A long break

Two months since I posted last...that's appalling and I'm truly sorry if you've missed me!

I've just come back from a week in Scotland - taking the air at Ayr (sorry...).

Recently I wrote an article for a magazine all about the good work that the Forestry Commission is doing up in Scotland to help support rural businesses and rural pursuits. In the last year the Scottish economy was boosted by around £9,000,000 as a result of the huge interest in mountain biking. Scotland is now one of the world's best places to go both mountain and downhill biking outside of North America - in particular the 7Stanes - seven Forestry Commission owned sites in Dumfries and Galloway.

So last week I had a crack at the blue route at Glentrool and it was quite easy, I'm pleased to say! In fact I did it twice and didn't get off and walk at any of the downhill tricky bits. All of this sufficiently buoyed up my confidence for me to believe I could have a go at the red route at Ae, also known as the Ae Line.

Foolish woman.

It says it's 25km, but the day we did it a large chunk of the route was blocked off as they're harvesting the trees. So they'd constructed an extra route in order to keep everyone 'entertained'. The first bit of this new route was a half mile hike up a wooded hillside.

Well, that's okay, you'd think...er....no. Hillside is perhaps a bit of an understatement....a mountainside covered by a carpet of pine needles would perhaps be a better description. The hike was almost vertical and certainly impossible to ride a bike up! It was also very dark in there as the fir trees produced a Hobbitesque atmosphere - sound deadened and only a weak yellow light made its way through the arboreal gloom.

The next section was a little more opened out but still deep in the forest. Fortunately this section was flat...well, if you can call a path littered with ancient trees and stumps flat. I could barely get a single bike wheel between the fallen trees yet clearly other more experienced (mad) and braver (barking) souls had skipped and jumped on their bikes from bough to bough.

I walked and lifted my bike over the hazards. I'm sure the ride is now around 30km - the Forestry Commission recommends anything from 1.5 - 3 hours.

It took me nearer to 5 hours.

5 hours of terror, pain, exhaustion, shredded nerves, excitement, exhilaration, adrenaline, crying, screaming, laughing and a large bruise on my backside caused when I had my one and only stack.

My fall from grace....

I've described the route as being like a roller coaster on two wheels...in a quarry with a side order of Lord of the Rings and an Ewok village. Scary stuff.

So, was my fall a huge stack taken on a table-top jump? A huge drop off? A steep bermed curve perhaps?

No. I was in the woods on a gentle bit of single track....I'd just had a short walk as my nerve had deserted me and one side of the track was a rather steep drop down the mountainside. I got on my bike and ever so slowly tipped to the right - the same side as the steep drop. I fell in a heap with my head much lower than the rest of me, my legs still entangled in the bike frame. I narrowly avoided sliding all the way down the grassy drop....how? My backside decided to fix itself to a large and very hard rock. The bruising is particularly nasty and not fit for photographic reproduction.

Once I sort through my photographs I may post some of the more challenging parts of the holiday!

Starting Early.....

I know, I know, I said I’d start this on January 1^st….but I also know that some of you were getting bored waiting….so here’s a belated Christmas present to you all….a bit about my Christmas day…with the in-laws…at the farm…..

Full house over in the farm house…Great Aunt Bessie, Great Uncle Stephen, Grandparents, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, their three offspring, and the four of us – Mr Chickenlady, me and our two boy chicks. Food all eaten and we have returned to the warmth of the sitting room, Great Uncle Stephen and Granddad bagging the seats closest to the open fire where they can ‘rest’ with their large brandies. Sister-in-law and I make short work of the damson brandy (tasted a little like Benylin). Mr Chickenlady and his brother go off down the cellar to find more beer…Granny and Great Aunt Bessie sit with the rest of us watching the five grandchildren attempt to build a nuclear warhead out of lego. Until that is, the eldest grandchild decides to show me his best present…. “Look Aunty, I got an air rifle!”

I do my best impressed face and attempt to make the right noises – I know very little about guns and intend to keep it that way – only once or twice have I had a go at clay pigeon shooting; the first time I stood in the snow watching Mr Chickenlady and all his mates have a go in one of the fields until I got so bored of them missing and laughing like loons (many cans of beer had preceded the shoot) that I demanded I have a go – no one believed that a woman could shoot straight…my first attempt and I hit the clay dead centre…sadly it was entirely beginner’s luck, I’m not a crack shot, but a crap shot….

Anyway, back to the nephew and his new air rifle….he starts to show me all the features – from what I can see this consists of trigger, sight and barrel. He impresses me as he breaks the gun (see I even learnt some of terminology…for those of you not in the Huntin’, Shootin’ and Fishin’ brigade, breaking the gun is when you pull down the barrel and it opens above the trigger so you can insert cartridges) and I keep saying, “Goodness, that’s impressive” and so on. Nephew then hands the gun over to me and says, “Try it, just try holding it and aiming, it’s great! And safe – there are no cartridges in it” so I do….I absent-mindedly look down the sights and don’t notice that I’m pointing it at the sleeping form of Great Uncle Simon….and before I realise what I’m doing….I’ve pulled the trigger….Has anyone told you that air rifles still make a bloody big bang even without a cartridge in it…that’s why they’re called Air rifles…compressed air that makes the cartridge fire …

Great Uncle Simon had to go to bed for the rest of the day to allow his nerves to recover and I’m not allowed anywhere near guns or twelve year old boys again.