I am nearly 55 and am taking early retirement from my job as an NHS consultant in intensive care and anaesthetics, I need a complete break from everything that has gone before in order to stop doing what I have been doing for the last 25 years.

I have been a keen walker, climber, canoeist and diver and want to do something truly memorable. So to set off from home in Stourbridge West Midlands to walk to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, North Spain as was done in medieval times by many thousands of pilgrims and to travel without any use of modern transport (including crossing the channel) seemed to be a way of punctuating my life.

Yesterday I attended a farewell in the department at Russells Hall Hospital where I have been since it opened and was overwhelmed by the number of people who had come to say that they would miss me, to all those there and those who would have wished to be there, thankyou. Those wishes mean much more than the very generous gifts that I was also presented with. The socks especially will be very useful!!!

Thanks to Jane Head of Medical Photography for the picture. All others will be the fault of myself or Tony Dyson.

While the planning for such a journey cannot be too detailed some preparations have been made not least practice with the rucksack , walking from home on those days that work has permitted, via the canals of Dudley has I hope provided the necessary additional fitness for the journey.

I hope to return to work before the year is out in a less intense fashion and possibly I may not shout at anyone ever again.

Thankyou to all my collegues at Russells Hall Hospital. Especially for the cake.