WILD FLOWERS

It's been a great period of good weather recently, and this inspired me to get out on my bike.

It's been almost four months since I cycled any sort of distance, and this week has seen me slowly building up the distances. Unfortunately the saddle never seems to get any more comfortable!

All of this build up led to today when I set off on a favourite cycle that I've blogged about before. It's approximately 37 miles round trip, from my home in Portobello to the small town I used to go to High School at, Penicuik.

However, I ended up adding a few miles. Over the past two years a new railway line has been in the process of construction, linking Edinburgh with the Borders region (which it used to in the 60s but this was closed. Now at great expense we're putting it back!!!). This building project slices through part of the cycle path as it crosses the town of Dalkieth. I've always hoped that they would eventually install a bridge connecting the two paths up again for pedestrians and cyclists. Today I discovered it has been closed permanently and there is no clear indication of where to detour. Thus I added three miles and a fair bit of time just trying to figure it out.

But that was all forgotten about as I trundled along the "rails to trails" route out to Penicuik. There was a strong heady smell in the air from the proliferation of wild flowers all along either side. I added yet more time to my journey to photograph them all.

What is amazing is that the two sets of photographs on this blog are only half of the variety that I saw over the course of the day. I have no idea what most of them are called, but together with the constant companion songs of blackbirds in the surrounding woods it was a joy the whole way.