Burnt

I am frazzled.

My skin is red and rare, blotches have swollen to tender. Heat glows off my neck, pulsing like dying coals on a barbecue. On my forearms white flecks peel free and float off on the breeze.

It is, of course, entirely my own fault.

I was offered a squirt of the snot-green super-inflated Snowdonia service station sun screen, but I declined.

“I don’t usually burn,” I smugly jinxed myself.

I’m pretty certain of the exact moments it happened. We’d just heather-bashed, rock-slid and wall-jumped our way over a couple of kilometres of loose terrain having taken a slightly wrong angle off the side of the Rhinogs and chosen to cut the corner to get back on some sort of track.

Two kilometres that had taken us two hours to hump our way across.

Tough going.

We could have optioned to skip the final summit. Architect-Steve, who was carrying a bad hip and blisters, was adamant that he wasn’t going up the final peak. We could have just trudged back down to the car.

“Be a shame to not go up, since we’re here,” said Google-Steve.

“Time’s getting on.” Steph was diplomatic. “I don’t know what people’s schedules are.”

The deciding vote was mine.

“Sod it,” I muttered turning, “let’s go.”

A three hundred and sixty metres.

Upwards.

As quickly as possible.

The weather had been perfect all weekend – clean ocean skies, gentle winds – but at this point the sun suddenly decided to get over-enthusiastic. As we pelted up the near-sheer mud slide that was masquerading as a path I bent my head low to watch my footing and the handfuls of heather I grasped to keep my balance. We hit the hundred metre mark inside of ten minutes, but already I felt as though I was walking inside a microwave.

I caught the others up snatching a breather at two hundred metres and twenty-five minutes.

“Christ,” I spat, “I’m so unfit.”

“I dunno about that, Dave,” replied Google-Steve stroking my ego, “we’re going pretty fast.”

But by then sweat was gushing out of every pore, my breath was ragged, my chest thundered and unbeknown to me something was applying an iron to the back of my neck.
Getting to the top, though, is always worth it - that feeling of elation on forty-five minutes as though my feet were cushioned with air. Two photos quick photos of us and the view, three mouthfuls of water each and we headed back down in little more than a controlled skid.

So now I’m peeling. If I touch my nose fragments of self are lost. I’ll shed my damaged skin and rejuvenate freshly. I’ll heal.

It’d be useful, sometimes, if that’s how everything in life worked.