fortnight, on a weekday, anywhere within a reasonable drive. It matters that you know about the marriage, because otherwise there is a large plain fact sitting in the middle of every conversation that has to be steered around, and I have done thirty one years of steering.

To be clear about the shape of this: it is a walk, and it stays a walk. I am neither offering nor seeking anything else, now or later, and I say that without a list because I trust anybody reading to take a plain sentence at face value.