Corbridge lies on the northern bank of the Tyne River, about 17 miles west of Newcastle. The Tyne is quite shallow here and floods every 20 years or so, although the water mainly spills south over fields rather than investing the higher ground of the town itself.

The shallows make it a good place to build a bridge, which is why the town exists. The bridge steps over the river in seven irregular strides and is a sturdy, comfortable structure which invites those who walk across it to pause and enjoy the views in both directions along the Tyne.

As you come down the hill from town to the bridge you look over this lovely old edifice and south to the far side of the valley. The distant meadows are lush and fertile from the centuries of flooding, and they climb gracefully into hills which eventually become the southern side of the Tyne Valley.

I take in this view on foot on my first morning back in the North East, because I will not be driving today; not after the exertions of the evening before in the Wheatsheaf. I'm going to walk the five miles to Hexham along the river.

Pat and Jo wave me off as they do the breakfast drill with the lads. I'll be back.

This particular path is an emotionally tangled one, but it is also one where I can find some clarity. I have walked along here with Manny, but more often on my own in the days after our split.

When you walk a path alone enough it becomes your own. Its curves and hills grow into you so that, while you can't say to a friend 'after this tree comes that rock'�, every time you round this tree you know that rock will be there.

As I set off across the bridge to Hexham I know where I am going. I can't draw a map in exquisite detail, but I can walk it with my eyes closed. And as a result my mind can drift away in the convivial company of the Tyne.

It's cold this morning. A lung-clearing cold that rushes down my throat and scours the inside of me. The first breath stings. The second one aches. The rest are like nature's own hangover cure. I can't help but feel better, despite the discomfort as my lungs try to suck oxygen from the chilly air.

My old, faithful boots take me over the bridge and I pause to lean on the parapet and look upriver in the direction I will be walking. Past the small eyot I always imagined as the map of a real place, complete with a little beach resort, deep harbour and intimidating mountain range. Ducks waddle across it now in ragged avian file, and a gull squats, colossus-like on my resort.

I walk on, reach the end of the bridge and turn right, westwards towards the puff of industrial steam which is Hexham's distant beacon.
The Tyne is good company as it heads peacefully in the opposite direction. A labrador bounds towards and then past me with its smiling owners in its wake. Birds chitter and mutter about my progress.The important scenery is in my head. I think about the times I have walked this same way: Good times with sunshine, bad times with a cold wind. Or sometimes the weather just was and my moods soared or plunged regardless.

I remember strolling along this bank content and curious about the world, a camera slung over my shoulder and the world a place to be explored. Like most memories, this one has no convenient date stamp. August, July? Who knows? I do know it was after I first broke up with Manny, an event which had made sense in a tough sort of way. Things change, after all, and we were beginning to hurt each other in the way that bored, dissatisfied lovers do. We parted and I turned to my mistress: the outdoors. The sweep of her hills and comforting tones of her rivers and birds.Funny how people do that. I stop to watch a duck with four ducklings as they paddle madly against the current before reaching the shelter of the bank.

Funny how I fall in love with a woman, really deeply in love and find things out that nudge me even further into love. Then I discover other things that are'� different. Things that make me look differently at the person I've fallen in love with. Good things, bad things, strange things. Pain. Secret joys. Guilt. Need. Fear. The way she held me when I hugged her from behind at just the right moment, her arms on mine, her head on my chest. Vulnerable and strong at the same time.

And, like footsteps on a path I know without thinking, memories of Manny make their way across my mind.

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