River Roy

I've lost track of the days a bit this week.

I would have been totally ineffective on a site today especially the way I was feeling first thing. It was comparable to some awful hangover but with coughs and sneezing thrown in. As I write, early Thursday evening, I have site work lined up again for the morning. It is a rearranged job and has the advantage of being quite small in area and about ten paces from where I can park the car.
Despite me calling off sick I have had a few bits of admin to hack through at the comfort of the desk.

I have also realised that blipping early yesterday meant that the day hadn't happened yet; if that makes sense.

There was banking to do, a couple of errands and a site to visit down in Fort William.

I had struggled with every possible adjustment and tweak and my bike still wasn't right after replacing the front gear shifter lever. I was 95% sure that the new part was faulty and I phoned the guy in the shop with my thoughts. He said bring it down. Going in to these kind of specialist shops is quite intimidating when you are a casual cyclist and I had this dread that he would look at something and immediately say you haven't done X, turn one screw half a turn and it would magically work.
To my relief he immediately concurred with my diagnosis and said to come back in an hour and he would have it replaced. I came back after the errands and he was still on the job but close to completion. Furnished with the new part I would happily have fixed it myself (I could do it blindfold the amount of times I went through everything over the weekend) but he was clearly a bit embarrassed at letting the faulty part leave his shop and insisted on doing it. He wouldn't take anything from me for his work (and he did a very tidy job) so I bought a new tyre since my front one had got a bit perished and cracked.

Nevis Cycles in Inverlochy; very nice helpful people.

Going back to that intimidating feeling; you ask for a tyre and the man says "For what kind of Terrain?, you ask for a wee tube of chain oil "Is it for wet weather, dry weather, loose tracks?"
The expression that comes to mind is, "I'll just get my coat."

Anyway, tonight it was nearly closing time at Roy Bridge shop and we hadn't got the paper today so I jumped on my bike for the paper round. I'm so pleased that it is working properly again. I continued on up the Bohenie road and went down to the river where the bed is composed of unusual slabs and upended layers of rock. Infuriatingly I had no tripod and this is right on the limit of what is sensible hand held, though I grudge ISO 200 and a big aperture for this kind of shot.

Blip is incredibly slow tonight. I could have fixed a bike puncture and replaced a gear shifter in the time this upload has taken.