Part 2

So to continue vinnies summer jaunts.

Once we got back from the lakes we dropped of emilidh and did a quick turn round, throwing out the awning and all the holiday stuff and loaded him up again with biking gear and the two bikes ...nancy our adorable full suspension tandem and Robs solo bike and nice wee orange....http://www.orangebikes.co.uk/
 Rob loves Orange bikes they are hand made in Halifax and he is very loyal...when we first moved up here none of the locals rode them and he had his leg gently pulled for owning one... However at last count the club owned at least 10 between them..... Perhaps he should get some sort of loyalty award...lol

Anyway we were off up to glencoe for a trail building weekend..organised by Scottish rids a great group of guys and gals who we had never met before but were sure that would not make for any awkward moments.  The evening was that lovely dry warm sort and boded well for a good weekend.   Because of the quick turn round we had to stop at The Real Food Cafe at Tyndrum on the way...now if you have never called into this superb place please rectify this very soon. http://www.therealfoodcafe.com/so we had to call in not that this is a problem at all we love it there and admire the lovely Sarah for creating such a wonderful place to call to eat and so ethically ran too...please follow the links to find out more.

So after stopping for a wonderful venison burger we made it to glencoe in the dark...now generally when we go biking we wild camp in a handy car park or grassy verge... Now at glen Coe we use the car park and eat in the cafe and pay for the showers..they have the most interesting hobbits (wee wooden huts/gypsy caravan like places)..  These are run by http://www.glencoemountain.com/accommodation-mobile.html a fairly new venture which having met Andrew should do very well...

So there we are surrounded by majestic mountains and swarms of the dredged Midgie, Rob valiantly  went out and placed the ramps so we didnt sleep on the slope.  Then when all sorted with incense burning we left vinnie and ventured out to the cafe for a nice coffee/beer and meet some of the fellow workers...

Next morning dawned sunny and after a bacon butty in vinnie we went up and met the rest of the party...this was the start of a really super weekend... Tom from http://bigmountainscotland.com/ issued us with our lift pass so we could all ride the course for the morning so we would know what parts would need our brute strength and energy in the afternoon.






We have nevere done this route so it was a voyage of discovery for us andthe lift operators getting nancy up the chair lift...it was awesome.  Here is Rob with Nancy on the lift and as you can see he is as excited as I am to be doing this.... woo hoo

So after throwing ourselves down the track a few times it was time for lunch and then the work really began... now the idea from Tom was for the party to walk up half the mountain to begin work... I had other plans as if I had walked up with my big trog and a spade I would have one needed mountain rescue and I would have been no use nor ornament to man or beast...so I took the lift up to the top and walked back down the the working party.... this perhaps sounds a lazy option but I promise you it was not easy walking down the trail I had just come down at speed... and if I am honest I think walkers are amazing because its much easier for me to ride down rather than walk... I made to the others without landing on my bottom which is a major achievement in itself....lol so we spent a busy few hours in the sun working, digging, lifting and placing stones into berms under the talented Roddy who wasn't a novice trail builder... 

Tom had brought up refreshments for a wee pit stop mid afternoon and never has pear cider and biscuits gone down so well with a group of people... I didn't eat the biscuits as I am still being very careful with my fat intake... By the end of work time ie 6pm we were all quite exhausted and trudged down the mountain again... this was something which again I managed to do without falling down but others didn't manage so easily...

So back down at the bottom we all went our seperate ways to either tents, campers or hobbits...the wonderful wee micropods that are available for hire at Glencoe.... 

After wonderful hot showers and placing our towels into the drying area we set off for dinner... now to say that our meal was well deserved is putting it mildly the day had indeed been rather physical and I was very hungry so when the dinner arrived.  We sat with the funny lad Roddy and had a really brilliant evening chatting and finding out each others biking experiences.... now being with Roddy was great however it did mean that Rob ended up drinking more than he has ever done in recent memory and here is the picture to prove said partaking...lol So it was a rather merry Rob staggered back to vinnie for sleep that night...

next morning was once again to be a working one but have to admit that I didnt make it to this session, I took the opportunity to have a wee lie in and chat to the other females on the weekend...none of the others ride or infact did the trail building but had come along to be with the rest of us... and what a nice bunch of ladies I met... from the wonderfully fit young lady who went off trail running (madness in my eyes I could hardly walk down the trail), to the brilliant Jill who had two gorgeous labs who were the focul of attention for a wonderful ............................. a amazingly gorgeous dog who was such a sweetie even if a rather over sexually excited male....poor thing was distracted with love and lust by the end of the weekend...lol but such a big soft hearth rug of a dog.

