Mucky Puddle.

I volunteered, at short notice, to lead today's cycle run to Tyninghame. My appearance at the start of such a ride is guaranteed to put the sun back to bed while being the leader will ensure that for that day - and that day only - there will be really miserable weather. Consequently, only five hardy souls ventured forth today.

It's a genetic thing, my father's colleagues would check on his holiday bookings before booking their own. Since our holidays were generally spent under canvas, this led to interesting holidays, that is "interesting" in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." There was the famous occasion when we were camping on a farm, after a week or so of rain, a small boy (me) decided to climb onto a mound of earth, it turned out to be a pile of very sloppy pig manure; I remember it to this day. The Old Lady remembers the smell in the car on the drive home.

Today the Gods took pity on us and by afternoon the sun was shining and the day turned out to be a very pleasant one.

Being the leader means that it is difficult to make creative use of a camera so, although I took lots of photographs I ended up with a choice between this mucky puddle and an "arty" pile of fishing net, the fishing net didn't lead to a story.