This view made me squeal the brakes of my bicycle as I sped towards choir practice this week. I couldn’t believe the range and intensity of the sky’s colour – so I hopped off to preserve it in a photograph. It’s even more lovely when we consider that this was the view over Glasgow on Valentine’s evening – hopefully more people were looking at the sunset than usual.

Now for the real news. Prepare yourself. I have been basking in the glory of newfound fame all day after being featured in The Cumberland News; local paper in Cumbria where I grew up. I showed you a preparatory shot in my previous post, but now you can see a full slideshow of journalistic snaps [here] of myself and Joe outside, then a few of me installed at the microphone.

So here then are the fruits of our exploits. I bet you can hardly hold back your excitement – me neither. I have been laughing to myself about it all day. It’s especially amusing, if a little tragic that before we arrived on the scene there had been a man in full Jacobean costume volunteering. Unfortunately he didn’t happen to arrive simultaneous with the photographer, so we muscled in instead.

It has been a long time since I was featured in a newspaper – the last time may have been when I had my face painted in the local museum as a child, or perhaps when my sister and I were spilling paint all over sheets of paper in a craft club. None of that compares with this latest showcase of talent – I expect my telephone to begin ringing with agents and autograph seekers any time now. Any time.

The article itself gives us a mention but the online edition [here] doesn’t include the two now classic print shots; one of Joe and I ‘rehearsing’ (opening and closing our mouths) and one of me ‘being helped before recording’ (pretending to listen while instructed to look a particular way by the photographer). I intend to get much more mileage out of this feature – I visited my Gran today and told her about my local fame and her eyes positively lit up, fuelling my already (misguidedly) inflated ego. Quite frankly, regardless of how many newspaper copies my mum doesn’t buy, or how many people don’t call or talk about it, I will get an obscene amount of amusement out the entire experience.

– Today Rosie was actually called for Jury Duty, but later got out of it in Glasgow, Scotland –

Last week I noticed a call for Carlislians* to return to Carlisle Castle on Monday to offer their voices for a recording. Based on recent success at that very thing – plus inclusion in a crowd-sourced audiobook, I was excited at the prospect of having another go. As an aside – since my mother still hasn’t managed to hear that recording studio debut yet, I’ve included the link so you can have a listen. I read the fourth track, Hamnavoe, but the complete (free) audiobook is well worth a listen in its entirety.**

Unfortunately for me I was due to attend dreaded Jury Duty on the very day the recordings were to take place, but fortuitously I was not required. I am still required to call the court each evening this week to check but I am hoping not to have to attend at all. So with the day now clear, I was accompanied by fellow Carlislian and Glasgow resident, Joe to see if he would also like to give the recording a go. You may remember Joe as my new/old friend – I met him late last year after a hiatus of fifteen years in our friendship, but it seemed very apt to include him in any Carlisle related hijinks.

What you can see here is the pair of us being photographed for the local paper – we walked into the Castle grounds at the precise moment when the paparazzi arrived. By paparazzi I actually mean one lady with a camera bag. This is a small city, remember. She was representing a couple of local newspapers and after a brief discussion with the organisers, we were the only available members of the public present. She had already declined to photograph staff, so we therefore became the instant faces of Carlisle Castle. She photographed us outside the makeshift recording studio, in front of the keep with a microphone that was vaguely reminiscent of a ray gun. In this image (and pretty much all others) we are being told to lean in and pretend to be reciting the Ballad of Kinmont Willie; a poem penned about a local reiver imprisoned during a truce and later escaping a short, sharp drop by the neck. For the photo shoot, I was wittering jibberish in place of balladry as Joe more professionally mimed silently. In the actual studio, there were some more photographs taken, but I’m hoping they opt for the more bizarre outdoor laser gun set up.

The big news is we may make it into the local paper; I await the weekly offering from the Cumberland News with bated breath – fame at last! Be assured if there is any word of that sort, I shall have the link to you as soon as possible. The day was also punctuated with Carlisle specific activities such as searching for sheep counting ephemera, mum visiting (she took the photo), buying Kendal mint cake, foam sword fighting and dressing up repeatedly in children’s costumes in the museum. More on that another time.

