Take the Outdoors Leurve Test!

Valentine's Day huh? Nice roses kid, but are you and your partner outdoors compatible? Just answer our five simple - aren't they all - OUTDOORSmagic questions and decide whether your relationship is worth saving.

1.When walking with your partner you:

A. Spend most of your time chivvying her along, shouting abuse and building up a head of frustration that makes the Settle-Carlisle Railway's steam output look like a minor kettle incident.

B. Insist on carrying everything in one huge sack because 'it makes things easier for the little lady'.

C. Treat her as an equal, walk at the same pace and share the load.

D. She carries all the kit then steams off ahead at every opportunity.

2. Conversation on the hill is:

A. Best saved for the end of the day when you complain about how bloody slow she is.

B. An excellent opportunity for you to fill her in on the niceties of gear, the geology of the area and the meaning of life. She can listen, learn and save her breath for the serious business of walking.

C. Excellent quality time where you can discuss anything and everything. It's the icing on the cake of your outdoor day.

D. What conversation? She's so far ahead that you barely see her all day.

3. Navigation is:

A. Incompatible with the female psyche - you do it and do it well.

B. Another facet of your vast array of outdoor skills which you patiently impart to her at every opportunity.

C. A shared delight - you make democratic joint decisions and there are no recriminations even when one of you makes a mistake that lands you 20 miles from where you should be with a huge thunder storm approaching.

D. Something she does cos she's better at it and anyway, you'd be scared to try and take the compass off her, especially with those bloody great pointy poles she carries...

4. Scenery is:

A. Something to walk over as quickly as possible so you can get to the pub and sink a few pints.

B. A useful adjunct to navigation classes.

C. The wallpaper paste of mutual appreciation which binds you together in an ecstatic orgy of outdoors joy. It is the chocolate sauce on the profiterole of your joyous outdoor relationship.

D. Complemented by the great view of her butt as she strides into the distance in a vision of wiggling Powerstretch and tantalising rucsack undulation.

5. Be honest now, you see being outside with her as:

A. The equivalent of carrying a 90kg pack, you'd rather walk with Geoff Capes hanging onto your ankles.

B. A joy - knowing that you are increasing her outdoor skills and sprinkling water on the blooming flower of her navigational knowledge gives you a warm inner glow.

C. Bliss... You are a perfect couple.

D. Persecution. She is Man United to your Stalybridge Celtic. Why do you do it?

1. When walking, the most familiar view you have of him is:

A. His rapidly disappearing backside as he powers relentlessly onwards, eyes glued religiously to the ground a foot in front of his feet.

B. His expressive hands as he explains yet another dull and irrelevant outdoor skill that you honestly don't want or need to know.

C. His eyes, his lips, his smile, his... erm, that's quite enough of that.

D. If you bought some binoculars and looked back, you might catch the occasional glimpse of his perspiring mush as he struggles along in your wake.

2. Who carries the kit?

A. He does, of course, anything else would be a crippling blow to his manhood, and besides, it gives you a fighting chance of keeping up long enough to have lunch together - if you're allowed to stop that is...

B. He carries the bulk of it, but you're allowed a small day-sac for the sake of notional equality. But hell, who's complaining, it makes up for the patronising guff he spouts.

C. You carry equal loads of course, but he's so lovely that you know he'd take the strain if you asked. Sigh...

D. Equal loads again, it keeps the squirming little git firmly in his place, which is way back behind you.

3. Navigation...

A. Actually you're probably a better navigator than he is, but it's a moot point cos he's so far ahead that by the time you've got hold of the map, you're already lost.

B. Look, you just want to take in the scenery and enjoy the mountain air. If he tries to show you how to take a bearing once more you're going to shove his compass right up his map case and no mistake.

C. You are the north to his south, the east to his west, when you pick up a compass, the bearing leads straight to your heart...

D. Trust him with a map and compass? You can barely rely on him to find his way home from work. Navigation requires approximately twice the number of brain cells possessed by the average man, and as for the below average version, well...

4. Scenery is...

A. Something he disappears into as he races off over the horizon. Still, it gives you something to look at as you walk at an altogether more sensible pace. How on earth did he miss that rainbow?

B. What it's all about. Who wants to know about magnetic variation when the leaves are turning golden brown and babbling brooks run winsomely over shimmering rocks.

C. God's almighty stage set specially commissioned as a backdrop to your timeless outdoor love.

B. Okay, but a bit girly and more up his street than yours. Still, it gives him something to take his mind off the pain.

5. Be honest now, you see being outside with him as...

A. Unmitigated torment. It makes gym classes at school seem like paradise. Frankly you'd rather sleep with Bernard Matthews in one of his turkey sheds than go through that again.

B. It's sweet the way he tries to teach you stuff and you play along for the sake of his ego, but he's really an irritating distraction...

C. Bliss, You are a perfect couple.

D. An excellent way of keeping him in his place and grinding a metaphorical Vibram-soled stiletto into the softer parts of his body. Nice...