Bike Ride to Haddington

A repeat of a lovely flattish ride out to Haddington. The route starts via the coast before heading inland at Longniddry and then takes a pleasant meandering inland route back with some interesting off road sections especially around Pencaitland. About 4 hours ride in total.

White Castle Hill Climb

First outdoor road bike ride in the UK. Drove to Gifford and did a steep climb into the Lammermuirs with a big effort up from Garvald to White Castle Hill. Perfect conditions. The climb was pretty tough but never in doubt that I would make it. Decided to keep the ride fairly short and to be honest not hugely keen on road riding.

Bike Ride with Cherry to Corstorphine

With the sun shining Cherry decided it was time to try out the bike - with a view to deciding whether to use more frequently in future. Scenic route on the way out via Canal and Water of Leith and quicker route back.

Took Les out to lunch at the Wetherspoons in Corstorphine.

What Girls Are Made Of

Theatre trip with Cherry to the Traverse for a very entertaining show about the author's experience in an almost successful band in the 80's. The usual story of young band ripped off by manager but good music and humour as well as sad bits.

Run Livingston Half Marathon

Successful half marathon run in Livingston. A nice course along walkways and cycle paths around parks and riverside in Livingston. Pleased to get round in just over 1 hr 54 mins.

Cycle to South Queensferry

A very pleasant ride on cycle paths out to South Queensferry. Lovely sunny crisp morning. Very nice coffee and scone at the Little Bakery.  Around 3 hrs of very easy paced cycling.

Warhol, Paolozzi and Pepperland

In the morning Colin and Cherry had a quick trip to the Gallery of Modern Art to see the Warhol/Paolizzi exhibition. We both quite enjoyed the Warhol but the Paolozzi less so.

In the event we went to the Festival Theatre and enjoyed Pepperland a colourful dance show to jazzy Beatles tracks.

Riverside Walk in Peebles

Colin and Cherry went down to Peebles for a moderate walk from the town along the river, past Neidpath Castle to the bridge and tunnel then back along the other side of the river.

Blackford Hill Walk

Colin and Cherry drove to the observatory and had a nice walk to the new, to us, cafe at the entrance to the Hermitage and back. Very pleasant.

Charles II Art & Power at the Queens Gallery

Colin walked down to the Queens Gallery to see this small exhibition on Charles II. It was surprisingly interesting with a nice range of historical artifacts and paintings from around 1650 - 1700   era.

Deuchary Hill Canter

A really nice race starting in Dunkeld at the Hilton hotel and enjoying some lovely mixed scenery and terrains under foot. It was a changes course from the last 2 times I'd run it but I ended up sticking to the route I knew at the end which I expect was very similar to the race route. Fabulous weather and pleased to be running strong at the end of 2 hrs and 8 minutes.

Robots

After a very busy couple of months of meetings and piles of reading I have a few quieter weeks with just a few meetings. Trying to schedule something fun to do every morning. Today was a visit to the National Museum of Scotland to see their Robots exhibition. It was pretty interesting with a bit of historical context and a range of different robots over the past 50 years.

KB 5 Mile Road Race

Woke on Saturday morning to snow in the garden and expected the race might be cancelled as there would be snow on the pavements. They must have decided they didn't want to cancel a second year in succession and the race went ahead with relatively small numbers of runners. I was running well and pleasantly surprised to do the first mile in 7 min 30 without particularly pushing. The course was quite slushy on the pavements so a bit of caution was required although I never felt any foot slippage on the way round. In spite of the cold and damp really enjoyed the race and running well the whole way round. Finished under 40 mins and my 6th best time in 7 outings in the race which was great given the conditions.

Long London Weekend

With meetings on Thursday, Friday and Monday morning Cherry decided to come to London so Colin didn't have to suffer the Friday evening / Monday morning London / Edinburgh journeys.

We arrived on Thursday following a reasonably pleasant train journey made slightly more exciting by our train being cancelled and needing to rush for the departure 30 minutes earlier. Colin went to a meeting with the PRA went to the British Library for some family history research.

In the evening we went to the Shard for a very nice dinner and night time views of the city.

Colin had more meetings on Friday and Cherry went to the National Archive near Kew. In the evening we went to see All About Eve starring Gillian Anderson and Lily James at the Noel Coward Theatre. Very good show but slightly irritated by the slightly restricted view.

On Saturday we started the morning with a walk around the newly redeveloped areas of Kings Cross and then went to the local Better swimming pool with Cherry trying to fix a sore back. In the afternoon we went to the Tate Modern Gallery on the Southbank and went to the Pierre Bonnard exhibition. We then wandered across town to the Prince of Wales Theatre to see The Book of Mormon.

Sunday started with gym/swim before we took the tube to East Acton and went to the house where Cherry's mum grew up and went to Primary School. We then went to Hollard Park and stopped in the Japanese Garden and had a quick look round the Design Museum.

We were pretty tired by Sunday evening so had a quiet night in with Cherry heading back to Edinburgh on the 8 am train on Monday morning and Colin continued with his three days of meetings.

Tweed Valley Twister - Mountain Bike Orienteering

At this time of year there starts to be a wide choice of sporting events to take part in. It was a fairly difficult choice but the MTBO event proved to be an excellent one. Three hours of riding and navigation in the Tweed Valley with clear blue skies and at times quite warm sunshine.

The plan was to stick to the easy controls and avoid the big climb over the gypsy glen route. The first few controls went to plan along the old railway line between Innerleithen and Peebles although with some pretty poor errors along the way. Just outside Peebles the choice was some very challenging navigation in Glentress or a simple but brutal climb with 120 points on offer. I went for the simple climb and in the end was pleased with the choice as it didn't feel as bad as I expected - in fact I really enjoyed it.

The last bit was a bit untidy picking up a few controls on an out and back route rather than a nice circuit but got back home in good time for no penalties.

Great event.

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.

Orienteering Holyrood Park

I was back running the Brown course after a year doing the much shorter Green in 2018. It was a very cold windy morning and the navigation and terrain were both challenging. Perhaps more by luck than skill there were no major navigation disasters. Pace wasn't great as I was doing my best to no get lost. Got round in 1 hr 46 mins for a lowly position in a big crowd of competitors.

The Glasgow Girls & Touching The Void

We had 2 nights out to the theatre this weekend. On Friday to the Kings for The Glasgow Girls and saturday to the Lyceum for Touching the Void. Both very good.