Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

Just four us managed to tear ourselves away from family commitments yesterday for a lovely snowy walk from Banchory to Potarch. It's a major reduction in numbers for the traditional celebration of Dave's birthday, but hardly unexpected in this crazy year. Our walk took us through the gate and along the riverside where we posed for the first team photo: Taking the traditional cycle route, we arrived at the familiar viewpoint where hundreds of photos have been taken over the years: It didn't take us long to get to Dave's where we were greeted with this cosy sight in their carport: What a greeting - and what an effort put in by the Williamsons. The firepit was particularly welcoming, but so was the barbecue, the minikegs of beer and the drams, not to mention the Xmas decorations on the back wall. We settled down to bowls of hot soup and bread whilst son Alex fired up the BBQ and soon we were devouring venison...

Despite the poor forecasts earlier in the week, conditions improved enough to allow three of us to get another walk in yesterday. Jeb was the prime instigator, perhaps inspired by the knowledge that Aberdeenshire was to be moving up to Tier 3 at 6 pm? It was a local walk, starting at Burnett Park, up the old railway line to Brathens, then planning to loop back through the forest towards Inchmarlo. We got as far as the Old Man in the Forest before the first photo was taken: Just after this was when things started to go wrong. There had been some forestry work there recently but the heavy felling was finished a week or two ago. Despite this, there was still a "Do not enter" sign on our trail. We took the chance of marching on a bit but veered away from where the lighter activities were going on and were only in the official "danger zone" for a couple of hundred yards before heading up the trail that leads to the high point of the Glassel road. Our planned exit had...