January silence

Regular readers might be interested to know what is happening in my life.

Recently, it has been confirmed that the combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone suppressing medication continues to hold the disease at bay. After scans in the autumn confirmed no metastases, the PSA is now wobbling round a very low number, showing no signs of rising again and giving no doctors any cause for concern.

Nevertheless, I have succumbed to some sort of virus thing, which leaves me tight chested, listless and throaty, and which, my GP informs me can linger for up to six weeks. So I am nowhere near fit enough to tackle any Munros. I am of course making plans and poring over maps, and I get out for shorter walks as often as the weather and my health permit.

I continue to wrestle with demons, to become outraged by the government in particular and politics in general, and to attempt to make sense of it all by reading, writing, discussing, observing, scrutinising, deconstructing, reflecting and so forth.

And I am now writing a book.

Up until 2017 my written posts here were sporadic and inconsistent. Until 2016, it was empty. Posts dated before this are a retrospective archive of summits with a silly selfie, evidence to myself of what I had done. It was not until much later that I developed the confidence to write about my adventures. Consequently, I have not yet properly told the stories of more than a hundred ascents.

So I am now rectifying this with a book, starting with an expedition to Ben Alder in the summer of 2014 and working forward to now. Basically a very long blog post.

Hence the silence.