Where there's a will there's a railway

I only cycled 16 miles today, but it feels more.  I think after bashing around the hilly environs on Thursday and hauling laptoppery on Friday I was more tired out than I ought to be.  In the before times, I was doing 100 miles a week, and then I was tired!

But I headed into town first thing, using the old railway path to Shawfair, and came across an old marker post that I've never spotted before.  I was cycling downhill on the roughly 1 in 100 gradient.  If you're aerodynamic enough, that's good for 30mph.

I managed to get to the sorting office to send my parcel back, and then headed further into town for a couple of errands.  A visit to the bike recycling place turned up a couple of chainrings to try on Mirabel, whose cranks/chain/frame/wheel etc. are still clicking.  The chainrings are slightly unusual and will make a nice blip at some point, even if they don't actually solve the problem.

I then had a long mooch around Waverley station again, trying to find this mythical interesting phone booth, but I think it was taken away when they finished the big refurbishment several years ago.  It was a sort of futuristic thing, with four keyboard-and-screen enabled phones clustered around a column, and a circular top that wasn't quite a canopy.  I've even tried looking at phonebox history but have no idea which model it was.  Whatever, it was in the way of "pedestrian flow".

After Waverley I pedaled over to Kafe Kweer for a couple of croissants, and then spent ages catching up with David at Laid Back Bikes.  And from there, since the afternoon was fading, I decided to avail myself of public transport.  The short train ride from Waverley to Shawfair is only three stops but it's now £4.50 and still leaves several miles to cycle home, but the bus is half that amount.  So I headed to the bus station for the fancy one going to Peebles and Galashiels that you can take your bike onboard.  It wasn't a lot faster overall than cycling home but it saved a lot of energy.  The bus station is a mix of warmed over 1960s concrete and modern day London Underground and still feels slightly exciting.

Back home and after scrubbing the chainrings clean it was leftovers for tea, and an early night beckons.