Belated Friday Blog

Sorry this is late - beanz posting but the beanz home network is struggling to cope with the traffic of two teenbeanzes home from university and the router is overheating!

Friday 10th July
Just the ten miles (or so)

Garmin says 10.68 today but I managed to stop it briefly so I really did about 11.2. Near enough to ten I suppose.

I had a real case of cba this morning. Don't know why. Perhaps I was finally getting really pi55ed off with feet hurting. Kept hitting the snooze button until finally Mike texted me and I thought I'd better shift. He said stay in bed but you can't do that in a YH as they chuck you all out for a few hours to do cleaning etc. So I got out the front door just after ten.

I worked my through town then the industrial estate, towards the bridge. It hadn't occurred to me to think what it might be like but I wasn't impressed when I saw it. Yes, I'm sure the Kessock Bridge is structurally sound but the little shared foot and cycle path could have been a bit wider, please, with a more solid fence on the outer edge. Anyone who's been with me while having a vertigo induced panic attack can tell you it's not always logical to a non-sufferer. Anyway, I didn't throw a wobbly and lived to reach the other side.


North Kessock itself seemed very nice. Facing Inverness across the Beauly Firth, little cottages, the odd tea shop, a tragemaker it was good. From there I continued along cycle path number 1 to Tore and thence along the grass verge of the A9 to Duncanston where I would catch the bus back.

A friendly cow - no zooming involved!



These national cycle routes are quite handy. Not (m)any cyclists on them and ok to walk on. I've become quite fond of them. I had initially planned to go only to Tore but the bus doesn't stop there so "Duncanston Crossroads" is where I headed. And that's exactly what it was! There wasn't even a post just the markings for "BUS STOP" on the road (which I noticed thankfully). I sat down on the kerb and tucked into one of my two for £1 flapjacks from Holland & Barrett, having missed the half-hourly bus by five minutes. Of course.


Wearing a hi vis vest can be useful especially when the bus driver isn't expecting there to be anyone at this remote stop! So nearly three and a half hours to get there and about 12 minutes back to the bus station. Why am I doing this??

So then I'm back in town, it's not even three o'clock. What am I supposed to do? My daughter's voice wafted through the ether and said 'Starbucks' so I obeyed! Coffee and a chocolate cookie, some texting and talking and a few things were sorted quite nicely. Some more random shopping and talking and it was gone five when I finally made it back to the YH.


The lovely Beanz has resumed blog mistress duties now that Mike is on his way to rejoin me for the last phase. So be nice to her :-)