Defeat

The other day, while walking up the track which leads past our house into the forestry, I noticed a side track which climbed towards the summit of Bheinn Bhraggie. Being too late to follow it that day, we tackled it this morning in damp, cloudy conditions which....

....probably suited the fungi.

The track led steadily uphill and we persevered but, after about a kilometre, we had to admit defeat - which was so frustrating as we could see that the track veered away to the left to traverse the hill and so probably led out onto the high, open moorland that I so love.

We just don't have the energy we once had. This was not a long walk - after we returned home I could see that we had walked about three kilometres and climbed a hundred metres vertically - yet I felt utterly drained.

We stood for a time at the turning-back point and admired what views there were - this one looking roughly south towards Loch Fleet - but....

....we could see that, had we been able to climb higher, there were panoramas yet to open up.

We're old, so we really shouldn't complain that we can only manage relatively short distances these days, but whenever I am faced with a defeat like this I look back on the expeditions of which we used to be capable and wish for that life all over again.