Winter walking: not for Terry WoganQuite how sitting in an armchair and describing your favourite walk as ‘the one between the sitting room and the dining room’ counts as supporting a campaign to get people out and about is beyond us, but apparently Terry Wogan is doing it.

Winter walking: not for Terry Wogan

The twinkly-eyed doyen of Radio 2 and numerous embarrassing Eurovision debacles is one of the ‘celebs’ trotted out to publicise the Ramblers’ Association’s Festival of Winter Walks. He describes the best part of the great outdoors as ‘getting home to a roaring fire’.

Still, there are some genuine walkers in the association’s survey of the favourite Boxing Day walk. Alan Titchmarsh likes a walk on Tennyson Down on the Isle of Wight with his wife and daughters. It has, he says, ‘fab views and a breeze to blow the cobwebs away’.

Eastenders and Bionic Woman actor Michelle Ryan prefers a walk in a local meadow with her family and chocolate labrador, Buddy. Patrick Stewart, Star Trek captain, is a fan of the Three Peaks in the Yorkshire Dales and Janet Street-Porter can be found just over the hill in upper Nidderdale, Yorkshire, with a clear blue sky overhead and snow underfoot.

There is serious intent, despite the luvvieness. Ramblers’ Association (RA) volunteers all over the country will be pulling on their boots to lead walkers on more than 500 routes in an effort to burn off all the Yuletide excess.

The walks range from a haunted London saunter to a Cornish ‘tipsy mulled wine toddle’. They are free to join and start on Boxing Day, running until 2 January.

Ruth Wembridge, the RA head of membership, said: “The festival is a great launch pad for those who have decided to improve their health and fitness in 2008.

“There’s nothing nicer than wrapping up warm and heading out into the beautiful crisp winter air. That extra mince pie or box of chocolates can be excused away once you’ve been for a stroll to walk it off.”

Anyone taking part in one of the walks will be eligible for a 20 per cent discount on RA membership.

Details of the walks are on the RA website.