It has been a loooong time! Sorry.

I thought I’d share some photos from one Saturday a couple of weeks ago. I went to Edinburgh to take part in Pedal on Parliament. It’s a big protest ride where people cycle from The Meadows to the Parliament to draw attention to cycling and to encourage politicians to work on making roads more cycle-friendly. I particularly wanted to go along this year because it’ll be interesting to see what might happen in an independent Scotland, since we’re being promised so much in terms of green initiatives.

Rather than get up at the crack of dawn and cycle to Edinburgh on the morning of the ride, I stayed the night at mum and dad’s and joined a feeder ride along the Water of Leith. This new bike of mine (named Herman, because of the colour scheme) is not designed for muddy riversides!

But we had a very leisurely pootle into town and joined the other riders in the Meadows.

They reckon there were close to 5000 of us and it was good fun cycling down the Royal Mile (and trying to avoid the perplexed tourists who kept trying to cross the street!).

I really love cycling events like this because you see so many different sorts of people who use bikes: there are serious guys in lycra riding super expensive bikes, but there are also kids and old people and folk like me and everyone in between!

I went round to see my sisters after the ride. Charlotte’s cat Magnus is a big fan of bikes too, although nuzzling up to my chain probably wasn’t his best move. You can’t really see in this photo, but he’s got a pretty greasy forehead!

He’s also a big fan of pencils. Not very helpful when humans are trying to sew…

I had planned to cycle back to Glasgow, but I didn’t leave myself enough time. Instead, I cycled along the other end of the Water of Leith and caught the train from Haymarket.

St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge

Hooray for bikes!