Saturday Morning Bike Ride (and more!)

A slightly later start to my bike ride than normal - I don't set off till near 10am.

Earlier in the morning I took all our old baby toys and some baby clothes to a local village hall for their toddler group's annual sale. I drove there with the car loaded full of numerous packed boxes and bags and with the sound of gently jangling baby bells and rattles accompanying me on my journey. I then returned home empty and quiet, and actually feeling a little downhearted that now the toys are all gone! It's all right, I'm definitely NOT broody, it's just sometimes sad to see a little stage of life pass for good.

Anyway, off we go...

A bike shot at the top of the first big climb (any excuse to pause to catch my breath!)

Despite these rather ominous looking clouds it's a fine morning.

The farmer here obviously doesn't believe in part exchanging his cars! While I'm faffing about trying to get a better photo of his piles of rusty cars I become aware that I am being watched by, I assume, the farmer's wife who obviously thinks I am up to no good! I let her know that I'm admiring her views, which I am...

... and not just of the cars, this is what I see if I just turn my head to the left - beautiful Barcraigs reservoir.

I continue through the farmyard and up the hill. This is the view looking back down, the farm is still visible though Barcraigs is now hidden. Almost all the snow from last week's run has now melted though there are still little pockets of snow to be found on the higher ground.

Well, it's just a dead tree, but I thought it looked rather dramatic in the wintry landscape.

Another bike shot. Did you notice I've a new saddle this week?

To the very right of this photo, just below the trees can be seen the remains of a cottage wall...

...with a little window opening still intact.

It's quite a climb to get up to this area, but once here the ground is quite flat and the network of quiet roads with varied views is perfect for cycling.

Lots of sheep!

And some cows let out of their byre for some fresh air (though this one's face is rather close to another one's rear for the air to be anything but fresh I would have thought!)

I've mentioned before that some of the roads here are blighted by fly tipping. Usually I wouldn't sully my blog with photographs of such ugliness (and lazy stupidity!) but this box of dolls made rather a poignant image.

That's better, a clear road. This is probably the highest point, it's downhill (almost!) all the way home now.

And to finish off the run, a new farm sign for my collection. I should have enough soon for a little farm sign photo mosaic, bet you can't wait!

Later that afternoon I'm back off out...

... for the concert (phone photo taken before we go on for the 1st half)

I'm now spoiled! It's been sooo long since I've played in a section of 6 basses and it was fantastic. The "other five" were all Academy students (or recently graduated), so knew what they were doing and made quite a decent sound(!) Overall, an excellent concert - great program, great soloist and the orchestra did OK too!

(By the way, thank you to all who left heartening comments on my last post - I was indeed feeling a little apprehensive, but it all turned out fine!)

Now to Sunday. It's another nice morning and as it's Mother's Day hubby decides to forego his usual Sunday morning outing with the cycling club, so we ALL go out for a little run.

I mentioned I have a new saddle. Well, it hurts and I moan!

But the sun is shining and the loch is sparklingly lovely and I have a strawberry cornetto in the cafe.

However, I still moan again, even more, on the way home. Hubby promises not to get rid of my old saddle just yet!

eek

A quickie today! I've a concert this weekend...

...and we've a rehearsal tonight with all the extra players including 5 new bass playing buddies for me! It will be rather a change from being on my own as has been the case at every other rehearsal, I think I'm looking forward to it(!)

Enjoy your weekend...

Saturday Morning Bike Ride

Determined to better plan my route this week I make the OS 1:50000 map my Friday night bedtime reading (hot stuff!) and I plan a route involving scouting out two castles and a medieval church.


The snow which fell ten days ago is still with us, and despite lying for over a week it still looks beautifully fresh and sparkling on the hills and fields. The morning sky is beautiful.


Once I reach the top of the hill and the countryside opens out I notice that clear skies lie to the North (on the right of the above picture). I catch little glimpses of the mountains across the Clyde lit by golden sunshine. My planned route lies to the South and West which looks decidedly cloudy. I decided to chase the sunshine; castles can wait for a later date.


I end up following my favourite section of road again, here's a snowy picture of the gate and tree knoll.

Just a little bit further up the road I glance back and again notice the dramatic skies.

Another shot of the lovely sky.

Now I'm off the unclassified road and on to the B road heading North. Ben Lomond shines in the morning sun.

I've reached the sunshine! I followed the B road to one of the local villages and climbed up through the village till I was back up on high land and back on the unclassified roads. It's rare to meet a car on these roads and I cycle slowly along admiring views without any worry of getting run over! It's so peaceful that cars can be heard well in advance of their arrival.

