Edinburgh in the Snow and Fire

Jo and I have just caught up with Catchy and Singo in Edinburgh for Hogmanay NYE, and have spent the evening standing in snow storms around an official 'Fire' installation just below Edinburgh Castle.






Super !



--matt.

Location:Stevenlaw's Close,Edinburgh,United Kingdom

More Snow, Less Riding

Jo and I have come north for a few days of post-Christmas mountain biking at Glentress, 7Stanes, Scotland and got rather more snow than we were bargaining for.
We've both ridden in snow before, and had found that so long as we stayed to well ridden paths most of the trails were generally still ridable. Not in this much snow :)
Much of the 2.5 feet of snow on the trail had thawed into slush (on the first day) and mostly refrozen (by the second day) turning the whole trail into a corrugated slip-n-slide that sometimes held your weight and sometimes sent you sliding through to the slush beneath.

Needless to say we've not put quite as many miles away as we'd hoped; we've moved slower dragging a bike through snow than skimming over trail-centre hard-pack.

Still, it's been a stack of fun for us all, playing in the thick snow, especially as it was only the third time on a mountain bike for Joanne, James' wife who both met us for the day on Monday.

Vid's coming once we get home.


Oh, & yesterday it was -12 deg, & our car battery has gone flat.

-- matthew

Location:Peebles, Scotland, United Kingdom

Snowing in Manchester

It's snowing in Manchester ! It looks like we're going to have white Christmas :) hooray.

-- jo xx

Location:Worsley St,Manchester,United Kingdom

Elbow

Found this and thought you'd enjoy it.

Elbow One Day Like This with the BBC Concert Orchestra and choir Chantage

(if you can't relate to the words, come try living in the North of England)

Christmas Markets

We had a trip to the Christmas Markets tonight in Manchester. So much fun! We sipped on mulled wine while pottering around all the fun stalls, visited our coconut man again - the macaroons are just as good as last year - and had a couple of beef burgers from a local farm in The Lakes - which smelt so good that we were lured away from our traditional bratwurst (Matthew: just means we'll have to go back again and try the German beer and bratwursts).
There were long lines for pancakes, strudel (I insisted on custard), and lots of little Christmasy-thing-shops selling things we needed. ;)

And we bought our Christmas Tree !
-- jo xx

Location:Manchester

Not Wet

The past few weeks the skies have opened with rain rain rain so the thought of going biking on a weekend has been well... Wet.

We've gone anyway- not wanting to miss anytime on the bike - and each time God has cleared the skies just for us, usually just as we've hit the trail.

Recently when Matt was away I went MTB solo & the trip to Wales was torrential, there were cars pulled over because of the rain. As I continued the drive I seemed to follow a patch of blue sky & by the time I arrived in the car park the sun was shining!

Two weekends ago, Matt & I met some friends in Scotland. They had been there all week & warned us that the rain was so bad they couldn't even eat their sandwiches outside. When we arrived on Friday nite it was raining but for all of Saturday & Sunday, whenever we were riding - not a drop.

Also, last weekend we were at a church weekend away in the Lakes & in our free time on Saturday, we went to Whinlatter, a trail centre in the whinlatter forest. Now, don't forget we're now on the fourth weekend in a row that followed a week of rain. There were floods across the road, it rained all Friday nite, all Saturday morning, & then all the way to the forest. The moment we got out of the car & put our leg over our bikes, the rain stopped! Just like that!
Thanku God!
Not wet!


-- jo xx