Boxing Day and Beyond.

The forecast had promised the clouds would clear away over night, after leaving a dump of snow on the Pentlands. We got up in the dark and arrived at the summit of Turnhouse as the first tinges of light could be seen in the eastern sky. decided to try out our team prize of mystery drinks from the Water of Leith half the night before. Jim Hardie had given us this advice, "Save the berry one to last, it's the best. Then the gin. The Whisky is something you should sip before pouring a glass."

Somehow or other we both got this backwards. We started with the Berry Vodka. It was very berry. Then we moved on to the gin. I've had a life-long fear of gin and this didn't do anything to alleviate it. It just tastes like something that made you sick as a teenager. It probably did. I can't remember. That might be part of it. It was dressed up as rhubarb and custard flavour. Hmmm, nope. Like a bitter old crone in girl clothes. I wasn't fooled for long. There was the twang of the gin. Euchhhhhhh!

Then the whisky. I approached with care. It was eye-smartingly strong, but then unexpectedly smooth and warming - and it seemed to have ethereal flavours of honey and lemon. How delicious! By this time I was pointing my finger a lot and laughing. Peter was laughing too. I'm not sure what the joke was.

Jim seemed a bit surprised when he heard I'd liked the whisky best. He said it was 'Rowantrees randoms dissolved in it." I take it that means those gum things. It worked a treat. I didn't even seem to get a hangover.

So it wasn't the crack of dawn when we left. It was half-past twelve by the time we got running and we were lucky to find a parking space at Flotterstone. Happily some people were packing up and going home for the day.

It was cold to start out but we soon warmed up and everything seemed pretty benign. Most of the people who were out were never going to make the little spinney of trees half-way up, let alone the summit of Turnhouse or anything beyond there. They were just out for a dawdle.

We passed them pretty quickly and got onto the higher ground, which really was another world. The wind was sharp and was blowing the powdery snow around. The usual paths were covered and visibility was poor. It was exciting and felt quite serious. We were both questioning if we really had enough clothes on or gear with us, but it's so easy to just drop down off the Pentlands we pushed on.

Turnhouse and Carnethy weren't too bad under-foot but Scald Law was a slog to get up and I spent a lot of time weaving to and fro trying to find better ground where I wasn't post-holing so much. Half way up Scald Law I saw that I had my own Brocken Spectre which I tried and tried to get a photo of, but it was faint at best, and then the wind would drop and the powder come out of the air and it would disappear. I guess spectres are like that.

A bit further up, a runner came out of the yellowy haze, and then shortly afterwards Digby Maas. Digby had been on tough ground and was finding it hard going. The snow on the other side of the Law was taxing. I discovered I couldn't say Digby and the nearest I could come up with was Diggaby, at which point I realised my face was numb. Very similar to winter swimming in the sea! Peter's hands had been frozen all the way. He had gloves on, but not his fattest ones, and his hands get cold more easily than mine. Both of us agreed it would be wise to drop down to the road and come back that way, even though it isn't very exciting or appealing. 3 miles downhill on road in hill shoes isn't pleasant and the valley was mostly in a deep, cold, refrigerator gloom.

It passed fairly quickly though. It was a relief to get out of the knife-like wind.

I only realised back at the car that I'd accidentally dug a hole in the back of my heel and never felt it.

There is a Brocken Spectre there. You just have to believe.

Mystery Runner.

Diggaby.

ouch.

Today it was lovely and bright again. Again the team were slow in rousing themselves. But it was set fair all day, so it really didn't matter. A sharp wind again but East Lothian has dodged most of the snow. There was just a little frost and ice here and there.

The beach was spectacular, and cold, and mostly empty. We went a trip to the subs.

I haven't quite mastered the jumpy shadow thing yet.

I haven't had a shower yet, and it's going to be a sunny day again tomorrow! So I better get going. I like this not-working thing. I'm in on Friday, but then that's it again for a while. :-)

The wicked wind, the miracle tree and a dream of a damp christmas.

Christmas Eve there was a wicked wind blowing. There was also only a small weather window in which it wouldn't be wet, so I took Peter up Arthur's Seat for some hill training. Regrettably, despite my having worked out a fine programme of hilly challenges, Peter complained quite a lot. A frequent refrain was "We do this on a Thursday Night!".

Unusually, there was only a handful of people at the top of the Seat. The wind was doing what it liked without reference to whether humans could stay on their feet or not. It was kind of fun. It was also nice to get down lower and out of it. We ran down onto Whinny Hill.

I'd had a good surprise recently when I'd run up to the top of Whinny Hill and happened upon a fir tree with Christmas decorations on it. It had golden bells. At the time I thought I'd take Peter up there nearer to Christmas and surprise him....but then I'd been back just a few days ago and all the decorations were gone, so I told Peter about it.

