Updateski

I’ve been inundated of late with messages asking what rock I’ve been hiding under and if me and rach have actually been doing anything over here at all. Simple answer is yip, heaps but haven’t been able to put anything up as BT (British Telecom) are the worst service company in the world…ever.
But dinna worry we’re back online and got lots to say.

Since Paris in February we’ve been UK bound, just waiting for the winter to break. Edinburgh’s been pretty cold, not too much snow (mainly cause it’s to cold and windy for it to snow). But it’s not like us to let the weather get us down so we’ve been out and about over Scotland and England.

Over Easter we hired a car and went up to Aberfoyle (near Stirling) for a day trip to go on a high wire / ropes course.

As we were doing the mandatory training (this is a carbineer, don’t fall out of the trees ect) it starting snowing/hailing……….. good solid Scottish weather

Hmmmm, did I bring my gloves

Longest flying fox in the UK, it kinda just kept going

A sunny day in Stirlingshire

Nothing was really planned for April so we decided to do another Adventure race. A month of solid training 6 days a weeks running and biking leading up to race day. 6 hours of mountain biking, kayaking and running around the Peaks District near Manchester and Derbyshire (pronounced darby, we’re not at the trots).

The day wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the sunshine promised by the BBC and I was pretty keen to flag it altogether. But Rach wasn’t about to let me waste the training and money we’d spent to get there so on with the thermals and get on that bike.

We ended up coming 4th, just missed out on 3rd by 11 poins (should’ve dragged Rach up those hills a bit quicker). 30k’s bike, 13k run and a small but wavy and wet 800m kayak.

It stopped raining long enough for me to get a shot of the lake

A week or two after our race in englandshire the belatne fire festival was on in Edinburgh. A bunch of wannabe pagans dancing about with fire ‘bringing in’ the solstice. Im sure it would have come anyway (oh and most of them were naked).

So we met up with some friends at a city pub, had a few pints and walked up Carlton Hill. Where we proceeded to wait for 4 hours while, unbeknownst to us (and the rest of the crowd) the fire dancing and general paganess was happening on other parts of the hill. But not to worry, as many a good Scottish crowd has done before and will do again semi drunk people took to the stage a performed mock break dance battles and sumo fights.

Ohhhh ahh, drums and fire

The pagans eventually made it to the central stage, but it was kinda hard to take them seriously as there was a troop of Charlie Chaplin clowns in a brass band playing ‘Im the king of the swingers’ form Disney’s the jungle book. It dinna seem to fit.

Ahhh, scary red pagans dance around fire bird, make big noise.