* The term for people from or living in the city of Carlisle. Pronounced as written; Car-lis-lee-ans. Although the word Carlisle itself is pronounced Car-lyle the name for the residents is different, seemingly just to confuse.

** In case you wanted to know more about the first recording, there’s a brief lowdown on the experience at the very end of my DIY appraisal.

– Today Rosie is going to a friend’s play, drawing and cleaning out the goldfish in Glasgow, Scotland –

The merry band in the top left corner of this post were looking less than cheery by the time we clocked the twentieth mile of our training walk. This is the third outing for the gang who will (hopefully) become responsible for covering fifty miles on foot in twenty four hours in the name of charity*. This walk made the last two training sessions feel like light ambling. However, we’ve made a steady trajectory towards the dreaded total of fifty by doing seven, eleven and now twenty miles in one go.

This more impressive walk took in five villages; Elie, St Monans, Pittenweem, Anstruther and then Crail. We then went through the whole lot again (in reverse order, of course) to wearily shuffle back to stay the night in Elie. Behind the four of us in that top right picture is the town of Elie about half an hour after leaving. At that point we were still full of energy, taking lots of posed photographs and breathing in the bracing sea air. For the first half of the trek, there was much laughter and chatter – the noisy, spiraling gulls and the froth beating against the shore were a novelty, the breeze was fresh in our city nostrils and we were on the lookout for aquatic meerkats** (or seals as everyone else tends to call them).

I have always regarded the East coast as being a little on the dull side in comparison to the West. West is the best, as the rhyme would suggest. Forgive me for both continuing that rhyme – it wasn’t intentional – but also for my prior ignorance of the East. I discovered there is a wealth of old ruins and fortresses on the East coast; we passed several examples including The Lady Tower (a ruined beach dressing room for a Queen), former castles, an old windmill with salt flats, crannogs, old doocots and some impressive sandstone caves. If you have time to waste, have a look in my facebook album of the day. There were also an impressive array of promontories and stack-like rock formations like the one in the bottom left image. You might be able to see Suzy’s tiny head peeking out at the very bottom of it – just to give an idea of scale. The colours of these rocks were incredible; greens, golds, pale sandy colours, pinks, reds and purples. I’ve never seen rock like it – again I took many more photos than I can fit here.

By the time we reached our last village checkpoint with three miles to go, light was beginning to fail and I could feel the burn in the back of my knee – I have since resigned myself to the fact that I pulled a weakened leg muscle after lunch somewhere. I licked my lips and tasted sea salt from the callous winds (that had felt so refreshing only that morning) and began (against all reason) to perk up. I believe I jeered at the others “Come on, you slackers!” a couple of times in the vain hope of adopting a kind of raffish cruelty that would spur them on before the chill and dark of oncoming dusk could really seep in and cloud our resolve. We walked at least an hour in the pitch black by the light of a phone, the sea leaping up at us, as if chasing us home.

The main thing is we made it. All twenty miles of it. We began at 10am and finally arrived back eight hours later at 6pm. I decided to make a bee line for the floor, still clad in my jacket and backpack. I had strained a muscle somewhere around the twelve mile mark and had a substantial limp by the time the day was over. We sent some of the less wounded to Anstruther for their famed fish and chips. The thought of this kept me awake throughout my shower and subsequent change into comforting paisley patterned pyjamas. Ian and Suzy’s dog was even worse – he appears to have outdone himself, too tired to beg for table scraps.

Today I’m left with the after burn of the walk, but it’s nowhere near as bad as I expected – aside from this strain. Yesterday I was reaching my limit because of it, but had the leg not been an issue, I genuinely feel I could have continued. It turns out that endurance is my secret skill, unbeknownst even to me. I began to pick up speed after lunch and when the rest of the party began flagging – once the complains of blisters and fatigue began, that’s when I felt like running. I didn’t, obviously, but I just wanted to crack on and beat the East coast and laugh in its neuky face. I will certainly have to create more inspiring lunches and invest in new boots as I can’t have four blisters or lunch envy holding me back after only twenty miles.

*The PPWH; Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow.