I like the houses peeking over the hill with the mountains in the background.

Another photo of the mountains.

A hungry sheep, there's not been much sign of grass for over a week. The farmers are extra busy with taking additional food out to the fields.


Little tree framed by foreground branches.

The view starts to open out. Here we can see the mountains of Cowal and the Firth of Clyde.


Climbing higher and the view just gets better and better. Bike shot too, notice!

And just before the top of the climb the view is the best! By this stage I realise I've probably not had enough breakfast! It's time to snack on my emergency rations which have been lurking uneaten in my bar bag for several months. I find a chocolate cereal bar which was out of date during Sept '09, yummy! Actually, it's not really yummy at all which is why it has survived so long, but anything tastes good when you're hungry!

Uh oh, some daft sheep are on the road! They can run faster than I can cycle uphill and sometimes I end up unintentionally herding them along for quite a while. Fortunately these three turn out to be reasonably sensible and I'm able to pass them just round the corner.


Once I'm over the top of the hill it's fairly bleak moorland for the next part of the ride, then back down to the village I passed through earlier. On reaching the village I then planned to zoom home along the cycle path. However, I find that it's covered in a thick layer of icy snow. I'm not attempting to cycle on that! Nor am I going to cycle on the A road which is the next most direct route. Nothing for it but to head back out on the B road I came down towards the start of the ride.


Spotting a little herd of highland cattle gives me an excuse to stop for breath on the long climb. There are three cows each with a calf but aside from the one above they were hiding too much in the shadow of some trees to photograph well. This breed have thick coats allowing them to stay in the fields over the winter. All the other cows round here have been stuck in the byres since the end of Autumn. Approaching a farm you can smell them before you see them! It won't be long though before they're back in the fields and posing for photos.

I've really enjoyed this ride. The sun feels quite warm and I don't think the snow will linger much longer and it's unlikely we'll have any more snow falling before Spring. In my opinion it's been a great winter! We've had two significant spells of snow (Christmas and now) and in between we've had beautiful sunny days with clear blue skies. February this year has been beautiful. Such a change from the mild and horribly wet winters we're normally subjected to in this part of the country.

A last view of snowy fields.


Sunday, and the sunshine continues. The field across from the house is now a mucky green instead of pristine white.

The snowdrops have escaped from under their snowy blanket and are looking good!

We have a little guddle in the garden in the afternoon. A makes a smiley face with pebbles and an ivy leaf on an old badminton racket.

N's teddies are briefly abandoned in the sun. The teddy on the left is "Special Teddy"- for N sleeping without him would be an unbearable tragedy so before each nap & bedtime we go on a bear hunt...

Enjoying the Sunshine.

It's a lovely sunny day here today.

Progress has been made on A's cushion cover. The first side is finished and I started the second side last night. Only 22 rounds were required to make it to 16" in diameter using UK treble stitch, as opposed to 32 rounds for the cushion I made using UK half treble stitch, one little disadvantage with treble stitch though is that the round joins seem to me to be more noticeable.

Stained glass shadows on the window sill.

Sunny shelves.

Earlier this morning we took a quick walk round the garden...

Hydrangea, one of my very favourite shrubs.

Dragonfly.

Footsteps in the snow.

Viburnum, not one of my favourite shrubs as it looks rather boring for most of the year. It's just about to reach its interesting stage now though.

Last night we had plum crumble...

...made using this much tried and tested recipe (but with 6oz flour in addition to the 2oz oats in the topping)...

...and with these beautiful plums.

And on Friday we finally built a snowman!

No cycling on Saturday I'm afraid, instead I have a clean house! We had a babysitter coming round on Saturday night as we were going out for hubby's Birthday Dinner and that motivated me to clean up. I think I probably expended the same amount of calories as on a cycle run; the place was in rather a state!

Mmmm, oaty biscuits with white choc chips & cranberries.

You may have noticed that this post travels back though time. It was determined by the order in which I uploaded my photos. Normally I use Firefox and can easily cut and paste my photos and text in Blogger to where I want them. We've had some connection issues which we thought may have been linked to using an updated version of Firefox so for the last few posts I've been using Internet Explorer or Google Chrome and the only way I can move a picture is by cutting and pasting the html which does get rather tedious. I didn't really have time to do that today. Grrrrr!

It's also my 100th post! If I was organised I would be presenting my 100th post giveaway, as one does. However, having only uncovered my desk from underneath a huge pile of stuff on Saturday I wasn't in a position to start preparing my giveaway goodies till now. I think I'll aim for a 111th post giveaway. See you then!