Fall of 2016..? 17 11 2 (18) 25 1 30
Well there have been a few surprises for me writing
this series of blogs about my autumn visits to Scotland this past five years.
The first thing to say is that they have not in fact been so popular with my
usual readership over in the USA but more surprising is that they have
elicited a good deal of interest in the rest of the world: the US followed
by Ireland, then Thailand, Brazil and France for yesterday's feedback countries
for example. All of which encourages me to soldier on to the next and
penultimate autumn visit because I believe it to be a good vehicle to help me
describe the two themes which to a large extent colour my thoughts for the time being...
2016 was rather special because it came after three
spring visits when I became sick on holiday in UK at successive earlier times of the
holiday. The first year's sickness attended the last days of the holiday of
2014 when I had climbed 15 new peaks which year followed the first year's
biannual visits when I amassed a total of 24 for 2013, and then in 2015 I became sick in the middle of the holiday when a friend joined me for a few days
and I started getting up at the crack of dawn to accommodate his preferences, and then walked two big days together, which was another departure from my usual practice of following a big day with a rest day: the 2 aspects I subsequently blamed for spending the following week
more or less laid up in bed recovering from a stinking cold, before going on to
climb another peak in an isolated location which involved a 6 km about 4 mile
walk-in before the hill started and of course the same distance walk-out when
it was completed in a day involving a good 10 to 11 hours on the hoof...
The spring of 2016 was the worst because just before my wife was to
return home after our 3 weeks together we met the friend who in a sense was
responsible for my taking sick the year before when we met for dinner with
another friend of his who himself was sick with a heavy cold, and sure enough
36 hours later as I drove my wife to the airport I started feeling a ticklish
cough at the back of my throat which by the evening was a full on chest
infection which remained with me until the end of the holiday and kept me off
climbing any new hills though I did recover sufficiently to undertake a 2 day
low level route during which I spent 2 nights under canvas in my tent…
Returning in the autumn of 2016 therefore I was full of foreboding about
whether I should succeed in climbing a single new hill for this 3rd
year.
Fortunately then on my first day out I was able to claim a hill I had
previously made 2 attempts at possessing the views from its summit only to be
thwarted on each occasion. And when I got so pumped up with adrenaline I was
found guilty of making flirtatious remarks to a young lady more than half my
age in her Land Rover who gave me help to unravel some detail of my 30 year old
map, and to my surprise called me “sweet” for making the suggestion when some
may have construed my comments “inappropriate”, and spending the evening in the
company of more delightful young ladies one of whom a young mining engineer who
was travelling with her mother became my friend on f-b when it transpired she
was due to move to Scandinavia in pursuit of her burgeoning mining career.
Thereafter I met with my nephew-in-law up again when we collected 2 of
the 3 peaks on an isolated ridge in a new area of Scotland at the head of Glen
Dessary spending 2 nights at a new bothy and enjoying another sumptuous dinner
this time after our walk…Have a good day everyone only one final autumn left to
describe next time..?
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