This time I took him up just to see the tree that had had decorations on it - and someone had decorated it again!!! And then a rainbow came out! And Peter stopped complaining for a while.

Until I told him we were going to run down to Duddingston Loch and then up the steps and all the way up to the shoulder of the seat in a oner.

I thought it was a marvellous run and very impressive to squeeze nearly 2000 feet of climb out of a city centre run.

On the way home we went past Scotmid and picked up two bags of potatoes in case we were too lazy to go out again and get something better to eat for Christmas. Peter loves roast potatoes. I do too. So nobody was that worried when it turned out we couldn't be bothered to go out again.

It wasn't the best of evenings though. We've nearly used up Netflix. Mindhunter was great. Dexter was pretty good, but required loyalty to stay with it. Ozark kept our interest in a 'this series is going to give me a stomach ulcer' kind of way.  It comes down to the compromises you're willing to make. I've been watching Homeland but Peter doesn't like it. We've both been watching 'The Good Place' because it's quite clever and funny at times despite many obvious flaws. But we've finished it.

It's getting harder and harder to find something we can both tolerate. Peter wanted to watch  The Lake because it's "handsomely mounted". Handsomely mounted doesn't work for me if I hate everyone in it or if it seems meaningless. We both watched Limitless last night because it's easy watching. A guy takes a drug and it makes him ever so clever. It borrows freely from other films and series - the film Limitless, the Matrix and Sherlock just for starters. The main actor thinks he looks like Ryan Gosling. How can I say that? He just does.

Maybe we have to accept that our drug is running out. Eventually we'll have to go cold turkey.

Tonight we're going to go hot potato though.

Back to Christmas day. The day dawned just as rainy as predicted. Through the night it was raining. Predawn it was raining. There was a brief pink fanfare of dawn and then the day settled down to being dark and wet.

I was going to drag us round Inverleith Park just to get us out. But then it occurred to me that this would be the day to run along Princes Street - because the shops would be shut. The whiff of a bit of novelty cheered me up.

There were more people along Princes Street than I would have expected - a fair few homeless people lying in shop doorways in sleeping bags too. Still the city is vastly improved by there being a bit of space. 

We ran along to the West End and then past St Mary's Cathedral, then down onto the Water of Leith.

I think someone left the flood gates open by mistake. It was the fullest I've seen it in years. It was flooding under the path at the Dean Village and Peter felt compelled to go and see what was happening at the weir. I didn't feel like climbing over metal spikes and then down a slippy, mossy wall so I let him get on with it.

I was thoroughly enjoying this run even though my feet and arms were wet. The weather perfectly suited Leith's grimmer aspects. There were glue-bag philosophies daubed on weedy, mossy walls. Closed faced men out for a walk with their attack dogs. There were some very jolly ducks who came straight over to see us. Obviously, everybody feeds the ducks.

I was kind of hoping there might be a shop open which would sell me Christmas puddings and ice-cream, but the only shops that were open seemed to be selling primarily cans of beer and bottles of spirits. So there will be no christmas pudding and ice-cream for me tonight. There will be more roast potatoes. If I can fill Peter up full of roast potatoes and wine, he might fall asleep and then I can watch Homeland.

Merry Christmas Blogfolk.

Winter berries and a better bottom.

It's Saturday and I've got a few days off and we're past the shortest day and my tummy is a lot better thanks for asking. I'm not sure I buy this fodmap thing but I've been on a very bland diet for about a week and I'm substantially better.

So anyway, we went to Gullane. There was a fierce but warm wind blowing. Neither of us had much energy for whatever reason.

Actual dawn!

There wasn't much to see, but it's always good to see what is around. It tends to change from one week to the next. This week there were a lot of berries about so I set out to take a photo of as many types as I could. There wasn't much light though which led to difficulty focusing and swearing at the camera.

Some of my berries were a bit moth-eaten.

We were trying to guess what unexpected thing we might see on the beach. We'd settled on maybe an octopus or maybe a lobster. Peter quite often thinks maybe an octopus. Anyway we weren't expecting half a glitter ball. This is probably one of the originals from the Titanic. You know, from the posh, upstairs rooms with the orchestra while the oiks are downstairs getting swooshed about on the car deck.

Peter says my berries are getting a bit wizened. Lol.

So that's that. 6 miles at a slow pace. On the way home in the car we agreed we were both feeling a bit low blood-sugar and just not fit to negotiate Tescos Leith and everyone panic buying drink 2 days before xmas, so there's nothing for tea, but at least we have our sanity.