Thinking of Silvain Tesson he took vodka (many bottles of) and cigars with him for his six months of isolation on the taiga adjacent to Lake Beikal.

He walked, he read, he communed, he let the simple things fill his day and yet, on 20th February, ‘I get out of bed so hung-over I’m almost upside-down’. This isn’t, M. Tesson, the eremitic path! But … we can be so prissy about all this. Each to his own.

Find your cabin and cave and do it your way.

Before questions get asked I’m not planning a drunken carousal with nature somewhere. I just like M. Tesson’s style.