Today we woke up to rain, and it didn’t let up all day. It was a walk up and down hills again, and not really enjoyable, as the views were shrouded in mist. And of course it wasn’t possible to stop for a picnic. We followed the Cross Borders Drove Road for most of the day, but had a half mile diversion on the path because a landowner had put up fences where the marked path was meant to cross his land! We arrived at the Gordon Arms pub, bedraggled and muddy once again!

A Backward Glance

Today’s walk took us up into the hills again only this time through Scottish mist and ‘smirr’. Also, our old friend mud returned to remind us of our past adventures. On occasions like this my mind always goes on a walk of its own and this time it was pondering the ancient view that movement is logically impossible. So, I’m chatting to old Mr. Parmenides and the new upstart Sir Issac Newton who kept banging on about his new laws and something called calculus, but Mr P and me were having none of it, when someone suddenly interrupts and shouts “Hi, where are you going”? Precisely! I thought and turned around to see Sean, a young bearded lad who’d caught up with us. “I don’t know” I replied, “I’m just following that lady in front”. We all stopped and chatted together in the light drizzle. He was doing the ‘end to end’ walk too but heading for Edinburgh, whereas Carol was taking me to a place called West Linton. Sean was doing his walk for a charity called ‘Mates in Mind’ and worked in Health and Safety for Construction companies. A very positive person who reminded me that wet weather was part and parcel of the Scottish experience. He’s a lovely bloke and you can follow his trip on YouTube ‘Walking with Seany’. We bid each other farewell and he walked at pace ahead of us until not long after we had taken our separate paths. Later towards the end of our trek when the rain had stopped, Komoot took us again into uncharted territory of long grass up to our waists. I was way past sceptical and in full cynic mode when all of a sudden I saw buried in the long grass a concrete post with the yellow arrow still faintly visible on it. I pushed on through the undergrowth and rough rutted ground in the direction of the arrow and low and behold after about a hundred feet there was another buried with the arrow pointing left this time. “Follow me Carol, I know the way”. “OK” Carol replied, “you’re on the blue line”. Never mind the blue line, I was Indiana Jones and I’d found the ancient long lost path only spoken of in legend. There was another, this time partly fallen over, but with a very faint yellow shadow of an arrow pointing right up the hill directly towards a very tall wire fence. “We’re there!” I shouted, looking for the gate; looking left, looking right. Then, looking straight ahead I saw what I should have suspected all along, a white board with ‘PRIVATE KEEP OUT’ written on it in big red letters. Komoot 1, Indiana Jones Nil, but the gloves are off now Mr. Komoot so be afraid, very afraid, I might be down but I’m not out. Watch this space! We followed the fence line all the way back over steep and tricky terrain to a point we’d arrived at about an hour earlier. Carol turned Mr. Komoot off and led the way to our lodgings in a totally different direction along much simpler paved paths and roads.