We are now jogscotland leaders.....God help you all!!!

A very early start this am doing the full cooked breakfast business for John and Conrad, two of my favourite deer stalkers at 6.30 (Rayburn to stoke up means at least a 3/4hr prep)/ This meant that I approached todays jogscotland leaders course already a wee bitty tired but rallied and really enjoyed my day back in the classroom, not at Wetherby High as in my own student days but at Oban High.I must admit that I perked up during the outdoor session as being more my thing but fortified by lentil soup and sarnies managed to cope with brainstorming and planning sessions. It is great to get on as a group and contribute. Someone even recognised me from local runs and I saw a few faces that I could place to...usually it is the back view I recognise. Just need to pull in the confidence from somewhere to go it alone with a group in Inveraray......

Fun and Games with the horses

After managing to tempt Toby out of bed with a) a warm tasty Hot Cross Bun and b) imminent haircuts..it is vital to him that his hair maintains a no nonsense streamlined look we managed to get down riding this morning. After a short sharp stand off about exactly who was riding who and whose body armour was whose they managed to get mounted and after a whirl wind warm up session led by Toby they got some jumping done and had FUN!

Snowy run

The layers were being stripped off today as Liz and I grossly over dressed for a 7 miler round the roads from here. The Scottish west coast must be the only place with such a small amount of snow in the UK at present but it still makes your legs ache to run in. The weather was better than it looks on the photos, with just a little wind springing up on the way back in. Achey muscles eased by liberal application of hot, bubbly bath saturated water.....Liz had gone home by then.

Ski Bunnies again!

Back up to Glencoe for the first time this season. Visibility was umm, variable but the snow mainly nice and soft the way I like it. Garret however was craving ice like the true Scottish ski boy he is but had to content himself with making me eat his snow skids. The start of Mugs Alley had a nice scrappy, skiddy quality to it which I managed to survive each time I got there. The last down to the chair lift (Cliff) had changed significantly this year and was a challenge for me in my glasses and then goggles that nicely flattened out all those annoying little bumps and dips. I did manage to get down a few times without ignominiously dumping various parts of my anatomy into the (mercifully) soft snow. It is always satisfying to provide good entertainment for all the folk getting bored on the chair lift above. The snow flakes gently drifted down all day making goggles a necessity, and the views had been stolen but just as beautiful and peaceful anyway. Garret managed a trip or two down the higher slopes hitching a tour down with some others (including an instructor, how jammy is that!) when he realised that he could not quite remember the way down....The snow was apparently perfect up there but I decided to trust him on that when, after discovering that thighs do have an exploding point he joined me on the lower slopes. Home again to find a snowy garden, three snowy kids and two snow dogs.

Over the Hills and Far Away....

Lunch in oban. Hmmmmm

First the shopping and then the cake.

Friday January 30th.......