The past three days have been a state of despair.

There’s been a windstorm over Scotland for 3 days. Temperatures have been around the ten degree mark. But when you blow winds at gusts of 50kmph its too dangerous to exercise outside. And where i normally hike, the wind gusts would be 70kmph or more, which would mean you’d literally get blown over the cliff faces to death.

Lock down mandate has been to stay at home - which is fine. But this windstorm as forced me to stay inside. Which has got me feeling extremely sad and upset. Its like a prison. Imprisonment by weather.

I realise now I need to get out of the united kingdom. ASAP, so that I can get back to the UK later this year and have a reasonable amount of time left on my visa to work.

Also, other European countries are about to implement a reciprocal self isolation mandate for people who leave the UK and enter european countries. So, if i can’t get out soon enough, once I get to Netherlands, I may be forced to lock down inside the vehicle for 14 days, and this is a serious quarantine. No groceries, no exercise.

I love hiking and training every single day, but when there is a 5 day windstorm, I’ve been able to do nothing. I wake up at 3pm, and go to bed at 9pm.

I’m sitting here typing with 45kmph winds ominously battering the outside of the vehicle. It sounds like a horror movie. I’m watching the day after tomorrow to really embrace the ominousness of it all.

I’m awaiting paperwork from australia to arrive to grant financial support during this lockdown crisis. I started this application 4 weeks ago, and now need to the papers to be sent to scotland, signed, and sent back, for the financial support to be delivered. That process could take 3-6 weeks longer.

When I drive out of here I will live, for free, at truck shelters and in the carparks of national parks. if i can get to europe before they impose 14 days quarantine, I’ll literally have every national park, every tourist location to myself.

It will be a travelers, photographers dream. A luxurious vehicle to travel and sleep in with all my equipment. The end destination is Austria. Everything is open, and its its a visual playground. I’ll drive through switzerland, hike, skate, ride, drone the hell out of the place.

But until then, until I get the papers, and until this storm lifts, I’m stuck trapped inside the vehicle.

I had been walking 14-16km a day. Now, its too windy to walk. You need goggled to walk to the grocery story. Its too dangerous to skate without being blown off. And it may be too dangerous to drive as the weather may uproot trees.

I did a 35 day health challenge in an effort to lose the horrible fatness I’ve gained in the last twelve months. I worked my ass off and got it done.

I lost 6 Kilograms, 13 pounds with a combination of cardio, HIIT, resistance training, calisthenics, cutting out alcohol, sleeping well, mobility and dietary scarifies.

But guess what?

Those kind of diet cuts, and extreme physical workload, walking training, caloric deficits, exhausts you to your bones. So I lost the 6 kilos, and I’m going strong, but I feel dead.

After the 35 day challenge finished I ate some cookies and felt sick. I slept 18 hours a day for 2 days in a row, and the ominous storm set upon us here. Its been a huge emotional crash.

I feel flat, its like a state of despair. Its horrible.

I woke up yesterday at 4pm. Or, I didn’t bother to get up until 4pm, and then at 9pm I went for a walk, in a state of despair.

I took my Sony a7rii and the 24-105 f4.

Its so uncomfortable walking in horrible wind. eyes are constantly full of dust, its incredibly noisy, and its a huge pain to simply stroll when you’re being blown off balance where you stand.

But, despite all that, despite feeling rotten, and sad, and down, and helpless; I remembered how beautiful the world is.

Within 5 minutes of leaving my front door I saw the following moments in the slideshow below.

Simple country beauty. Sunsets, light beams and angelic horses, and rainbows and vistas.

Be gone weather. I have things to do.

I’m watching ominous movies like everest until this stupid wind storm passes.

For pentland hills in edinburgh. From my lonely bench.

Alex James

The view from the loneliest cold bench.

Without anywhere legal to go during the Uk lockdown i was forced to stay put at any site that can host motorhomes.

Once i realised this condition I knew we’d be in this for a good couple of moths, so i wanted to try and choose a decent location.

I aimed at edinburgh. The outskirts of edinburgh, where I could do some excercise in the little highlands, but not be too far from the city.

Most days I do a 14 or 20 kilometer hike. And hill sprints throughout.

The battle of the fat gut is real, and must be overcome.

I don’t normally take serious camera gear up the hill, but yesterday I took the lightweight sony a6600 to see how it performed as a landscape photogrpahy camera… and i have to say it did ok.

I’ll save hasselblad for the serious imagery. but it was enlightening to know what a simple camera could deliver when the only task is to tell my story, and not weight me down.

The other critcal aspect of this operation was to be able to get images from me to content consumer easily.

A huge mistaek ive made in the past is rendering images that are 1-3mbs. Now, I’m rendering much smaller, and lower qualitiy images that are find for web viewing, and most importantly fast and reliable to upload, around 200kb.

But for the stunning full res images I still have the option of prodibi, as for the one full res image below, before the full gallery of all the image of the march.

check them out, and enjoy.

The image below is uncompremised, and can be viewed in full res. The images in gallery are produced efficiently for web sharing.

Compulsory selfie included.

more highland cows than jurassic park

I want to make note that these photos below were taken with a poultry Sony A660.

This is a little cropped frame sensor camera that I use for vlogging and videogrpahy. It’s not renowned for its photographic ability.

But alas, the photos are pretty beautiful. Thats a testament to the kinds of sunsets that you get in the pentland hills outside of edinburgh.

Seeing these results set me on a course to mobilising my hasselblad camera. I wanted to be ale to walk and photograph everything, all the time. You never know when an unmissable moment is gong to reveal itself.

Sony a6600 inspired me.