Robert McNeil: Join me on a tour of my suburban hill

With his gentle, couthy enthusiasm, Tom encouraged viewers of his TV series to waddle aboot the hills and stravaig amidst the straths.

I'm a man of the outdoors myself, though not in a chest-out way. I wouldn't know one end of a crampon from the other. But I have a woolly hat and my purpose in venturing forth is to be soothed, to find breathing space on higher ground, where a humble ratepayer might scan the horizon, silent upon a suburban peak, a watcher of the skies, a little god above the town.

The word "suburban" indicates correctly that I'm more a man of the Not So Great Outdoors. It doesn't differ much, beyond requiring less endurance, but to me a daily walk on a peerie peak is better than a once-yearly hike up a Munro.

True, I've enjoyed infrequent forays further afield to the Pentlands, but I'm essentially a homebody and prefer to be in reach of a kettle and honey-spread oatcake. I tried taking picnics but, after coffee, despaired at the lack of lavatorial facilities.

Fill a tammy with your napper, therefore, as I lead you up my suburban hill. I'm not naming it but will provide enough detail for anyone with a computer and a squad of top detectives to track it down.

First, we pass through the park gates and past the old parkie's cottage with its intriguing collection of animal ornaments in the garden. Skirting the pond and its quacking ducks, screeching gulls and demurely silent swans, we commence lift-off, taking our first step up a woodland pathway till we reach the foot of the steepest side of the hill proper.

Half-way up this, we stop to take in the view of Edinburgh and get our breath back in case we've to say hello to a pretty lady and want to give a misleading impression of fitness. Not everyone says hello, and it's a good gauge for dividing folk into good and evil.

Skirting the Victorian observatory on our left, we veer right up the ridge, with fantastic views of the Pentlands to one side, and Fife and the Forth to the other, till we reach the top of the 538ft hill.

Here, we gaze down upon my friends' lovely house (where, once, I arrived to stay for a night and left seven months later), before shimmying down a narrow, winding path, past the tall, mysterious, dish-clad communications tower and over to the seat, where we look to the west and the sunset, if there is one on the premises.

Next, past ten thousand dog-walkers, we veer off towards the fairy wood (lovely, wispy trees), stopping at a golden triangle of sometime verdancy which in summer hummed and buzzed with bees and butterflies but now sits dead and skeletal.

Doubling back past a favourite tree, we plunge into the woods proper, where fewer folk venture. I suppose we've a vestigial fear of woods but there's an equally atavistic desire in me to be beneath a canopy of trees. Surely, once, the land must all have been like this. It's why people like me dislike heat: once, in these climes, the trees protected us from it.

Back onto the path we link to another that skirts the hill horizontally on the other side, overlooking the allotments. There's a sheer drop on one side while, on the other, feisty trees cling to the rocks and scrub, their visible roots clinging on tightly for dear life.

Soon, we're back at the pond and the animal-ornaments house, before tootling back out through the gates and into suburbia once more. I hope you enjoyed yourself.

I've never regretted visiting the hill. As soon as the soles of my boots hit the slopes my soul starts rebooting. Sometimes I go up daily, sometimes I don't go for weeks, usually in summer when it's busier than Princes Street, mainly with dog walkers and joggers.

Most days, I'm the only non-jogger without a mutt. Perhaps I should venture further afield, where folk are fewer and walk for its own sake. Tom Weir would never have despised my suburban walk, but might have encouraged me to be more adventurous.

A lost cause, I suspect. But, if I watch Weir's Way again, perhaps I'll feel inspired to experience the Greater Outdoors.