** We spotted an ad for a sea life centre in a local leaflet. The accompanying image unsurprisingly depicted a shark but juxtaposed bizarrely with a meerkat. We jestingly surmised that it must have been aquatic and therefore closely related to a seal. We sustained our amusement by feigning sightings of the shy meerkats all day.

– Today Rosie is returning back to the city and then probably limping about and drawing to catch up on lost time in Glasgow, Scotland –

Some time during the past couple of days a new neighbour has moved into the Garnethill area. Already she is causing a lot of damage, makes noise until after dinner time every day and has some hideous eating habits. She is guzzling brick and concrete as if it were chocolate, floodlit in the dusk with a crowd of onlookers. I was one of these spectators for a while yesterday, drawn in by the sound of metal buckling, the crumbling of masonry and the screech of metal munching.

As usual, my videos are simply informative and not particularly well shot, but the audio should give you an idea of the chilling sound of Jurassic crunching going on one block away. The demolition monster is chewing the building away piece by tiny piece, coughing dust and dripping concrete rubble from its jaws. I’m sure my video doesn’t convey the scale of this beast, but I assure you it is epic in proportions and well worth a visit if you’re in the area. The scale of the demolition has been surprising and carefully executed owing to the proximity of the Art School’s celebrated jewel, the Mackintosh building.

We can hear the sounds of destruction from our kitchen and it genuinely feels like a monster of Godzillic proportions is loose – the reflections of flashing lights on the window glass, coupled with the sounds (reminiscent of the awakening of titan, Talos in the 1963 classic, Jason and the Argonauts – a personal childhood favourite) are actually rather chilling.

It got a little nerdy there, but as I stood there, jaw dropped with camera in hand, gawping at the ‘Dem Master’ I felt a portion of the amazement of the two Argonauts, albeit with a slightly less dramatic fleeing reaction.

– Today Rosie is drawing, planning, meeting and hopefully wheedling her way into the theatre in Glasgow, Scotland–

Often I worry that you imagine I do very little work and spend my time being silly and injuring myself in ever more inventive ways. No, I manage to work, produce a quota of silliness and hurt myself. I’m a jack of all trades, me. Recently followers of my daily drawings feed (see here) will know I have taken up the ’28 drawings later’ challenge on Facebook. This involves producing a drawing every day for the month of February (hence the 28 days – though ironically this year there are 29). This means although I already draw daily, I submit those drawings to their page on weekends too; a little bit of extra work for a few weeks. I thought you might enjoy seeing what I have produced in this first week.

On the left you can see the lid of my laptop and on the right, an egg in my pirate eggcup. I’ve fallen in love with permanent markers this past week and I’ve been using them on anything in front of me. So far, computer and food. The laptop was the star of an entire week of daily drawings after a sudden and complete dissatisfaction with the state of my laptop. I tend to use the aluminium casing of the macbook for pencil notes since it rubs off easily, leaving no lasting marks. It allows me to remember exactly where I write a telephone number or reference code, for example. However, it does occasionally need spruced up for client meetings as using a high end computer as an analogue post it note is not widely accepted. Yet. So I went further and have used it as a sketchbook and showpiece. I’m very happy with how it has turned out thus far. I began with the apple headed analogue girl in the centre on Monday, Tuesday’s offering was the upside down dancing man. The octopus, performing dog and finally the dragon filled Wednesday to Friday.

As for the weekend egg, I simply thought it would be funny. That’s all. The eggcup was being used by my flatmate and she left me the shell to draw a silly face on. Instead, I washed it like an ordinary dish, left it to dry on the draining board and used it as a double sided canvas. One side depicts a pirate sleeping with a parrot on his hat and the other side (as you can see) is grinning a partially toothless, moustachioed smile. Drawing on an empty eggshell is precarious work – why not wash one out and try it? Drawing and cutting out tiny pirate hats for empty eggshells is inane but somehow satisfying. What’s in store tomorrow? I have no idea!

