Braemar (again!)

Dodgy journey up to Braemar on Friday night - it took me over an hour to get from Gav's flat to the Forth Road Bridge (normally 15 mins), I hit a deer rounding a corner just out of Blairgowrie (felt awful but there was nothing I could do) and then got practially blown over the top of Glenshee in white-out conditions which came on very suddenly. I was really happy to roll down the hill into Braemar and get the fire going at the house! Fiona & Bernard, Neil & Ruth were all coming from Glasgow but got stuck in Blairgowrie about half an hour behind me as the road was closed. Feee (with her distinguised third 'e') and Bernard (or is it Bertrum?! haha) decided to come round via Aberdeen, while Neil & Ruth opted to stay in the car (brave effort). First time I'd seen Feee since being home so despite them arriving just before 2am (they took a few wrong turns) we sat up yakking until 5:45am. Needless to say, we weren't up and about too early the next day.









I went running late morning and the three of us climbed Morrone in the afternoon....the sun came out so with plenty of snow on the hills it was a beautiful afternoon. N & R had a good day skiing (except poor visibility higher up) and we all had a great laugh playing Pictionary and Taboo in the evening. (Fiona's Mardi Gras pictures were outrageous).

Happy Mother's Day!! (Mum & Dad in Zermatt, Switzerland, probably with slightly better skiing conditions than Glenshee)

On Sunday we walked from Linn of Dee to the Quoich, trudging through some pretty deep snow on the top and making our own trail down the other side - those without Goretex boots had pretty cold & wet feet but it was a really nice walk and the weather was fantastic. Back for a quick tidy up before heading south again...great fun weekend, feel so lucky to have the house in Braemar (thanks mum & dad!)

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Face Masks

Gavin enjoys the nightly ritual as he and Jen relax with their face masks on in front of the football. The headband just tops it all off - you're looking great Gav :)

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Glen Tress

Must have enjoyed biking in the snow more than I let on....I headed to Glen Tress (near Peebles) on Saturday where the top trails were still covered in the white stuff. Great variety of tracks so despite being by myself I enjoyed exploring the area and will definitely go back. If someone can come with me next time I'll be more daring and try some harder trails...I'm a wimp when I'm on my own :)

Paddy's Day the night before - we were in the Grassmarket but it was way too busy for me. How much does the boy on the left remind us of his older bro?....of course it's Leask's wee brother Beav (as in Beavis & Butthead) - they're very similar in looks and personality so despite missing Leask's antics, at least we have a clone :)










Beav, me, Jen & Gav; Gav, Jen, and their good friend "Magners"

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Climbing & Snow-biking

Went rock-climbing at Ratho on Saturday, which is actually the largest rock-climbing arena in the world. It's a really impressive centre, but was never finished due to a lack of funding...maybe it'll be completed at some point though. Fun day climbing, but felt pretty weak having not climbed since Thailand...I need to find time to get back into it!

Neil had come over from Glasgow, so we joined Gav, Jen, Ross x 2 and a few others at the Grassmarket and watched the rugby (enough about that), then went out for a couple of drinks afterwards. Karen Paterson (otherwise known as KP) was home for the weekend so she came out for a bit too - having not seen each other for probably 4 years, we didn't stop talking for about 2 hours...it was really fun to catch up, we had a good gossip!

On Sunday it was snowing heavily, even in Stockbridge, so our plan to go moutain-biking at Glen Tress was looking unlikely. Neil (being slightly mad on mtn-biking) thought we could try the Pentlands anyway, so we had an 'interesting' day (!) battling the wind & pushing through some high snow drifts, but it really was quite fun. Didn't realise how much the wind can take it out of you - I was really shattered when I got back.

Snow Drifts

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Jen's Birthday

So I like to make a fuss of people's birthday's, and Jen LOVES chocolate, so a chocolate cake and lots of balloons was the way to go. It was fun decorating, and the cake seemed to go down pretty well with everyone in the flat :)

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