Friday morning - I wake at about 5.00am and lie for 15 minutes or so listening to the weather and doing a savouring exercise for the past, the present, and the future. The past: remembering yesterday, the two deer, the white-splashed ptarmigan flying so fast along the contour of the hill, the curve of the ridge...

I wrote a post at the beginning of the week entitled "Looking ahead to the walking retreat".  Now it's happening - Thursday morning 6.30am.  It takes some effort of will to emerge from the only-just-warm-enough sleeping bag, put on more layers of clothes and bring this little computer back to...

It's Monday morning. On Wednesday I plan to head up to the Fannaichs, a group of hills near Loch Fannich about 4½ hours drive north of Edinburgh - up into the 'real' Scotland. I'm feeling fairly nervous about it. Is this really the time of life for a 58 year old who has very limited experience of camping to be heading off into...