Blogging at 21:20 on Saturday 7th September from N 56.19391°, W 04.39070° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:56.19391%2C-04.39070
It's been a lovely day, weather-wise. Sunny, settled, barely any wind and warm, but with a touch of autumnal crispiness.
First up I went to the memorial garden set in Dryfesdale cemetery just west of Lockerbie that's the main site of remembrance for the victims of the Lockerbie terrorist air disaster. It's fitting and nicely kept.
Whilst in Lockerbie, I called briefly at a supermarket for some bread and found that you really can buy frozen convenience-packs of tatties and neeps. It occurs to me that have no clue what they actually are but was delighted that I had the option.
I made the race venue at Aberfoyle by lunch, signed on, looked at the expo, prejudicially noted the assortment of pristine decorative facial hair, bought some chips (tatties and neeps, my arse) and then quit town to do some wildlife stuff.
I ended up paying a couple of English pounds to do the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park drive. Forest drives are quite a common thing in Scotland and are rarely disappointing. This one wasn't, either. The weather helped but it was genuinely extraordinarily pretty in a very Scottish kind of way. Whilst taking a tea stop and scanning with bins I also got my best ever merlin sighting. It even obligingly perched in a tree.
After the drive I did a bit of bike fettling and had a quick test-spin then went to watch the Dukes Weekender hill climb where many of the people I'll be up against tomorrow were gently warming up. It looked awful.
After that there wasn't much daylight left so I found the coordinates shown where I'm going to kip.
Fair to say I'm a bit trepidatious about tomorrow...
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