It used to be something

As forecast, today's weather was better than yesterday's, and after yesterday's knocking out of miles using infernal combustion I decided I needed a bike ride.  The plan, which took most of the morning to contrive, was to brave Fort Kinnaird again to look at clothes.  On the way there I could divert to look for and look at a couple of things.  After shopping, I didn't have a plan.

So I took myself towards Dobbies, because the old maps said there was a milestone once upon a time on the A772.  Well, I don't think it's there anymore.  Then it was time to explore a very old right of way between the A7, near where we used to pick strawberries, and the new road near Shawfair.  It's a pretty overgrown path, but it crosses the trackbed of the former Edinburgh, Loanhead & Roslin Railway.  About a year ago I visited another part of it a bit to the east where the rails are still in place.  I took photos but all you'd see is a heavily overgrown cutting.

Then to Fort Kinnaird, which was heaving.  I wandered around in the clothes shop but didn't find anything I liked, and finding anything at all anyway was tricky because none of the displays seemed to make sense.  So I sped away as fast as I could, came back through Monktonhall and Old Craighall, and then randomly decided to go to Dobbies for a poke about.  There are a couple of outdoorsy shops there, and hurrah! – I got a couple things for half price.

By this time I'd nearly run out of water and was a bit tired, so I had a brief look at what used to be Edinburgh Butterfly & Insect World.  I'd only been once, six years ago when I decided to do something nice on my birthday, and I thought it was a very lovely place to be.  But when the pandemic came, it had to close – temporarily I had supposed – but that was four and a half years ago and it's been shut ever since.  It's a terrible shame, because it'd been there for over 40 years and was the world's longest-running tropical butterfly house.

Back home eventually for an early tea and to sit in the sunshine and read a few pages of my book.