There had been high pressure over the UK for a few days and I’d been enjoying some great cycling in 17C, t-shirt and summer gear when the weather finally broke on the Saturday a couple of weeks ago. It was that kind of feeling though. The cloud was very low, 200m in places. The grey ceiling wasn’t producing any rain and it was lighter than it should be with that amount of cloud. It all screamed “inversion” and coupled with reports from a friend of an inversion in the Cuillin the day before and a forecast of cloud tops being around 1050m I headed out, making for the biggest hills in the area. The north Glen Shiel ridge.

Being in Shropshire over the ho ho holidays, I had a chance for a bimble up Caer Caradoc above Church Stretton. So parking in the layby just north of the town, I squelched across the sodden fields and up into wonderful countryside.

As I’ve been working on my exhibition images for next spring at the John Muir Trust Wild Space centre in Pitlochry, I’ve been thinking a lot about what photographs actually are and why I like black and white so much.

“It’s a bog”, I said, in response to Graeme’s “should I wear gaiters” question and here we were, up to our necks in glour and gloop. The path from Sligachan starts off good but as soon as you branch off into the trees it becomes a quagmire until you get to the bottom of Druim na Ruaige.

The forecast was good but the hills were clagged with atmospheric drifting vapours, so I just went out for a walk. I didn’t mean to end up on the top of Blaven.

I’ve been rather busy of late setting up my new photography business Gabbro Photography. It was a fair old journey designing and building the site to be mobile friendly using Bootstrap and involved too much time on the computer for an old gangrel like me but the end result was worth it.

There were a couple of conflicting forecasts for Saturday. MWIS pointed to clearing conditions and cloud above 900m by afternoon, while the BBC had it deteriorating into the afternoon, with roving bands of heavy showers. The BBC won. But I didn’t realise this until the afternoon arrived, by which time I was sitting on the summit of Sgurr na Banachdich in the Cuillin mountains of Skye. My local hills.

Ah the blog. I have a blog I suddenly remembered! What with stravaiging, cycling, writing (a bivvy article in The Scottish Mountaineer), preparing for a photography exhibition and what not, it’s been quiet in the eBothy but this weekend was a cracker as I met up with an old friend at Suardalan bothy for his final Munro. It was to be Beinn Sgritheall by the north ridge. The connoisseur’s route.