Received an astonishing message from a reader this morning: 'What's with your recent digressions into nature, wildlife etc? I don't follow you for that, I follow you for the outdoors. Please return to writing about outdoor subjects.'

This, to me, sums up a problem with 'the outdoors'. People have become used to thinking of it as something somehow separate from nature. I suspect that to many people 'the outdoors' means 'people doing epic things that happen to take place outdoors'. I think that's an issue.

How do we remedy this? In my own outdoor writing I have always tried to embrace nature, its wonder and mystery, but what about the genre as a whole? What happens when we treat nature as a playground or a gym?

I'm also not sure where the reader's complaint comes from, as almost all of my published writing continues to be about travel on foot in mountain areas, but heyho...

Thanks for all the interesting chat about this, folks - I'm afraid I can't reply to everyone! I'll continue to write and share photos about nature, trees, birds, bits of rock, big walks in high places - and, yes, even Munro-bagging. It's all intertwined.