In hindsight, I suppose that I was lulled by the lack of anxiety about travelling as a youngster that related to the security of my parents' and brother's presence.  However I had also revelled in various solo train and tube trips to the north London suburb where I had relatives.  In addition, despite my otherwise awful college experiences, I had never baulked at the lengthy train journey to and from Berkshire.  In considering wider horizons I still failed to recognise the potentially paralysing behaviour patterns exemplified by my reaction to riding even though these were repeated in two other outdoor environments.

I'd learned much about maps and navigation at school and college.  I had also, by that time, amassed a significant amount of walking experience and socialised more extensively than ever before through the YHA group.  So I fully expected to breeze through a Mountain Leader Training Course.  Instead performing simple navigation exercises in front of peers heaped humiliation on my head.

Teetering on the pinnacle of some precarious ridge above the yawning abyss that Coire an t-Sneachda seemed to be, the overwhelming anxiety induced "vertigo" that now mars many of my mountain moments threatened to engulf me entirely.  If I wasn't secure on steep slopes how could I help anyone else to be?  With a burly bloke on either side ballasting me against gale force winds the once inviting infinity of the Cairngorm Plateau seemed determined to sabotage the completion of yet another course.  What a wimp.  What a failure!

Still determined to try new things but not completely daft, I had at least grown assertive enough to refuse the pressure to Eskimo roll a kayak in the frigid waters of Llynnau Mymbyr in Snowdonia.  Course rules, no roll, no river trips.  The (understandably) exasperated instructor did us a compromise deal on an unsinkable Canadian canoe.

Ironically shooting rapids down the Dee clutching the side of an overturned boat held few fears so long as my head stayed above water.  A few years later when a particularly patient instructor friend taught me to roll a canoe in a warm safe swimming pool I began to analyse my response to new situations.  My horror of humiliation born out of lack of understanding is matched in equal measure by fear of the unknown and consequent lack of control.

However without that awareness the anticipated biggest drag about our first trip abroad, a package learn to ski trip, was the interminable coach journey to Kitzbuhel, Austria.  Excitement quickly turned to anxiety about I knew not what on my first encounter with a routine customs post in the middle of the night somewhere on the French - German border.  Tension was heightened by a gun carrying police officer patrolling a village street.  The apparently brusque, non-English speaking people provided a constant reminder of the alien nature of this new culture.