So what have I been doing, I’ve been to two weddings, two weekends away for meetings, a weekend in Cumbria for a fiends birthday, trip to Sheffield to go climbing, many parties in and around York, across to Leeds for the fireworks, family birthdays combined with a geeky weekend.  And oh yea, I quit my job and got a new one (more on that later).

As my Mum so delicately put it “You get around”.

Unfortunately it’s raining today, otherwise I would be in town to pick up a few bits and bobs.

You can see what I’ve actually been doing by having a peek at the 135 pictures I’ve  just uploaded to the gallery.  Yes, 135!  That’s what made me realise it had been a busy month.

It’s also the month that the picture counter on my camera passed one thousand.  Over a thousand pictures since I got the camera on Christmas day, I hate to think what the cost would be if they were 35mm film pictures.

That’s the distance from York to the far North of Scotland, a bit of travel, and back.

I’ve out pictures from the trip in my gallery as usuall - http://www.tuxx.org.uk/gallery2/v/n_hw_scotland/

Last Tuesday I drove us up to Edinburgh (watching out for the speed cameras on the A1) where we stayed with Clare, a friend who would be joining us, and her husband Richard. The following morning Dad and I shared the driving until we stopped short of Durness at a place simply called Hope. From there it was a walk into our first bothy; one that I hadn’t been to since 2000.

The weather closed in a bit that night, but not enough to effect the walk out the following morning. From there is was relatively short drive before a very long walk in to a bothy project that Dad has been helping on. At some point I had done something to my right knee so walking on the rough track was very sore. It didn’t get better and I hobbled my way slowly along the track and over the moor land. Going downhill to the bothy was quite a painful process and many times I had to stop. Eventually I reached the bothy where I devoured tea and got the fire going.

At this point I must say thanks to the person who left the packet of noodles baked beans. Realising I was very low on energy from the long walk in (not made any easier by my sore knee) the noodles made a great addition to my bed time hot chocolate, the beans I ate along side the normal breakfast. The extra food and good nights sleep seemed to have done the trick for in the morning I set off 10 minutes before Dad and Clare expecting them to quickly catch me up, but with the distraction of an adder and the head start they didn’t catch me up until just after the path started to go down hill about an hour later.

Just as on the way in we cut the corner and went direct across the moor. It still left around a 10 mile walk back to the car along the rough track. In hindsight this track actually did my knee some good. I kept plodding along not pushing myself much and think the repetitive action helped my knee. I wasn’t putting much strain on it, just talking step after step.
We worked out that walk in had taken 5 hours 30 minutes, the walk out took 4 hours 30 minutes. It’s a very exposed route, on both ways we got blasted by very strong wind. I did enjoy the walk in and out, despite my knee. Just hope that next time it’s injury free.

I wasn’t the only one to suffer though. On the walk out Clare had sore feet from the continious pounding of the track. With that and my knee a change of plan was called for. The final planned bothy was quite close to another bothy with relative short walk into and between them, and so it made sense to link these together. The only downside to this change in plan was it meant going into another valley, a valley where it was poring with rain.

The walk in wasn’t that bad. The contents of my bag were dry which quite please me, that is until I came to unpack my sleeping bag. Wet wet wet. It turned out it wasn’t that wet and even in a semi-damp state kept me warm all night.

We woke in the morning to some sun and lots of clouds. The walk to the next bothy wasn’t long but was more of a technical challange. There was no path on the map so the obvious choice was to follow the shoreline. Lets just say that my years of boldering came on very usefull on one occasion. Clare followed the shoreline for a while then elected to work her way through the trees higher up. We eventualy met back up for lunch at the top of the hill that was between the two lochs. Having missed the path down to the bothy my climbing skill once again came into use. Eventually the path was located and from there things were a bit less adventurous.

The last day was an early start to give enough time for driving back home. The route out was the same sort of terain as the previous day but on the opposite shore. We finished it off with an ice cream (or scone for some) and got back to the car around 1pm.

For me it was back to York for the Christmas and New Year period. Christmas was once again full of enjoyment with santa delivering as requested, along with a few surprises! This year even more of my family were in York than in past years. My grandma from the Midlands and aunt with my cousins from Spain joined us and proved that the 2 houses can cope with a few more people. I’ve put the pictures up at http://www.tuxx.homelinux.org/gallery/christmas_2005. These were taken with my new digital camera (execpt those starting with a caption of P). Thanks to my Mum and Dad for the camera!

One of the highlights of winter for me is snow. Unfortunatly it didn’t snow on Christmas day but did a few days later. Got quite a bit of practice at driving on snow and ice that week!

For the New Year I was in a camping barn near Pickering. Unfortunatly my camera got lost on sone ones bag after the first day so there aren’t may pictures of the event its self. Pictures in the gallery as usuall.

I managed to get to speak to my dissertation tutor today to sign my form. Turns out that my proposal was good enough, just didn’t think to reply to my e-mail and tell me that. Several hours wasted because of that. But now I can start to get on with the reseach. What fun.

Oh, and it’s two of my friends birthday today. So a big Happy Birthday to Ali and Caroline, hope it’s a good one.