Conveyance

I was struck by the different types of bicycles outside the Chrystal Macmillan building when I headed there for a meeting late morning today.

At the front is the set up I used for quite a number of years (more than 30 years ago) with L. A standard bike, with a child seat on the back. After that, largely hidden, is my own ebike. Then there are three "continental" bikes, with various forms of cabins and seats for the one or more children, or other stuff, to be conveyed. I say "continental" because mostly those types of bikes are imported from places like Germany and the Netherlands, where they are much more commonly in use (and thus available). I think they are extremely expensive in the UK, and they are basically only going to be usable in Edinburgh either by an extremely fit person, or with electrical assistance. I think most of them have batteries. They are definitely at risk of theft.

This being the home of the School of Social and Political Sciences, there are probably plenty of people wanting to use various hipster conveyances for their children. Anyway, it struck me as an interesting sight to see so many of them together.

It was a very long day. I managed a peloton workout at home, and then spent some time at work including attending the last meeting of a committee where my membership comes to an end at the end of this academic year. I cycled home and we had a quick and fairly light dinner, before driving up. We managed it in 3 hours 40, despite it being very busy to get out of Edinburgh and over the bridge (sheer weight of traffic) and there being some hold ups both on the Blair Atholl bypass (roadworks) and at Moy (the A9 dualling project). Otherwise, the roads were empty and the journey was smooth. The light was pretty good and it was still twilight when we got here just before 9.30pm. It was light enough to see that the garden is looking prolific.

We unpacked, then sat up with a glass of wine, and finally headed to bed at a reasonable hour, with some gentle rain falling on the garden, which was good to see.