– Today Rosie is probably doing this sort of thing in Glasgow, Scotland –

I’ve been to a few Celtic Connections events over the past weeks, it is a folk music festival that takes over many of the largest music venues in Glasgow for a couple of weeks every winter. It ended officially yesterday, but I will be feeling the effects of it for some time to come. I love a ceilidh, but even I may have to take a break from dancing for a week or so to recover. I made a cardinal error; attending two ceilidhs in the same weekend, one day after another. In case you are already lost, ceilidh is pronounced like the girl’s name, ‘Kayleigh’ or even phonetically easier, ‘kaylee’. It is an event with a live band and attendees partake in traditional Scottish country dancing. The music can vary somewhat, but the dances follow a fairly strict formula, each one incorporating elements of spinning in pairs, polka, twirling, arm locking and dosey doe-ing.

Friday’s ceilidh was a long anticipated event – I had bought a ticket (along with about fifteen other friends) several weeks ago in readiness. Now, I love a ceilidh. When I say love, I mean that the very mention of the word sends me into paroxysms of excitement. If that word is inked into my diary, I have my dress pressed, ticket at the ready and my gym shoe laces tied tightly. I must add at this point that far from being a ceilidh expert, my dance step knowledge and information retention is patchy at best. I rarely remember the dances in their entirety, except ‘strip the willow’, which is one of the simpler, more energetic ones. However, I make up for this shortcoming by being enthusiastic in the extreme.

I noticed a few interesting techniques I use when ceilidh dancing:

- I smile widely and constantly through each and every dance; it occasionally morphs into a wide-eyed grimace of humiliation when I kick a fellow dancer or potentially ram my chin into their back.

- I am on my tiptoes almost constantly – this is partly to avoid stepping on or being stepped on. As the name suggests, it keeps me on my toes,  primarily allowing for quick pivotal change of direction when I am facing the wrong way. This does not happen infrequently, I’m afraid. There is a major disadvantage to this particular technique; waking up the following morning is a painful experience on the calf muscles. If I thought my legs were burning on Saturday morning, the way they feel right now has plumbed new depths of pain. Going down stairs is an experience I can no longer cope with without wincing.

- I spare no energy when dancing; even if my part is to stand and clap, I will be bobbing on my feet or leaping like a spring lamb for sheer joy of the dance. It is one of life’s simple, enduring pleasures.

- I have been known to lose a shoe. I did on Saturday night, but managed to retrieve it before it caused any upset.

If you’d like a taster of what the Friday night was like, I took a short snippet of video featuring some friends. The venue was perfect – huge vaulted ceiling and optimum dancefloor space. On Friday we also had tickets for the Festival Club, a late showcase of acts from across Celtic Connections. It began very slowly, fortunately allowing time for chat and catching up – something that becomes rather difficult in a ceilidh situation. My overriding memory is of laughing a lot, drinking a lot of water for rehydration and performing some seriously suspect dance moves. So bizarre was our interpretative dancing that we were high fived by several other overly enthused dancers. We stayed at the festival club until we were too exhausted to continue at 3am.

And then there was the Saturday. I rose late with tired legs. A friend invited me in the afternoon to a ceilidh that evening. I decided the best way to rid myself of the now apparent post ceilidh blues was to iron a fresh dress, dust off the shoes and limber up before I could realise the folly of my actions. On that note, I have surpassed myself for hand related mishaps. I have caused my already ailing hand even more injury in yet another irritatingly avoidable situation. After a teetotal January, I have been drinking much less alcohol or none at all when I go out of an evening. In fact, I was on glasses of water all night on Saturday, simply because the energy required for such energetic jollity requires constant rehydration. I am telling you this simply so you can accept that what happened next was not carelessness on my part. I had several hairy moments before I actually fell properly; the usual kicks in the ankles, slight tripping up over other people’s legs, the occasional bump into somebody’s side. I was entirely unprepared to fall hard, tripping over another dancer’s stray foot. What made for a more painful plummet to the floorboards was that I was locked between two other dancers, holding their hands. It possibly sounds quite amusing, but, dear reader, I was upset to discover I had fallen directly onto my injured hand. I continued the dance, almost in time, though my smile had faltered somewhat. I foresee a slow recovery since I insist on hurting my hand with great alacrity whenever I can.

