Going places.

Go nice places, do fun stuff.

Well yes, why wouldn't you?

  If lucky enough to have the chance.

And due to a blessed team of women, willing to tend the 'stead in my absence, that's exactly what I'm doing.

Stomping up and down some fine Pyrenean valleys, over high passes, and generally enjoying the geology, and fabulous views.

Either this must be the way, or  someone is having random fun with a pot of orange paint.  

The weather has been mixed, the sun doesn't always shine in Spain, but when ascending for hours at a time, a modicum of cloud cover can be most welcome.

Eight or occasionally more, hours per day of hard walking, whilst carrying all the personal requisites for shelter, and nutrition,  might not be everyone's idea of a relaxing holiday.

But each very much, to their own.

The company, in the form of reliable, way finding* trail-mate is plenty congenial enough, even entertaining on occasion.

But it would be an untruth to assert that these excursions are all fun, all the time.

Undoubtedly there are times when the hills are just a tad too steep, it's overly hot, rather cold, mightily wet, or one is just too tired, and hungry for comfort.

Even 'the way' through unmarked scree can, on occasion, be hard to discern.

* i don't hand over total responsibility for this - that would be both unwise, and unfair ..

Only mild peril really, but perhaps more peril, than is usually found in everyday life..

But I guess, in part, that's sort of the point.

Not to make oneself suffer intentionally, but to give a sharper appreciation of the basics..

Food, shelter, rest,

Walk, eat, sleep, repeat.

Through some astonishing scenery.

But also, as a result of being out of contact with what passes for the normal world, it makes me appreciate, more fully, how some parts of it, were making me uncomfortable in other ways.

And how, those things, could be done without...

As is often the case - Less, is generally more :-)