In 2019 I was fitter than at any other point in my life – and I had a life I loved. It was my third year at the BBC. Every day at New Broadcasting House, I knew that I was seeing world events from a rare vantage point. I loved being surrounded by all the TV monitors and feeling at the centre of things. It had its trials, like any job, but it never stopped feeling like a privilege.
Alongside my work, I was an open-water swimmer and had just topped 20 years of swims between islands and across lakes and rivers with an outing in the Galápagos. In the past I’d climbed Kilimanjaro, raced across the Hellespont in Turkey and along the Thames. I swam between the Cyclades in Greece every autumn and loved the Aegean with a passion. I relished returning to London. I was the first at plays and the cinema. I loved clothes; I probably bought too many. At weekends I would run along the river, then have long breakfasts with friends. And, in a way that is now not unusual, I was in better shape at 52 than I had been at 32.
