Hogweed.

It was another dreich day as befits the day of the Wednesday cycle run. Only six of us ventured forth, the target for lunch being Stenton. The reality was that we stopped at the Ormiston cafe at 11:00 and considered the prospect of an early coffee stop; however, the democratic decision was to continue to Gifford for a 12:00 coffee stop. I felt a sense of anticlimax at this point.

At Gifford, some of the tight-fisted members of our community stood outside the cafe and ate their lunch before venturing in for coffee, the rest of us did the decent thing and went inside to purchase our lunch. It was still raining when we were ready to set-off, so we elected to move on to Merry Hatton for an afternoon coffee stop before returning to Musselburgh; there was even talk of coffee there but, for most of us, it was too close to home.

The ride was something of a cultural exercise with stops at Prestonpans Tower, the Gardiner Monument, Humbie Kirk, the Ormiston Yew, Garvald Church and Stenton Well. I did take photographs of each of these but they didn't pass muster so, sometime, I'll return better equipped, or at least when the weather is nicer, for decent blips when I'll fill in the details. Mrs TD is away next week, as I’m dog watching I can only go out for a few hours at a time, so perhaps I’ll make a start then.

By the time we reached Musselburgh the weather was really quite nice, so I stopped on the way home and blipped this indeterminate hogweed; it is a little large for the common variety, but too small for the giant version. The giant one is a plant whose sap can cause a nasty reaction when combined with sunlight, so it's not a great problem in Scotland. As a child, I used to cut the stems up on the way to school with the penknife that I had been banned from taking in. The stems made wonderful pea-shooters, also banned at school.