Season's Greetings to All My Readers.

The village of Winchburgh in West Lothian is obviously a little behind the times. I have something of an aversion to tacky Christmas decorations and the row of these bloody things (sorry LF, I know you have an aversion to such language) seems to be on a par with those in my own little village. I have heard it said "that they are better than nothing;" well I'm afraid I beg to differ. I would be slightly interested to know if they are still being illuminated at night, but not sufficiently interested to go back to find out. In large it is just possible to read the message, "THIS WAY UP;" I take that to be an indictment of the intellect of your average council workman.
A mile or two previously we had come across a hoarding carrying a poster for Edinburgh's Hogmanay/New Year's Day celebrations, 2012/13; it was big, bright and colourful but lacked the sheer tackiness of illuminated bells surmounted by holly and a ruby coil.

Today's cycle run was to Linlithgow, the weather was very dull so that, although I took lots of pictures, few of them were worth a second glance and it was beyond my abilities to brighten them up enough to make them interesting.
Today was a bit special in that I turned up at the start on a bike, it was a source of much discussion, I don't suppose many of the riders even knew that I could "go a two wheeler." On last week's ride a little spring inside one of the freewheels (there's one for each side wheel) had failed, not a disaster in itself but, being an engineer, my first thought was that if one of a pair breaks, the other cannot be far behind.
It's a long walk back from Linlithgow.