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Monday, 5 May 2008 - St Andrews!

Sunny, 18 degrees, and a public holiday - what are the odds of that in Scotland! St Andrews is around 100kms north of Edinburgh on the northeast coast of Fife. People have been harping on about how nice this place is since I arrived in the UK. I had intended to eventually bike out here via the Fife Coastal Path (the one where I biked through a fence a month ago hehe) but I figured a day trip would be just as good on a day like this.

St Andrews is known worldwide as "The home of golf", partly because the the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (which exercises legislative authority over the game worldwide) is based here, and the St Andrews Links golf course is the most frequent venue for The Open Championship - the oldest of golf's four major championships (truth be known I don't know really fuck all about golf, I just learnt all this from Wikipedia just now ;)

Everybody was out to whack their balls today!

St Andrews has a lot of ruins around the place. This is what's left of the St Andrews Cathedral. It supposedly used to look like the illustration on the right, but it definitely doesn't look like that now. Construction began in 1158, took over a century complete, half of it blew down during a storm in 1272, it was rebuilt, fire made another mess of it in 1378, it was restored, and then some time towards the end of the sixteenth century the central tower gave way and took half the building with it.

And round the corner here's what's left of St Andrews Castle. Similar story: it was constructed in the twelfth century, it broke, it was rebuilt, it broke again, and so on and so on.		Ruins as far as the eye can see.
Near the golf course is a pretty good beach (good by British standards that is) and boy oh boy did the sun drive the snow-white Scots out in droves today hehe.

No.		Like all nice days in this part of the world, today's good weather didn't last long before it crapped out completely and blanketed the town in thick sea mist - typical! So all us pasty Scots put our shirts back on and went home.

Thursday, 8 May 2008 - The Big Issue continues
It's been almost three weeks since my punch up on Princes Street with the Big Issue man (full story here), and I hadn't heard anything more from the cops so I figured it was time to call them and find out the happy-haps.

On the day, he was apparently detained and eventually released on bail. He's been charged with assault, and racially aggravated something-or-other because of the "Fuck off back to New Zealand" comment (the cops have taken that pretty seriously apparently, they can't have these bastards just randomly hitting tourists hehe). He's due to appear in court next month at a preliminary hearing where he can either plead guilty and the judge will dish out some punishment on his homeless ass, or he can plead not guilty and I'll have to go to court sometime thereafter and potentially testify to how upset and mentally disturbed I am over the whole incident, and how I wet my pants every time someone tries to sell me The Big Issue ;) Alternatively, he may not even bother turning up (which is what I suspect will happen), in which case I'll have to hunt him down myself and club him to death with his own Big Issue magazines.

So, as it stands, I just have to wait for something to arrive in the mail from the courts to tell me what's what.

Monday, 12 May 2008

My hubby (the hairiest man in Britain) bedded my mate (the busty lesbian with the nice new knockers), so I made myself really fat, and my 10-year-old became suicidal and wanted me to run him over with my car (or at least sit on him with my fat ass). But hey, that's life - what's a girl to do?!

Wednesday, 14 May 2008 - Back to the Pentlands!

The Pentland Hills cover a 90 square-kilometre area in Edinburgh's south-west, and are full of tracks throughout. While out and about following random roads on the bike tonight I again stumbled across another entrance to the hills with tracks heading off in all directions. There were a few flatties like the one on the right, but I went for the big steep bastard straight ahead hehe (my legs love me).

After much huffing and puffing I came out of the trees at one of the many reservoirs in the hills, and a pretty good views back towards Edinburgh.

At this point I met up with a few other random mountain bikers who knew more about the tracks than I did so I tagged along with them for a while. The military use the area atop this hill for training, and there is a live firing range up there somewhere; there were plenty of bangs echoing through the hills today. The red flag way off in the distance is to warn people, just in case the sound of loud gunfire isn't enough.

Down the other side of this particular hill that we were on is the Glencorse Reservoir, which is apparently one of Edinburgh's sources of water (so relieving yourself in it would be poor form).		The track we were on eventually wound its way through to Balerno right on the outskirts of town. The shot on the right is known as 'exponential hill' because when you bike up the bastard it just gets steeper and steeper. I hit 65km/h just going down it - great fun! I took the Water of Leith pathway home from Balerno. At one point I was cruising along at around 25km/h when I passed a couple out walking their little dog (I'm not sure of the breed). The dog looked at me as I went past and then came bolting after me hahaha! I thought about stopping but I was in the mood for a race too and so cranked it up to over 40km/h, and only then did I start to lose him. By this stage we had well and truly lost his owners hehe, but as luck would have it another biker zoomed past me in the other direction. The dog took one look and then bolted after him too hahaha! I wish I could get photos of things like this. I need one of those cameras you stick on your helmet, then I could have gotten live shots of me biking through that fence last month too!

Thursday, 15 May 2008 - Fucking football!

Last night the UEFA cup final was played down in Manchester between the Glasgow Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg, and this was the inevitable result: the fucking scumbag Glaswegians attacked the police, and one of the Russian supporters was stabbed in the back within the stadium grounds by six other scumbag Glaswegians (there always has to be at least one stabbing when Glasgow is involved in anything). This was a huge game for Rangers as they haven't made the European final since 1972, but be that as it may it never ceases to amaze me how incredibly pathetic people in this part of the world behave over nothing more than a fucking football match! Having said that, by all accounts it sounds as though the Russians were well behaved throughout the day and night which says a lot for vodka doesn't it. I know I take the piss out of Glasgow a lot on this site, but it's not without good reason! Most of the fun started when one of several big screens set up in central Manchester crapped out just minutes before kick off leaving hundreds of fans without anywhere to watch the game. So what do they do (bearing in mind they're Glaswegian and as thick as two planks nailed together) - they throw bottles at the screen and at each other, and when that got boring they threw them at police and suddenly the battle was on! This morning Manchester looks like a rubbish dump; in other words it looks like Glasgow (and Glasgow is probably nice and clean at the moment for the first time in a long time). Plenty of videos and whatnot here. Absolutely pathetic.

