Looking wistfully at the hills

Published 18 December 2011

December isn’t the best time for walking. Too many Christmas parties to attend, shopping to do. Plus the weather is usually dubious and the sun goes down early. I always seem to spend more time in the pub than outdoors. So this photograph seems rather apt really.

It was taken in March 2010 at Kirk Yetholm. Catherine and myself had been trying to finish the Pennine Way but we were snowed in on our penultimate day and we couldn’t get out of Byrness.

The roads were quickly cleared but there was no way walking over the Cheviots to the end was going to be possible even if we had had the time, which we didn’t. But we did need to get to Kirk Yetholm where we were due to meet Catherine’s parents Mike and Julie, her brother David and his then-fiancĂ©e (and now wife) Michelle. They were all heading for Ben Nevis to celebrate Julie’s birthday and they met us “on the way” so we could have a dual celebration.

The next day we got a lift to Kelso then the bus to Kirk Yetholm and before everyone else arrived we took a little stroll up the Pennine Way and looked at those hills we should have been walking over.

I won’t be spending December looking at hills I should be walking over. Just thinking about them. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps. I’m just presuming because actually I wrote this post in August on a hot sunny Sunday…

Have your say