(Almost) cycling to the Carron Valley

Today didn't quite go to plan. Yesterday Mr hazelh selected a bike ride from Bike Scotland book one. I glanced at it last night and spotted the words 'hilly', 'tough', and 'demanding'. Then I saw that it was only 38k (24 miles) in length, starting from Stirling, so it couldn't be that hard, could it? Perhaps we'd even manage to see Tweedy at some point too afterwards?

The route turned out to be very 'hilly', 'tough', and 'demanding' - so much so that we didn't finish it. Mr hazelh was fine, but I was forced to walk so many uphill stretches that we calculated that it would take us around 6 hours to complete, if indeed I could complete it at all. I blipped Mr hazelh before we took the decision to retreat. The North Third reservoir is in the backrgound of the shot.

The plus points of the day are that we had a mooch around Stirling, including a recce of the area in which Mr hazelh's great aunt Lorna lived as a small child for future reference. We would also be interested in visiting the Bannockburn heritage centre one day too.  A non-cycling trip to Stirling is now very much on our to do list, including a visit to Tweedy.

When we returned to Edinburgh I yardened/gardened and Mr hazelh worked on a short (and silly) play that he has been writing with our brother-in-law Richard. We also saw the sister and niece of our upstairs neighbour on the street. They were very enthusiastic about the transformation of our back garden :-)

I have a three day online meeting that starts tomorrow morning and runs until Thursday afternoon.

Exercise today:  24K of cycling (with 300m of climb); yardening/gardening.