It feels better today, though still tender. Despite the obvious dangers, good Ceilidhs are still high up on my favourite activities hitlist. The aftermath of pain and/or shame is entirely worth it for the elation. Testament to that fact is that the only time I stopped smiling this weekend was when I fell over.

– Today Rosie is nursing her hand, drawing and writing in Glasgow, Scotland –

Another long walk last weekend in training for the Speyside Challenge which takes place in June, so a full month more training than I thought. This walk took us to Milngavie* which is about seven miles from Glasgow as the crow flies. We however, did not fly. Most of the time we were slipping, trudging or being twung in the face by whippy tree branches. There was also a point where Buddy the dog (the eighth member of our merry band) had to be lifted over a barbed wire fence and I ended up with his muddy paw prints all down my front.

As you can see, at least it was a bright day, none of this smirry** rain business that has permeated the entire area over the past weeks. It was a stunning, chilly morning when we met at the gates of Glasgow’s botanic gardens. I had already walked a mile or so before I even got to that point so I’m congratulating myself for walking a total of (approximately) ten miles that day. From the photographs above you can see that it was less of a walk and more of a scramble for the fist half of the riverside route; the mud was sucking at our heels and fallen trees literally littered the route. We must have seen hundreds of trees either sheared in half or uprooted entirely by the cruel winds of this winter. As you can see on the left, we managed to eke our way through, over and under branches – then the complete blockage of our route with a huge tree lying across barbed wire on one side and into the river on the other. Each of us negotiated the barbed wire twice to circumvent the obstacle of the enormous tree trunk. None of us sustained any injuries this time – a relief to me especially since I appear to be the recipient of any pain, injuries or collector of scars from unlucky ventures.

No injuries, a lunch break with a sit down, topped off with a trip to the swings – what could round a day off better, aside from an ice cream? Unfortunately nobody else was game for a cone, so we caught the train back to Glasgow from Milngavie, grateful for the Scotrail heating and the seats. This walk was a lot more taxing than the first, I think mainly due to the terrain – last time, we were spoiled with even tarmac, but the slippery mud and tree climbing left me quite worn out by the end of the day. I genuinely estimate we added at least half a mile to our walk with our necessary puddle, quagmire and tree diversions. I think that has to boost me up to nearly eleven miles…

* Don’t be fooled by saying this name phonetically, it’s actually pronounced ‘mul-gye’. I know. Silly.

** A Scottish word for a very particular kind of rain; smirr. It’s the kind of misty rain that feels like fog and gets you entirely soaked without you realising it.

– Today Rosie is drawing and tidying up in Glasgow, Scotland –

WELCOME TO THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON!

I woke up yesterday morning so excited at the prospect of CNY (Chinese New Year) that I was veritably skipping about the flat with glee. I wasn’t particularly productive after completing my daily drawing (of a dragon) except in making advance preparations for a sumptuous Chinese repast. CNY has always been present in my life, attributed to my Chinese aunt. Yes, I actually have a Chinese aunt – adopted in a roundabout way by my grandmother. Anyway, I have always been aware of it, but while I was Ying’s partner in crime, it became much more of a celebratory event. Two years ago I was even in Singapore to celebrate and last year I was blessed with double luckiness and ended up back in Singapore again. This year, being in Glasgow by no means diminished my day, as I spent much of it buying food in order to celebrate. A fine pastime for any festival.

At the ready, there were bamboo shoots (not quite a success), pok choi, Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, sliced pork, knotted noodles, fried tofu, home made satay sauce, prawn, wontons, and thinly sliced rolls of lamb. There were also ‘glass’ (vermicelli) noodles at the very end, as well as a round of steamed pumpkin buns which were a huge hit. You can see a video of the setup if you like.

All in all, we produced a moderately authentic experience due in part to my over zealous preparation. I insisted on red being worn, I had erected a paper dragon decoration, sellotaping it to a huge red pagoda-esque cake stand, stacked with oranges in an attempt to ‘Chinesify’ my kitchen. In my head, it was very effective. Despite some attendees lack of faith in the whole experience, and their mistrust of raw food at the dining table, the greatest fear turned out to be tiny hot splashes from the rice cooker as more food was shoveled in. We rounded the entire meal off with lashings of chrysanthemum tea and slices of (not particularly traditional) chocolate cake.

