Sunshine

Ash and I took advantage of the balmy weather on Saturday, promenading serenely through Inverleith Park and over to the Botanics, petting friendly dogs along the way. I remember walking through the "desert" glasshouse in the botanics a few years ago, standing on a yellow(ish) brick road with the Sahara behind me and Death Valley ahead. It's such an odd conceit but so fundamentally Victorian ("Let us bring the Empire to the citizens, a thousand cubic fathoms at a time!") that I can't help but look at the gardens more as a time capsule than a museum. Another glasshouse has a tiny, darkened aquarium room that was opened in 1967 (and last cleaned out in 1968) and again I couldn't help but gleefully embrace the notion that I'd stepped forty years back in time. Frankly, I learned nothing about plants or fish but I had a great time anyway.

In the afternoon I took the iron steed for a ride up and around Arthur's Seat. I'd been using it week in, week out for about six months now without tackling anything more challenging than Broughton Street, and I thought it was about time I worked up a sweat.

Turns out one gear is easier than twenty-one, which is very odd: there's a fairly small range of speeds that are comfortable with a ratio of 44/16, so I found myself sprinting up (relatively speaking anyway) the steep bits and easing off on the smaller gradients and before I knew it was up by St Margaret's Loch and stretching out my noodly, unexercised arms. I freewheeled down the rest of the way in the sun with mechanically-minded passers-by grimacing at the racket.

On Sunday morning we toddled round to Jeff & Devon's for a masterclass in french toast making for me, and brunch for everyone else. Fortified with excellent breakfast grub and culinary knowledge, I headed off to Glasgow for the final Coba Fynn practice before our mini tour commences this Thursday at the Liquid Ship and would almost certainly applied my big fat "excellent weekend" stamp to this entry were it not for the arrival on Monday morning of a letter threatening legal action on behalf of BT. One phone call later and it transpired that in addition to barely meeting the definition of "telecoms company", they are incapable of properly maintaining (ex)customer records. If my eyes roll any further back I'll be examining the inside of my skull.