I was staying with friends who live within the grounds of Lyme Park. I'd been looking after Winnie for the day, Pika's best friend, which meant I got the unusual experience of starting a walk from inside the park rather than making the long approach I normally take. It was one of those quiet evening walks where nothing much is supposed to happen. No grand route. No summit to reach. Just two dogs wandering ahead and enough daylight left to enjoy being outside.

As I climbed towards the Cage, something caught my eye.

Another hill.

Not the one I was standing on. Not the one I'd come to enjoy. Another one entirely. In the distance I could see rocky outcrops and unfamiliar slopes. Later I would discover it was called Black Rocks. At the time I only knew that I wanted to be up there.

What was the view like? 

Was there public access? 

How had I never noticed it before? 

And then, as I often do, I found myself mentally stepping out of the present. 

I imagined myself standing on Black Rocks, feeling the wind, looking back across the landscape towards Lyme Park. I tried to picture the route, the climb and the view. I imagined what it would feel like to arrive there. A simple day dream, distant outlines on the hill top, I could picture myself & Pika on Black Rocks looking back at us in the now. If I waved, they might wave back?

Then I caught myself.

I insisted, trying to pull myself back from Black Rocks to inhabit the now. I realised I do this all the time, looking ahead, wondering about the future. Is it simply restlessness? The more I thought about it, over the coming weeks, the less convinced I became.

I have a habit of imagining myself somewhere else and looking back at where I currently stand. Sometimes it's another summit. Sometimes it's further along a route. Occasionally it's even a future version of myself looking back through time.

Now I‘ve understood something about these daydreams. I think this habit is one of the reasons I walk.

Because when I imagine standing somewhere else, the future version of myself is never disappointed. They’re never criticising the present version. They’re never asking why I haven't done more.

Instead they’re usually saying something much simpler,

"You've got something really cool heading your way, mate.”

Standing near the Cage, imagining Black Rocks, I remembered something else.

There was a time when I used to do exactly the same thing with Lyme Park itself.

I can remember seeing the Cage from elsewhere in the landscape and wondering what it would feel like to stand up there. What the view would look like. What the wind would feel like. What the walk might be like.

Without realising it, I was now standing inside one of those old imagined futures.

The place that had once represented possibility had quietly become the present.

And before I'd even realised it, part of my imagination had already wandered towards another horizon.

For a moment, three versions of myself seemed to occupy the same hill.

The version that once looked towards the Cage.

The version standing there now.

And the version standing somewhere beyond, on Black Rocks, looking back.

It wasn't a feeling of regret.

It wasn't a feeling of dissatisfaction.

If anything, it felt reassuring.

There was a strange sense of pride for something that hadn't happened yet. As though the future version of myself had reached back through time to remind me how many horizons had already been crossed.

Of course, the funny thing is that these imagined futures are often wrong.

I've climbed hills before only to discover that the reality felt completely different to the version I'd created in my head. The weather changed. The view surprised me. The experience turned out to be something I'd never predicted.

But perhaps that's what makes the exercise worthwhile.

The future self carries a secret.

They know something the present self doesn't.

And eventually, if you're lucky, you get to discover what that secret was.

Maybe that's why I keep looking towards the next hill, because every now and then I realise I'm already standing inside one of yesterday's imagined futures.

And somewhere beyond the next horizon, another version of me is quietly smiling, knowing something I don't.

The hill beyond becomes the hill beneath your feet.

And for a brief moment, the future version of yourself gets to keep a promise to the past one.