By the afternoon it was time to go up again in the chair lift to try out the trails which had been built.  On the trip up I managed to get this photo of the decal on Nancy and felt considering what we were about to do it was very apt...

We managed some more runs before I was spent for the day and so I left Rob to go and spend the last hour before the lift closed riding down on his solo.... 

I spent the time packing up vinnie and getting him ready for the trip back to Milton and so after a nice cuppa tea with our new riding friends we set of home again to our beloved home and we both kept smiling at each other not only because of the wonderful weeks holiday with wee Emilidh and our massive weekend biking but that we were going home to Milton our own refurbished home... all was well with our world...

Hard day but good job done

So today saw rob and I tackling the many trips to the tip with the stuff which was dragged out of Milton and dumped into the cottage and garages.... We knew most things where not recoverable but we weren't ready to let go.  Anyway we tackled it and amazingly in some containers things which shouldn't have been in them were so I have now got two sets of jewellery we thought had melted. :) also my dads harmonica survived and well the tears flowed but it seems to work not that I can play it..... Yet lol.  Would you believe that the we note which I wrote at his funeral has survived along with those of rob lindsay Ann-Marie and my mums.  So in the next day or two they can have them if they want them.  Never expected to find those things.  Also very soggy but may just be ok for scanning some photos of Lindsay as a brownie lol hope they scan and then she will have some of her childhood  photos again.  I am not sure yet if any of Ann-Marie have survived as didn't want to peel too many until scanner was fired up.  Guess what I will be doing this week.

So now rob has a totally cleared man cave to put his stuff in over the next week he is a happy bunny.  Thanks have to go to Tom Butcher who inspired me to get on with it when he came on Saturday and I must say he really won't recognise the place now...

So as I mentioned at the beginning

This has been a really difficult task but now it is done I have got lots of wee reminders back and feel so lucky :) 

What we have been up to part 1

What to say?

So much has happened since we moved into Milton but having weeks and weeks of no Internet has not made it much fun so now what to chat about first....

Milton is beautiful and living back in her is wonderful, exciting, interesting, poignant, strange, but fun as ever. Rob is a tad worried as I am a bit anal about keeping her very tidy, he is being patient and thank goodness for that because I find myself actually not having something
Because I has just wiped the work
Tops lol. As you who know me this is very novel and I am sure it won't continue but in my defence I do feel that so many people will want to see her now she is finished ( relative finished some outside jobs by builders still not finished) and well
I want to show he at her best of course. So what have we been
Doing with ourselves

This last few weeks. Well we have had a few weekends away in vinnie and also been on holiday in the lake district with wee emilidh.

Our holiday was pure pleasure we bought just before we went a wee cube awning so that we could keep our space on the site when we went away each day and also so the table and chairs could be left and not packed away each time. The cube was awesome it made life so much easier for us and was really quick to erect and not much trouble to attach or detach when we went out and about.


Our routine on holiday was up. Breakfast ( rob does a mean bacon roll in vinnie) which was always tasty courtesy of the wonderful food from Booths. Then we went out for the day now as it was wet for the first half of the holiday we did fall back onto our wet day plans and so a trip to the illusion experience in Keswick was a great call. We had gone before with emilidh but this year she really got the illusions and it was so much fun showing and sharing the experience with her the laughter was loud and very frequent and also seeing the wonder on her face made me want to thank the rain. Now at the end of the day it would have been rude not to have gone to the swimming pool in Keswick
With its wave machine and so we went every day bar one and spent at least 1 1/2 hours jumping the waves each visit... The bruises I ended up with. We're all my own fault but needless to say if I had been taller I might have managed not to be dragged back and forth over the bottom of the pool.. Lol I went down my first ever flume and well it was fun but not sure I would do it again there as it was dark for some of it and I didn't like that part.

We then would head back to the campsite for a spot of tennis, frisbee and footie, usually while dinners was being made, then following dinner till the midges got us and then it was back to vinnie for hot tea and dunking biscuits whole we had a story and then we all turned in... These evenings times were special and I still get a warm feeling when I remember them. Thanks wee emilidh you were a wee star.

Now you will notice that there are not photos at the moment in his blog post that is because I don't have any on the iPad and don't yet know how to add ones from camera to it. Sorry but trust me they are great photos too.

Think I will finish now more of our summer adventures shortly