A distinguished rooster in an olive wax jacket and tweed trousers standing on a mossy boulder in a misty Highland glen at dawn, walking stick in hand

On Location

The Highland Ascent

17 February 2026

He told no one where he was going. This was not secrecy — it was simply that the Highlands do not require an explanation, and he has always found explanations a form of apology.

Featuring Edmund

A rooster in an olive wax jacket seen from behind, ascending a rocky Highland path above a wide loch with sunlight breaking through storm clouds

The path does not ask permission. You simply begin, and the mountain does the rest of the thinking.

A rooster in an olive jacket seated on a stone wall in the Highlands, Ordnance Survey map spread across his lap, a silver hip flask beside him

The map insisted he was precisely where he intended to be. He consulted it again anyway. There is a particular pleasure in being right that improves with repetition.

A small solitary rooster figure in an olive jacket and tweed trousers standing on a wide Highland ridge, a vast glen and mist-filled valley stretching away beneath a dramatic overcast sky

From up here, everything that seemed urgent revealed itself as merely loud. The glen held its silence like a confidence.

Close-up still life of worn brown leather hiking boots, a silver hip flask, and a folded Ordnance Survey map on a lichen-covered Highland rock amid purple heather

The boots have been this way before. The flask has opinions about the pace. The map has not yet been proven wrong, which is the most that can be asked of any map.

A rooster in an olive jacket and brown leather boots seated on a mossy boulder at the edge of a Highland loch at golden hour, walking stick resting at his side, mountains in silhouette across the still amber water

The loch did not offer congratulations. It simply reflected the last of the light back at him, which he found more than sufficient. He sat until the cold made a persuasive case for moving, and then he sat a little longer.