The Winged Messenger.

Today’s cycle run should have been to Caldercruix, a village in Lanarkshire; however, our leader for the day decided that we weren’t up to it and cut about 6 miles off the route by making the Black Loch our destination. I was once asked in relation to my 24 hour races about the ideal weather for cycling and my response was that my preference was for a complete absence of it. I don’t like it hot, or cold; rain isn’t good, neither is wind; and while sunshine can be quite dazzling, heavy cloud is a bit depressing. It was a bit like that today; there just wasn’t any weather, so I’m quite sure that we could have handled the extra six miles.
 
Having said that, the Black Loch is quite a good destination, it seems to be owned by a fishing club and they are quite hospitable, they let us use their club room for its toilets and tea making facilities and refuse any offers of payment; its only drawback is that there are few quick Blips to be had while waiting for riders to find their bikes and pack up their rubbish.
 
The saving grace today was that the team is practising for an important fishing competition and I was able to grab a shot of this man and lad preparing to depart to the middle of the pond, there was the specific attraction that the outboard motor carried the name “Mercury.” Some years ago, I was discussing pneumonics with my nephew; some years before that, he had been told how to remember the boiling point of mercury, the key being a mental image of the “Winged Messenger” delivering MILK. The only trouble was, he didn’t know how to decode that image. There is an international code for memorising numbers and the consonants: M, L and K signify the numbers 3, 1 and 7. Being a smart arse, I was able to tell him that mercury boiled at 317 degrees. Thus, curiosity was satisfied though I don’t think either of us has ever bothered to verify whether it is degrees Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit or Rankine.