Start early

 Gradually I am getting back to rising earlier.  It will be more difficult as the days shorten, and turning the clock back at the end of the month will turn everything upside down..but I am getting there!

Two washes done by the time Pirate came downstairs this morning..but he does have a reason, the two jags together are making his body work hard.  I looked at the forecast before starting...and luckily it was correct and the rain had stopped by the time the clothes were ready to go on the line.

An early start has other advantages, having jobs done before anyone visits means they get done!  We had a friend visit in the afternoon as well, which was good. However that mean that our short leg loosener ride was started just in time and we got home just as the roads were getting busy with commuters. Not a good time to be on the road however you travel.

Now I am planning what jobs can be done tomorrow morning...

Sunday in the Trossachs

 We were on the road by 7.50am...nearly 70 miles to go....the route finder said 1 hour 38 minutes, so I allowed two hours !

We followed ordinary roads for the first 25, then a quick five miles along the motorway into Glasgow before turning off to cut a corner and a couple of miles off the route to go under the Clyde tunnel. Then head north towards the A81 and follow that all the way to Aberfoyle.

All done in 1 hour 50 minutes and no rushing!

This was the location of the headquarters of the Tour of the Trossachs, a 28 mile hilly time trial.

It's one of the Scottish classic races and this year was added to by being in memory of our friend Sandy Wallace.

We parked in the main car park and went in search of coffee. The first café didn't open until 10am, and the café worker turned away three customer orders as it wasn't 10am...only three minutes to!! Perhaps she would have had better reception ....and people waiting...had she said I will open in a couple of minutes, just waiting for the machine to get up to steam....

Anyway Pirate found the bike hire and cafe and brought back three coffees, for us and a friend who had just arrived. He decided to ride the reverse way around the course, which is always a good idea. You don't get in the riders' way and you see them all easily.

We drove up the course...up being the operative word, up the beginning of the Dukes Pass, and this climbs up steeply from Aberfoyle high street!

We found a safe parking place a couple of miles up and walked back to where we could see them well and shout encouragement. They would have done about four miles by then but still had a good way until they started going down towards the head of Loch Achray and headed for Callander.

We saw them all through, but didn't go back to the headquarters as we wanted a ride ourselves!

It was heading towards lunchtime then and looked like we had seen the best of the day...so to the top of Loch Achray ourselves and turn left to Loch Katrine.

No boat ride for us, just lunch in the café and ride from there along the lane for walker's cyclists and residents which runs from one end to the other, just fourteen miles.

That is the steamship that they are raising money to maintain, the trips are on the other boat.

A quick stop to readjust my gear cable then off up the lane..not as flat as Pirate remembered, but that was twenty years ago!

We must have got nearly five miles when we saw the rain coming

A beautiful sight with hills grey behind grey, but the clouds soon hid them all as we sheltered beneath a tree....and it looked to have set in wet so we turned tail.

OF course by the time we got back to the car the rain stopped!

We aim to come back again, on a dry day and do the whole length of the loch.

With a couple of hours driving to get home we decided to head for home, and go by a different route, heading across by Balloch at the southern end of Loch Lomond and back over the Erskine Bridge.  A short motorway stretch to Paisley then up over the Glennifer Brae with stunning cloudscapes and sunshine,  skirting Irvine and Kilmarnock to do our weekly shop as the sun set in Prestwick before the last ten miles home.

A long day but worth it!

One step in the right direction

 As Pirate had his flu jag and his covid booster jag....I had a morning out in Ayr to deliver pots and prints to a new group exhibition at 1517.

It's a new group, and mostly  fine art, but wood and clay sculpture, silver jewellery and my pots and prints. 

It is in the building at 15/17 High Street in Ayr , that used to hold  the late British Home Stores...and now has quite a few different traders in clothes and household items...and a large space that is now the gallery. Let's hope the building manager will keep us on!

While waiting for one of the exhibition organisers to arrive it was nice to have a wander around with nothing particular to do.

This afternoon as Pirate had his siesta I attempted to find my way around the computer programmes to print my business cards...mega fail!! 

