And so the Easter holiday week with the boys ended; I chummed them up the hill to their mother's who was taking them off to Hampden for one of them to return happy, the other one not so happy.

I sped into town, spent a happy hour with the dog in the Meadows before transport arrived in the form of Weird Al (accompanied by Marcus) and off into Midlothian we didst go. 

Parking at Gladhouse, we'd an 11 mile walk around 3 Donalds in mind. Al completed his Donalds in 2016 ( see FT passim) but he's going the Donald tops, whilst Marcus - new to hill walking and having something of a midlife crisis - is fast approaching 50 and is already at an impressive 70 odd Donalds ( theres only..   89?) He's billed this as a warm up for having a tilt at Munros ...current score is a slightly more sober 6.

Anyhoo, off we trotted, up onto the first hill. Blackhope Scar? The left hand side of the photo shows the line of ascent, the top is set quite far back,obviously across heathery peat hags. (Actually it was pretty decent terrain, considering) 

Next up was Bowbeat ( the wee lump in the middle of the shot) and its extensive wind farm. And helpfully metalled roads through it, so easing our passage to within a couple of hundred yards of the summit. 

And finally to Dundreich- my brother's old shepherding patch. I've been up before and as the sun  threatened to go full on scorchio, we admired the broad panorama of the Lothians and the South Coast of Fife. (The summit is somewhere in a line between the woodland and the pole in the shot. It can't be too far out if sight, as I'm pretty sure we spotted the car soon into our final descent)

A regulation 5 hours around and I got dropped at Asda to grab a bus to Hers and a steak dinner and a well deserved sit down. I also rehydrated with a couple of bottles of beer. As you do.