Wednesday
16th November Fresh to
strong SW
Cold
with a few heavy showers.
A
strong breeze in the face greets me as I turn from Kinross High
Street around to the west, onto the road to Falkirk.
It
is a cold wind and the road is a busy one with lots of large lorries
passing. Rain showers make the going even more uncomfortable.ally
over
Eventually
over the old Kincardine Bridge, past the Falkirk Horses and into Falkirk.
I need a rest. The
weather forecast for tomorrow is vile. My eyes are bloodshot and
after five days cycling, I am going to have a day off.
26.11
miles 718 feet elevation up 967 down
Tuesday 15th November Fresh SW
Mostly
sunny, another lovely day. 10C
Across
the long Tay Bridge from Dundee and along roads that take me west
along the southern coast of the Tay Estuary. Autumn colours come to
the fore, vivid reds and oranges.
I
pass a group of Eastern Europeans are working hard covering a huge
area of a brassica crop with mesh. They wave, I wave back. They
shout “good morning;" and ask how I am doing. “fantastic!”
I shout back.
Hills
and quiet country lanes, pheasants and signs asking for cars to slow
down. The local farmer doesn't want his pheasants hurt by cars. No,
not when he can shoot them himself or be paid by bird murderers who
enjoy blasting easy targets out of the air. Daft thoughts go through
my head. Why don't they shoot sheep? They are just the same sort of
easy target. Some people get immense pleasure out of shooting lions,
elephants, giraffes. Some people!
I
hate the hypocrisy of it all and cycle on.
Today's
landscape is far more hilly than of late, which means more, get off
and push moments.
Through
Newburgh and over to Auchtermuchty, in both places I stop awhile to
peruse the World War Memorials. More slaughter, as evidenced by the
names, some of them repeated on plaques. To the glory of God, King
and Country; each memorial gives a variety of responses to this basic
idea of why the brave boys were killed. Last year I observed the two
minutes of silence at 11:00 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh
month at Auchtermuchty.
I
have dozens of photographs of War Memorials around Britain. I have
collated them over the last two years. I must make a Facebook group
page on the subject. The memorials never cease to dismay me as the
massed names demonstrate the devastation caused to each community and
family visited. Lambs to the slaughter.
My
Grandad Prescott, My Dad's Dad, was there at the Somme. Wounded three
times, he survived, physically.
Negative
thoughts.
I
need my latest strategy to move onto new, happier thoughts.
Disneyland yesterday, how about birds whilst cycling today. I try to
think of special birds chronologically but my memory won't allow such
disciplined order. I want to think of the rarest birds seen yet my
mind immediately goes to a black redstart that came and sat by me at
the lookout over The Severn Bridge whilst I was eating a tin of
mackerel back in 2010.
The
strange, washed out but very beautiful stonechat seen with Howard
Vaughan at Rainham Marshes RSPB reserve pops into my head next.
The
Syke's warbler at Channerwick, Shetland, now that is more like it; a
real mega rare bird.
Tomorrow
I will try to remember the special birds from last year's New British
Green Record list.
34.87
miles 1981 feet elevation up 1699 down
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