Summer!

It may appear to be spring but it isn't. However the flowers and trees have finally started to grow so walking is ever more pleasurable.

To hit my 500m target by 26 June I have to do 3.7m per day. Yesterday I did 2.5 round the park which was pleasant then 4m round Mugdock Country Park which was better as I had company and we saw deer and a buzzard.

Brownies tonight was music and was quite fun. We also went outside and found frogs in the flowerbed! One jumped and landed on leader Amy's top.

I rode my beautiful bike to and from Brownies AND from home to the pub. Yeah!!

Bike!!!!

I have a bike. This is it!! (It found a friend).

Walking... some of the things I love about it.. and about logging (or b-logging)

Today I looked up the Girlguiding Walking Qualification.  I found out some interesting facts:

You can skip Level 1 if you have completed Silver or Gold Duke of Edinburgh awards.  I have done this.

For Level 2 & 3 - You need to go on first aid training that is HSE approved for 16+hrs.  I checked costs online - this is an expensive undertaking... To be queried with relevant adviser at a later date.

A log is required to record the required 20 minimum 10k or longer walks.

At this point I decided with PJ's help that we would sort out our various logging methods into a book which I have been saving for a good use.  It has a lovely painting of a loch by Brian Cook on the cover.

Having logged our memorable or significant walks since we started recording them (May 2012) I have found 14 so far are over 10k. 

You can use walks completed in the last 3 years.  I will love looking back at this notebook in years to come, remembering the walks and the associated comments I have included (such as the pints in the thatched pub in Maids Moreton.

This is a picture of icy Loch Ordie which we visited yesterday on a 13.5mile loop walk incorporating one terrifying snowy muddy steep but short hill. 

Spring!

We just saw 18 nests in a single blackthorn hedge.

Mistlethrush, blackbirds, robins, a chaffinch and a bluebird were watching us walk by; guarding the half-built nests.

Buds on the bushes will hide them soon, so I took a picture from afar and tried not to upset the birds.

Tea Party

Tomorrow night we are holding a tea party at Brownies.

We are selling Red Nose cookies.

We are singing La Cucaracha.

We are doing the Mexican Hat Dance...

(We are demonstrating what we learnt at Thinking Day!)

I am getting a chance to chat to the parents for a bit.

Wish us luck!

Running Round (quite happy!)

This weekend I was away having fun in Birmingham (and doing my OU Welsh!).  We went to the Black Country Museum.  Fantastic!  There are shops to go in where you can buy things made as they would have been made during the Industrial Revolution.  There's a mine to go down, a boat to go on (costs extra - didn't do it), houses to see, demonstrations of people working doing things in the original ways - we saw someone making a chain link by link.

If you are ever in the Birmingham area - go to the Black Country Museum.  Give yourself the whole day.  Make sure you go to the houses at the top near the entrance - my best bit.

This week has gone something like this:

Monday:  Up at 5.30am. 
Climbed Ben Lomond (967m) from 10m above sea level.  Hurt on the way down.  Did it as fast as we could.  It was icy/snowy at the top - and very cold in the thick cloud.  You can't see the top in my photo.
Worked in the evening.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday: Up at 6.30am
Worked in Edinburgh - 7.15 departure from home... 6.30pm return.
Brownies - made shortbread red nose biscuits
Finished the baking at home (using left-over dough).

Wednesday: Up later (7.30ish but for no good reason).
Worked in Edinburgh: 9.00am departure.
Worked in Dundee at night - home 11.30pm

Thursday: Normal job - 9-5
NOTHING TO DO AT NIGHT (except practice... should also have done Welsh but didn't).

Friday: Normal job.
Working in Dundee tonight (home 12.00 as on the train)

Saturday: Working

Sunday: Working

Monday: DAY OFF! (til 3.30).. might find a slightly smaller hill...

Blue Peter Giant Bunting Challenge

Here is one of our two entries. The other was just a big bit of fabric with our unit number on it.

Other news; I am in Birmingham  (more accurately Halesowen) this weekend having travelled down for a Welsh lesson!

Writing that down it seems a bit mad: travelling from Scotland to ENGLAND for a Welsh lesson.

It was good, but I wrecked it a bit by being hungover (unfairly.... Had some wine on arrival with friend and family but not loads and not that late!).  It is not an easy language to learn despite my many Welsh-speaking family members.  I really like it though.

There is a cockerel somewhere nearby! I am in a really built up part of Britain. Birmingham is huge and sprawling - there are houses as far as you can see in every direction. Halesowen is a separate town, but it joins up with Birmingham - or it appears to me that it does.

So it seems strange to hear a cockerel (at 5am).

I presume it is in someone's garden.