I emailed my brother.... hopefully he will point me in the right direction!

As dusk came on we went for a walk around from the village, past two derelict mills, Zwartble sheep and a stud with lots of beautiful horses. At last the grey clouds lifted a little, enough to see the sunset in muted oranges and pinks.

Skies

 Through the day

Then the pink spread a little as the clouds lifted just before the sun set

Indoors day

 After a long rainy night, it rained most of the day, with added blustery wind. Not a day for outdoors!

A day for a bit of this and that...a sale to pack up, work to list, business cards to make-still by hand as I haven't found the programme on the computer that does a sheet of repeats. 

Doing them by hand was quicker!!

Half a small carrier bag of windfall plums got destoned and cooked and they are now in the freezer in four small boxes, ready to make crumbles and pies with some apples.

Pirate managed to work out how to use the gizmo and fixed the bottle cage to my Hobbs road bike and I helped construct a mudguard from two pieces...three pop rivets and some glue and there we have free mudguards!! Now those jobs are done, the bike has returned to its usual home ...we can't have bikes in every room in the house!!

The plan is to ride the steel Hobbs for most of the year, but in the wetter colder winter weather ride the aluminium Giant. That won't rust!

After tea I double"glazed" a kitchen window with special plastic cling film before bringing in some of the house plants from the greenhouse. The pelargonium, avocado and money plant are still in the greenhouse for now, the latter has been there all summer, but the other two are getting a bit too wet outside now!

I printed an item and price list to go to the exhibition tomorrow, plus a history/artist statement and contact list. All that needs doing now are labels.

Pirate is cleaning a pair of tandem wheels that we hope to sell...keeping the wheels going round, metaphorically for us and actually for whoever buys them!! It's not the nicest job linked with selling, but it means that you can show the item at its best..and get a better price! Some things that get posted on fleabay are grubby. How can you tell the condition if something is like that?

So good clean items, good crisp photos and accurate descriptions should mean hassle free sales.

No more work tonight..a quick risotto with veges from the garden, blackberry and apple crumble and the Women's Tour on the TV!!

Going by bus!

 Another visit to Ayr on a wet and windy day...not a day for a bike ride and depressing to stay indoors.

Pirate banked money from selling tyres and a wheel, we got a few hardware bits and bobs for a neighbour, then lunch in the bookshop café....

Down to the gallery again, and with luck caught the artist I met initially and the man who runs the building. 

Back on the bus, then phone contact made with the other joint organiser of the exhibition...can I bring work in on Saturday?

This afternoon's headache is how to price my work, after not pricing any pots for ten years?!

Consideration must also be given to the rise in material prices, and the price of gas.....when you can get it...

Getting things done!

 A beautiful apricot coloured sunrise for a start...then on with the jobs!!

Washing, then as our neighbour came for his cuppa and putting the world right...I left him and Pirate to it and finished off stripping the sofa..in said neighbour's garage, a very generous offer!

Would you believe it, I found the missing fire safety label...inside the sofa!!!! Inside it's construction, not just slipped down under a cushion.

The leather got packed up , the seat frame will be a small cold frame for me, the rest of the wood, mostly ply, will be firewood for our neighbour's workshop stove.

The webbing will go to Pirate's elder daughter for upholstery, the foam padding will be packing for parcels. I am not sure where the polyester pads will go, but they are clean...and the feet we have already used to raise our present sofa 10 centimetres, making it easier to use.

Then more packing , sales this time, not just some bike bits but an electric guitar case as well...that took a fair bit of construction!!  Pirate had a session riding his turbo trainer while I packed.

With a couple of family birthday cards, that all definitely justified the trip to the post office.

Back home again in time to sell a wheel locally..the best way to do business.

Pirate has been working on my bike, it now has a rack for pannier bags that suits it, we have an old set of mudguards to be fitted and today's "fun" has been working out how to fix a bottle cage with a gizmo...that's what it is called!! It's taken a while, but now he has worked out that the zip ties which hold it don't go the expected way.

It's been one of those days that no photos were taken, but plenty of things got done.