Walkhighlands

Original plans
Lochnagar & The Mounth, Suilven, Ben Wyvis, Ben Avon, Braeriach, get out on bike, 50 Munros before winter…

This week’s plans
1 Dust off exercise machine and actually use it
2 Look at distant hills from window
3 Walk to other window and look at some more hills
4 Read this book and get into the garden to practice

5 Read this book to help motivate me with 1

6 Appreciate the little things

7 Post plans on public forum so that I don't "forget"

Excellent Idea

Original Plans

Get as close to finishing the Wainwrights as possible
Join a 50 year old and 2 x 60 year olds in Torridon for BIG BIRTHDAY celebrations. That might still come off as not until September.

New Plans

Renovate bikes so we can actually get to somewhere with soft grass to walk without driving
Get old photo albums and turn a couple into Walk Reports.
Find new ways of walking round town to make 10,000 Fitbit paces
Get better at BBC Weather Watcher pictures. .

I still want to do 95 miles of the Appalachian Trail. I was slated to do it this month, and cancelled because I decided it was still too early in the season weather-wise...good thing I did, because the week I had planned to go ended up being the precise week that things with the pandemic started kicking off in a big way. I'm holding out hope for later in the year, toward late summer or early autumn.

In the meantime, I'm going to plan the logistics for other trips I want to go on, and continue my re-read of A Walk in the Woods.

Was

WInter week (yay, I ticked this one off just in time!!!) https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=96133
Easter "Pirate Kids" Canoeing adventure on Loch Maree and Fionn Loch with a possible A' Mhaighdean option.
Week in the Massif Central
Paddling trip to Rogen, Sweden.
Beat last years' "60 camping nights" (I'm up to 8 + 2 bothy nights. No chance!)


Revised

Daily "outside photo of the day" (normally photos plural)

Explore my local area by trying to do a different route everyday as my daily exercise walk

Looking at maps, lots! Especially the little blue lines in the NW highlands, from a canoeist's perspective.

Write a Trip Report for last Easter's daft canoe-walking trip, which I keep putting off as it'll take hours!

Talk to somebody properly every day (just me in my flat, so limited to video calls but makes a difference). This has proven fun enough to remind me that I should continue phoning after the chaos ends, rather than just messaging.

Read about lots of adventures (both Walk Highlands and my paddling faves too)

IF it ends, a week in the Highlands, and a trip to Scandinavia.

Resigned myself to saying
Mull can wait till next year,
Knoydart can wait till next year,
Fisherfield in June I doubt
Ben Alder in June I doubt.

Now I'm hoping I can maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed get up The far north for a week before the clocks go back.
Stay safe folks and to everyone out there helping the country and people through this - cheers

Plan was to finish my 7 remaining Munro’s. Got a guide booked in June for Skye so still hoping that goes ahead.

Revised. Hill days with the dog as per normal

back to the Western Isles....even if it is a winter trip

At this moment it's probably just to return to the hills at least once this year, in the mean time to keep my sanity

I had loads of plans - some hill-related and some not.....
But as a front-line worker I shall now be staring into the mouth of Covid.

So far work has felt very under control and well within our escalation plans - and we are still getting days off.
I guess that will change very soon....
But the house is getting a good clear out and scrub down - something I never ever devote time to.
I'm getting some daily air with a run or walk from my house.
Cooking more inventively with what I've got and trying to waste nothing.
I've discovered zoom, house party, and netflix.
And yesterday I spent literally hours doing that Christmas jigsaw of Skye that has been lying gathering much dust.

Not been bored yet - but I think the fact I'm still going to work has its own weird benefits - although it's terrifying and stressful, waiting with dread over how bad it will become and how we will cope, we have a huge sense of togetherness and purpose.

Wife working from home and she has taken over my man cave,she has knocked my whole routine out the window and I am having to muck in with household duties plus she wants to go for after work walk,my life is ruined

kaye.cantlay wrote:I had loads of plans - some hill-related and some not.....
But as a front-line worker I shall now be staring into the mouth of Covid.

So far work has felt very under control and well within our escalation plans - and we are still getting days off.
I guess that will change very soon....

Kaye, you are one of our heroes -- thank you, and stay safe on a journey requiring much more courage than ascending any hill!

As for me, I was meant to travel to Arran yesterday for a week's holiday. Instead, I spent about an hour cleaning my hob, using a cotton bud to make sure I got into all the nooks and crannies.

You know things are bad when you dole your cleaning projects out like sweets, NOT wanting to get them all done at pace.

Giant Stoneater - that's hilarious. I literally just spat out my coffee reading that

Kmai - thanks. The Islands will still be there when this is over and you will truly appreciate your trip all the more for the enforced wait
Cotton buds? Wow. I've been using old toothbrushes, but you've just opened up a whole new world of possibilities

LaurenAlexandraAgain wrote:, and continue my re-read of A Walk in the Woods.

I was disappointed in this one. His other books have focused outwards because there was so much to see and he traveled alone, but I think that trees are very samey for mile after mile, so he needed a companion to liven things up, and deliberately chose one, not for his walking abilities but to be the but of jokes and the contrast with himself, so to me the whole thing seemed a little staged. Love his other books. Hope you have a great time on the trail.

Original plan was 100+ Corbetts. That figure had already taken a hit due to February being a washout but that's the target gubbed now.

I'm not one for making plans much in advance, but had a general thought to climb the Glen Shiel munros and those close by this year, with maybe getting to Knoydart later on. That's not going to hapoen now.

Then, an intention to revisit the mid Wales hills, which I can do in day trips from home. They are generally deserted and you can have great days meeting no-one. Particularly as I managed, unbelievably, to get lost coming off Plynlimon when I first climbed it, though that's another story.

However, I am a road cyclist, more Ancient Man in Lycra, than MAMIL, but still fairly capable. Have had a calf injury which has kept me off the bike for a few months and was looking forward to getting out again in the warmer weather. I can possibly get away with a daily exercise claim for my "quickie" route, about 32 miles roind trip, two hours roughly and alone. Anything longer and further out into the country might be construed as breaching the restrictions.

My other passion is Gardening and I am lucky enough to live in the countryside and have a fairly large garden which I have been developing over the last five years. It will never have been so tidy and weed free by the end of this, but it's ruining my knees. Suffering major withdrawal symptoms from being unable to visit garden centres and nurseries though. Hope they manage to survive.

Finally, I will now have enough time to transfer my CD collection to SD cards so I can then be unable to find anything to listen to in the car, when I can use it again, just like at home.

Stay safe all and I look forward to bumping into some of you again on the hills eventually.