catch up time

Yikes it is weeks since I last blogged and the pics are stacking up in untidy piles round the corners of my hard-drive. I'm just going to post a load here and move onto the latest stuff. If I get more than a few days behind I forget all the jokes and conversations of the run and am just left with images. I have run every day of December but am reluctant to label it a Marcothon since I don't really buy into that any more than Christmas; I am doing it for me and my waist and because I have been mostly avoiding work. My business (monkey business says Mary) broke up for Christmas early on in December because, well because it is such a crappy time of the year that I can't be doing with working as well. So there is more time for running. Running daily is only just keeping my head above the waters of depression and seasonally affected cranky bastard syndrome. Also I really need to work off the beer-love-handles which were getting far too well established for this early in the winter. Time to get out there and beast myself. Because my inclination for red wine isn't going away any time soon. 

Locals will have noticed the Rad Road is closed currently. On the understanding this closure is strictly for other people and not the likes of me(!), I went up there the other week thinking I'd do 3 circuits, up the Rad Rd, round through Hunter's Bog and back to the start. My headtorch picked out the loose rock fall which was considerable and was marked with greeny blue spray paint where it had landed on the Rad Road. It occurred to me that if any of these fist-sized-and-upwards chunks hit my stupid head I'd be there all night waiting on an early morning dog-walker to find my frozen corpse. I quickly changed plans and only did one lap! Took some photos of the town looking crisp and lit up in the dark, but then deliberately shoogled the camera for more interesting abstracts.

One of the few things to encourage me out the door is the winter flora and fauna. Admittedly it is thin on the ground, but the lack of leaves on the trees sometimes makes it easier to spot the chirruping birds, even though they are considerably more flightly than my favourites, the butterflies. So while I await the return of the lepidoptera the birds are a challenging filler-inner. If they would only hold still!

I have been up and down the WoLeith a lot recently. Always on the lookout for dippers, wagtails and duckies. Often I'll take a long cut through the botanics, and if planned, I'll have a pocket of bread and nuts for the locals. The squirrels hundred yard response to the poly-rustle of nutbag lets you know their enthusiasm for the sport. Some keep their distance (the Water of Leith squirrels look at you with suspicion and distrust even as you lob handfuls of kernels in their direction), others are halfway up your running tights without any pre-chumming or evidence of handout.

There is a robin in the Chinese garden who will feed from your hand. 

But I gave him this huge hunk of bread and never saw him again.

I grew up just along the road from Inverleith Park. They have changed a few aspects of the pond but largely it is the same as it was 50 years ago. Mary has pics of her and her sisters fishing for minnows there as kids and I wonder if we were ever there on the same day. The birds are used to handouts (despite the signs!) and you are surrounded by crowds before you have got the bread bag fully open. Same gulls as at Cramond, (black headed) but slightly less "tame." Probably because they are more well fed. I went past either side of the pond, as I went to my mum's house and then on the way home. So took photos with the sun on either side. Both worked well, the backlit ones less so, but they had more atmosphere.

There were 4 cygnets pretty much adult sized. I'm not a big swan fan. For much the same reasons that I find the white butterflies the least appealing. They tend to overexpose in photos and I prefer the painterlyness of splashes of colour and pattern. Of the 4 large cygnets one was a total bully. I imagine the first born male, and would grab the others by the neck if he thought they were encroaching on his territory and handout. What an arse!

yeah yeah

On the way home I went round the Comely Bank side of the pond which meant the sun was behind me and lighting the birds from the front. I was throwing bread (brown, homemade, not mouldy, seeded, etc.) into the air just in front of me and the gulls were so keen they would swoop in and catch it, then bump into me, so intent on intercepting the food. I gave up trying to feed the delightfully cute tufted ducks as I would drop a small piece right under their bills and then 4 gulls would land directly on top of the duck submerging it in a frenzy of flapping wings. It looked like I was deliberately dunking them.

tufted duck (f)

This sundial near the pond in the aptly named sundial garden is remarkable for telling the time near as dammit. It was 2.18pm and I reckon this reads about 2.12 which is about 2 hrs more accurate than just about any other.

Back through the botanics and more squirrels plus the lights from the 

Botanics Christmas Lights show were just lighting up.

bullfinch high up and refusing to pose

plenty goosanders and mallards in the WoL but not enough light

Another day another run up the WoL and including Corstorphine Hill. 

Art Galleries at Belford run past but not visited.

no shit sherlock

on Gormley warmly

nope

lowland nyala (m)

what'll it be?

Prof. Van Helsing and Dr Jon Seward

hells bells

Mary and I had agreed to have a Bleak-off. Who could take the bleakest black and white photo of the christmas shit near Princes St. This homeless person is my effort. I'm pretty sure he was reading a travel brochure. We went along George St as the thought of Princes St just before xmas was too much.

So it turns out the difficulties of running every day is more about the laundry than the running. Mary bought a BIG box of powder a while back and I am getting through that nicely. Also I have started doing 3 mile runs round a WoL and Leith circuit for low mileage days when I can wait till 7.45pm before forcing myself out the door. Sometimes I sneak yesterday's top layer on as today's base layer. Burning off the flab is a partial success: it was going really well till I made a really good casserole just before christmas and did a mixed lamb and steak dish and some incredible roast potatoes (sweet and normal.) I am trying to limit wine and beer intake. Mary made some banana loaf. But apart from that we are side stepping the whole Christmas binge eating and drinking (and watching shit on the telly). Already knocked out two 30+milers this month. Now that the Tynecastle Bronze project is over. I would wish you season's best but I really don't believe in any of that and am rather glad we are quickly putting much of the foolishness behind us and moving forward towards the new year. God I hate this crappy time.