w.atching the w.orld unw.ind

A colleague has offered to scan in some of my old transparencies, so that I can print them out as Christmas card fillers.

I hauled the projector out of the roof at the weekend and was amazed that it still worked. In one of the carousels was a landscape scene which I probably haven’t seen since I took the photo – thirty years ago.

My wife and I accompanied two other couples on a caravanette tour of Wales and Scotland. Both of the other guys were into orienteering and dragged me up the Brecon Beacons and Ben Nevis. Having survived, I was ‘invited’ to walk a horseshoe-shaped ring of hills with them, somewhere (I believe) in the Strathconan Valley).

We got lost, the mists came down, our clothing was barely adequate – all the stories you see on the news and think “How can people be so stupid/thoughtless” etc. Hypothermia was a definite possibility when I’d declared I couldn’t walk another step, but was goaded on by the thought of the girls not knowing where the hell we were.

We did make it back (obviously) and next morning, both of my fellow travellers were laid up in their respective tents.

Without quite knowing why, I decided to walk back to the start of our trail and sat there, watching several red deer meander by and listening to birdsong, which was crystal clear in the unpolluted air.

It was really only then that I realised how lucky we were to have survived – and took that picture.