a strange year

Gullane towards Eyebroughy, 14 February

It’s the start of October and yet the title above suggests an end of the year round-up. It’s the title of a post from the last week of December. But as I was looking back at these photos from mid-February, I was struck by all the things we were hoping and planning for at the start of this year. We were planning to move and there were work plans, work hopes, and a project or two. A trip away. Driving. All those things that you tell yourself in January: this is the year that I/we do… whatever the thing is.

Instead, it’s been a strange and challenging year. Maybe this process of looking back on these walks is my way of remembering that even the challenging months hold really good memories, as all the best moments of 2026 were our walks. The four of us, together, out on an adventure – even if the adventure was local. These moments were important. These walks were our sustenance.

And this was my birthday walk from back in February, when we headed to Gullane for the route that leads along the dunes towards Eyebroughy. For years, this is how we’ve celebrated birthdays – mine, Richard’s, the lads’, and now Raf and Oak’s. Usually we’d make it a day trip – to Tentsmuir or the East Neuk in Fife, or Faskally Wood in Perthshire, or perhaps south to the Northumberland coast – but as I’ve not been able to do any longer car journeys, we kept this one local. I look at these photos now and can feel the chill in this cool light and this milky sky, but you know how much we love cold walks. And this was a beautiful one with textures of rock and pebble and driftwood and grasses and sand; a walk of big views across the Forth, and then, at our turning point, towards Fidra from Eyebroughy’s rocky shore.

Gullane to Eyebroughy, East Lothian, 14 February 2026