Friday, 16 May 2008 - Cramond Island (sort of)

This is looking out towards Cramond Island, about a kilometre off the northwest coast of Edinburgh. The island itself is only 19 acres in area, and there's bugger all to do other than go for a wander (or a bike).				The causeway out to the island floods at high tide, so you need time your trip around the tides. Evidently, I fucked up :)

I wasn't waiting around two hours for the tide to drop and so I started following another pathway inland that follows this river for a few kilometres.

This is the gist of the scenery apart from some good-looking chicks out jogging (that I couldn't get photos of hehe). I'll try my tidal reading skills some other time and get out to that island (and probably get stranded).

Saturday, 17 May 2008 - Shapeshifter!

New Zealand drum & bass group Shapeshifter finished off a week-long European tour last night in Edinburgh! More info about them here.				They put on an awesome show, and for part of the night I had this guy's dreadlocks obstructing my view as he thrashed his head around hehe!

The crowd absolutely loved them too - especially this manic chick! She was arrested later on for ripping her top off and throwing herself at the group after the show ;)				Afterwards we chilled out in our local watering hole downstairs (and let our ears recover) where one of the ales on the menu this week is Piss In The Cellar hehe (a very warm, yellow, and bitter variety).

Wednesday, 21 May 2008 - Weather!

While out for a burn on the bike tonight the odometer clocked 2,000kms. Big deal. I've had the bike for a year now, and within the same period of time in Brisbane I'd done closer to 4,000. As it's only the weather that prevents me going out, by my math that means Scottish weather is only half as good as Brisbane weather :)

Sunday, 25 May 2008 - Penicuik

Penicuik is a yet another small town or village or suburb or something with houses and whatnot in it just outside of Edinburgh, some 15-20kms south of Edinburgh city centre. I know it's Sunday but the place was all but completely closed up, with just a few teenagers wandering around bored shitless.

Penicuik is divided into two halves by the main road running through it. One half is a dump with people wandering the streets giving me unnerving stares. The other half is a lot nicer, but I still got unnerving stares. People from small towns are weird!		I was about to head home again due to boredom when I stumbled upon this track - brilliant! After ten minutes of hooning along this thing it came to an abrupt end at this road that went back into town hahaha - boring! So Penicuik in a nutshell: some nice, some shit, all weirdoes, nothing to do :)

Wednesday, 28 May 2008 - To Canada, hooray!

Happy 26th birthday to me! Vancouver, Calgary, and Banff National Park (including Lake Lousie on the left). Have a fun couple of weeks all - I will be!

Saturday, 07 June 2008 - And back already

The trip was short, the flights were long, the weather was iffy at the best of times (note the difference between the picture to the left and the picture above), but it was fun all the same! All the photos and stories to follow.

Sunday, 08 June 2008 - His turn to cook

The sun was out tonight and so was I on the bike making the most of it after the crappy weather we had in Canada. I could hear a lot of sirens off in the distance all slowly getting louder and louder, and I then noticed why hehe. This dude was standing out on his third-floor balcony holding a frying pan that was smoking like a chimney, and plenty more was billowing out of the door behind him hahaha!				One fire engine turned up followed by several more, much to this guy's confusion based on the look on his face hehe. A lot of the smoke alarms in these newer apartments have automatic smoke alarms that get the cavalry out. The one in my kitchen, however, doesn't - good thing too ;)

The smoke got thicker and thicker but the engines soon left again without a single drop of water being wasted. It was a pretty funny show nonetheless :)

Monday, 09 June 2008 - Penis, I mean pie anyone?

Jen baked us all a nice apple and berry pie tonight, and put her own finishing touch on it with the left over pastry.		Dirty girl! ;)

Thursday, 12 June 2008 - Canada!
All the photos and stories are here! :)

Friday, 13 June 2008
A little something for Friday the 13th!

Saturday, 14 June 2008 - Hills, ugh!

I woke up this morning to views of glorious sunshine out of my window and no wind - perfect biking weather! To Katie (my flatmate), running is like biking is to me, so she too had thoughts of getting out and suggested we go for a good burn up the Pentland Hills (which I've mentioned a few times before on this site). Katie bussed out to the hills, I biked out to the hills, and then two things changed: the weather (typical!), and full use of my bike. We chose to tackle a hiking track that involved bloody huge and bloody steep hills with shitty terrain such as this - no way I was getting up there on the bike! So for the first hour it was Katie walking up, and me pushing the bike up hehe (although the occasional downhill sections were bloody fun!)

The views were awesome from the peaks, but spot the rain in the distance!

It's dangerous business this hiking and mountain biking ;)		...and no unauthorised urinating.

However boating and fishing in the public water supply is apparently fine.
We were in the hills for close to three hours and the weather was mostly kind to us, until the last twenty minutes. Not long after I took these shots (in the sun) the heavens opened right up and poured on us from a great height! We ended up out in Balerno (drenched) and Katie got straight on a bus, but they can't take bikes so I had no choice but to bike the 15kms back into town in the pissing rain (which I did in about 20 minutes flat by slipstreaming the bus - they can't take bikes but they can take me in other ways ;) Ahhh love a good burn!

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FYI for the next adventure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroggin - Paul

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