I think the 
are a perfect choice for #500
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We’ve just spent the day in the French-Suisse Alps with our son. I’ll post just 3 pictures from the mountains above Verbier, partly because too many pictures of mountains is boring, partly also because I don’t really remember where we went.
All straight out of phone.
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Just a tad different to your usual ones!
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Very much so. We’ve walked quite a bit, particularly above 2500 meters, and are tired tonight. The summit is over 3300meters, and I did run out of steam up there.
The view from our room tonight.
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First post for ages, but a different excuse for each week, visiting Paris, rainy, did a walk along the Lot that we do so frequently, similarly one in the Cantal that’s pretty, but not photogenically, and then last Sunday the regular walk along the Lot, but rather different to usual but severely truncated by a third because I was exhausted - mysteriously totally lacking in stamina.
Monday and Tuesday seemed fine as I managed the usual exercises, just felt a bit spaced out and disconnected but was looking forward to one of my favourite walks from picturesque La Vinzelles, 400m above the Lot Valley. When we set out from home, the mist was so thick that the far bank of the river was invisible, but I’d stuck with shorts because I expected it to be clear and sunny up on top of the plateau.
However, on arrival…
Whereas how it looks on a normal day -
Setting off…
However a 100m or so higher, up the mist began to thin and the light started to look more promising for photography
I was going to caption the next photo ‘A Poodle Looking Over the Sea of Mist’ after Casper David Friedrich’s famous Wander, but on closer inspection realised that rather than contemplating the Romantic Sublime, our philistine little caniche was more interested in finding a chestnut for a game of chase and fetch.
I also began to become aware that each time i stopped to take a photo, I fell further behind the rest of the group
and further still…
… so stopped taking photos until reaching the first resting point; nevertheless arrived there long after everyone else.
Setting off again, I suddenly noticed how my shadow was merging with those of the trees, but by the time Id got my phone ready while trying to keep up with the rest, the light was no loger behind me, so tried to walk while looking through the camera leld out in front of me like the Japanese tourists we’d seen in Paris, who walked in crocodile formation, each apparently videoing the back of the person in front of them.
Inevitably by the time my shadow was again where I wanted it be, everyone else was out of sight
Continuing and falling further and further behind the group, I began to realise, this wasn’t wholly due to photography…Continuing and falling further and further behind the group, while while continuing to take photos of things like this rather fine barn, I began to realise, the root of the problem wasn’t actually photography…
A couple of kms along the road at turning back down to La Vinzelle everyone was waiting for me and looking rather anxious.
Apparently I was walking unnaturally, and not just slowly, and after a rather stupid and stubborn resistance I was persuaded to walk no further and to wait with my wife who’d suddenly become my minder until someone drove back to collect us.
Spent the next half hour sat under a tree admiring the view…
Postscript: I’ve probably got a Vitamin B12 deficiency - took double the normal dose and have a doctor’s appointment for next Weds
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Look after yourself, I for one, look forward to your randos, ones of the type I will never do. I get a bit puffed just walking up the 10% field each day with Jules, fortunately he is a nosey bogger and stops frequently to snuffle giving me time to recharge. 
Then a quick swim, cold enough now (the water) to make once up and back again (14 metres) but I feel better for doing so and have cleared the spiders out of my old swimming hat to re-use and ward off the brain freeze, the new, thinner, professional ones simply did not cut it. This one has a thickish foam lining, I cut it from a full hood which was of no use to me. 
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Thanks
At the moment I’ve got strength, but lack stamina. One of the upsides is it’s a good excuse to boost my protein intake, with lots of meat, eggs and cheese without being nagged!
I’m going back to the butcher’s tomorrow to see if he sells eggs, I am right out and the supermarket is closed for 2 weeks, change of ownership.
BTW, do you like McVitie’s half chocolate digestives? I do but can’t get them for love nor money. Don’t much like the ordinary ones I bought and the 90% dark chocolate I was advised to eat after my heart attack tastes horrible to me.
Had a brain wave. Put one square of the black stuff onto one digestive and put it in the airfryer grill for 10 minutes. Then, when it had cooled I put it in the freezer overnight. After that put it in the fridge to thaw out. Ate it today, it isn’t the real thing but doesn’t taste bad, better than either of the 2 products used individually to make it . 
We normally buy our eggs on the market from the fromager, but if he’s out, we get them from the butcher, and if he’s not got them, we got to the chicken lady, who looks like a Breughel peasant and whose apron looks as though it hasn’t been washed for a couple of decades. Nevertheless, she always has a kind word for Gigi.
Re McVities I’m no authority on the subject as don’t have a sweet tooth but I’m sure some decent choc would make a world of difference.
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I hope that’s all it is - look after yourself.
Thanks,
I’m pretty confident as have something similar about fifteen years ago.
Incidentally, anyone visiting Conques or this stretch of the Lot Valley can get a fantastic, but inexpensive lunch with a fantastic view
at the Auberge du Peyral (booking strongly recommended).
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I enjoyed your photos but really think you ought to make an appointment and see your MT asap.
May, I sincerely hope, be nothing but wiser to know in case it’s an early warning.
(Luckily, you are not an Englishman with the genetic resistance to doing anything about health any time short of a crisis. )
And self-diagnosis is dangerous. 
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As I found out when I thought I had trapped wind.
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Absolutely. and ironically I’ll have to miss next week’s rando due to a newly arranged doctor’s rendez-vous.
However, there’s also a need to balance my wife’s worst possible scenarios that include fear that it might be cancer/Parkinson’s/ long term Covid/some horrible, as yet unidentified disease that originated in Central Africa, against my opinion based on last month’s zillion point blood test that indicated low Vitamin B12 levels due to age and hereditary factors.
For me one of the many benefits of regular exercis is being able to compare and monitor things
Easily sorted.
My husband has fortnightly injections of prescription B12 given during a friendly visiting infirmière visit chez nous. No probs!
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Sitting, not sunbathing ? …
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