Sometimes, the things you do in the moment, and what seems important at the time, isn’t necessarily what you remember years later.

Hello there, it’s currently the end of a particularly grim January. Violet is finally asleep next to me on the bed. I’m flicking through every photo I’ve taken in February over the years loosely investigating an idea for an article, that would include my all time fave February pics. I decide it’s a weak idea and abandon it.

I do however come across photos taken during a trip to Wales 3 years ago. The photos are pretty good and bring it all back.

I’d trained two months for an ‘A’ race – a Hoka sponsored hilly 10K in the forests near Cardiff, with an additional plan to get to the tops of some of the hills and mountains in the Brecon Beacons in the days that followed.

I feel it was the last time I did well competitively in a race. Trail 10-15k’s used to be my thing. Turns out though, in retrospect the race was the least interesting part of the whole trip.

After the event I was kind of ruined and drove back to the hotel to lay in a hot bath for hours.

The Hotel itself itself was definitely memorable; a pretty cheap and cheerful place for travelling contractors and steelworkers from the nearby Port Talbot factory to stay at, masquerading as a family friendly hotel. The sky behind the hotel was lit up all night in dramatic fashion from the works.

The next day I walked up Pen Y Fan, the highest mountain in the South of England.

It was actually a sunny day but the top of mountain was covered in fog, and the temperature dropped dramatically. The folks who had all walked up laughing in their casual Sunday clothes were slipping and shivering.

I made it to the top easily enough and got a couple to take this pic, before walking off the wrong way in the mist nearly over a cliff.

I ran along the ridge between peaks and looked down. Where I live in the South Downs the tallest peak is about 220 metres so up on Pen Y Fan my brain struggled to process how the world looked all stretched out below through the mist.

Going back down it was grim, moors-like and beautiful.

I returned at sunset to the hotel that was still in the midst of the Industrial Revolution.

The next day again I was even more ruined, BUT wanted to reccy a future race route (that I would never actually run).

The route was great – straight up higher and higher through farmer’s fields leaving the flat world behind and below.

From the other side at the top I could see Pen y fan where’d I’d been yesterday.

Afterwards, I drove home through other-worldly empty landscapes, and that was it, trip over. Trips away by yourself are special times, rarely revisited.

The road goes on and on and on – also very pleased with this photo – that full frame Sony A7 camera was great.