The Pentlands.

The cycle run took a devious route to North Middleton today, a distance of ten miles by crow but twenty-five by road; we could probably have made it in twelve but there would have been no fun in that.

The planned afternoon ride was due to follow an even more tortuous route; consequently, we ran out of time and had to cut proceedings a bit short by going to Ormiston, otherwise we would have had to go without coffee and that is really not on; as it was, there was standing room only and they nearly ran out of cake. One poor local lady had to go without her afternoon cup of tea as she refused to sit on my knee.

The cafe is, as I have mentioned in earlier blips, a community venture; in order to increase their trade they seriously reduced prices. An excellent coffee and a very generous portion of home made can be had for about half the going rate of the local commercial enterprises; I really don’t like charities under-selling themselves, I expect to pay for the labour as well as the price of the ingredients that go into what I buy.

The weather was fantastic, apart from the early morning frost it seemed that spring was in the air; the pessimist in me says that we’ll have snow next week.

The blip is a view of the Pentland Hills from the village of Cousland.
I notice there are some peculiar effects on the distant hills on the left which I can neither explain nor fix.