Shepherd House Inveresk

Visit to a lovely spring garden in Inveresk with snowdrops, crocus, hellebore and a few surprise early flowering plants.

Bike Ride along Fife Coast

With some fabulous weather Colin headed out to Rosyth for the start of a bike ride along the Fife Coastal path. Been this route a few times and very pleasant it is taking in a lot of industrial heritage and some pretty villages. Coffee and Scone stone at Bessie's tea room at Culross.

The return route inland via old railway path was fast but a bit dull until Dunfermline where there was a pleasant route through park and rural paths. Around 40 miles cycled.

Verve Poetry Festival

Colin and Cherry flew down to Birmingham with FlyBe on Saturday morning to catch up with Hannah performing at the Verve poetry festival.

We had a quick gym visit on the first day and Colin went again on the second. Stayed at the Premier Inn beside New Street Station. It was just about OK although the surrounding streets were pretty unpleasant. 

On Saturday evening we saw Hannah do a very short performance as part of the 2019 UniSlam winning team as well as a range of other poets with a connection with UniSlam.

On Sunday Cherry met up with her cousin (in-law) for Lunch whilst Colin was gyming and shopping.

Late afternoon Hannah as part of Second City Poets performed their piece called Playground. It was really excellent.

In the evening there was a final performance of Funkenteleky which is an improvised fusion of jazz music and poetry. Had really enjoyed it at a previous event but it seemed to lack variety this time and also just went on too long.

We headed home at Monday lunchtime. The flight back was pretty unpleasant with Birmingham airport and Flybe doing their best to make the journey uncomfortable.

Marshalling at the Carnethy 5

First day back from holiday and Colin spend the afternoon counting the runners in at the finish of the Carnethy 5 hill race. It has been a while since I've run this race - it has never been a favourite with all the hassle of bus travel involved. Good to do my bit to support this big event.

Gran Canaria Holiday

Cherry and Colin enjoyed a week away in Gran Canaria at out favourite location the Lopesan Costa Meloneras. It is a lovely location for a relaxed time. A pleasant but unfussy hotel with a lovely set of pools and gardens with a variety of leisure activities on offer. Nice restaurants just beside the hotel a very short distance away.

For this trip Colin did some series cycling hiring a high quality road bike for 5 days and heading each morning for the mountains. The days were 2 hrs, 3 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour and 8 hours. The last big day was a ride to the summit of Gran Canaria at a height of 1951 m. The ride was 100 km long and involved 2600 m of ascent.

Cherry got in a good swim each day in the big lagoon circuit pool.

On the final day we hired a car for a drive in the mountains.

A very pleasant week although Cherry suffered from a sore back by the end as she doesn't like being away from her own memory foam mattress.