I have realised that although I might feel from my associations that I am part Asian, I am indeed not. I am merely an Asian wannabe. I felt this acutely on my way to buy my very first, very own rice cooker from a well known catalogue based high street retailer. Along the way, I popped into my local Chinese one-stop-cornershop to scout out any unmissable items I had so far forgotten to buy. I clocked the paper dragons festooning the window display immediately. One of those would replace the two card bunnies from the year of the rabbit that I had actually only removed from the kitchen door that morning. I asked the shop assistant if he could hand me a paper dragon, but the look he gave me was quizzical. From that one look, I deduced that;

a) They don’t sell many of those at £1.25 a pop.

b) They sell even less to white people.

c) They sell even less to white twenty somethings wearing a red coat (for luck) and an expression of idiotic enthusiasm for foreign festivals.

It was only after exiting the establishment with the dragon in my hand that I made the further discovery that I couldn’t carry the dragon in any way but to hold it in my hand. To put it in a bag would crush at least one pounds worth of coloured paper, rendering the dragon a sorry sight. Imagine me in a bright red coat, carrying a neon paper dragon, heading to buy a rice cooker. I must have looked like a Chinaphile as I left the shop, dragon and rice cooker in hand. I may as well have been wearing an ‘I heart China’ tee shirt.

– Today Rosie is teaching, drawing and going for her first swim in possibly a year in Glasgow, Scotland –

What a week. I’ve (as you might have guessed) had no time to update you at all. But wait – I have a range of excuses; I was narrating a portion of an audio book, ‘photoshopping’ a favour, went to two gigs, choir practice, volunteered for a short while in a charity shop (by accident), did some DIY, early Spring cleaning and clearout, got another illustration published online [here] and of course, through all this, I was held back by my hand injuries which you might have read about in the previous post.

To that then first; when you last heard from me, I had damaged myself yet again by falling over. In my eagerness to shift the damage from my hands, I performed a failed commando roll onto my back that resulted in all round injury. It is only when I do myself small injuries that I can (to an extent) appreciate how debilitating a more serious mishap might be. I discovered this week that amongst other things, I could not do the following at all, or very well:

Write or draw (manually with pens and pencils) so this prevented me working for a day or so. Daily Drawings were put on hold for a day as I recovered.

Wear gloves. This includes use of oven gloves (therefore could not remove hot items from the oven once cooked).

Shampoo or shower effectively without emitting sharp cries of pain as hot water stung my hands.

Touch water; I couldn’t wash dishes for a day or so. Yes, I could have bought gloves, but seriously.

Grip anything; knives, forks, chopsticks, mugs, teapots. You may notice that these are mostly food related. This is because this is very important to me.

Ride a bike.

Clap. Considering I went to two music gigs, this meant I had to stand and whoop instead. Or stamp.

Those were the main ones, but every day I encountered many tiny inconveniences, and was made thankful that it wasn’t worse. Upon reflection, I could have broken an arm. Or worse.

So to some of my other mini adventures – luckily, my recovery was tempered with a long owed favour to a friend, involving a few hours of computer work. I still had the ability to use a computer mouse so that allowed for a day of moderate rest while I clicked my way to repayment of a long overdue debt. Mind you, I’ve thoroughly cleaned the facia of the laptop as my wounds kept weeping slightly onto it. I like to paint a vivid picture for you. Even with ‘the hands’, I managed to do some DIY and I put up three shelves. Yes, I think that’s amazing as well. Every time I am in my bedroom, I pause to admire my handiwork, basic and shoddy though it may be. After the bathroom fiasco of last year, the pimp palace* is full of pieces of timber, a sink, tiles, floorboards that were never used, and so on. Being of a resourceful nature, I have used the floorboards as shelves. I managed to borrow a drill, buy the wall brackets and I even managed to convince two friends to cut the pieces for me. I’m almost competent at drilling, but even without the hand injuries, I am dangerous with a saw. Aside from the cutting, I managed the entire operation single handed (as it were) and I am rather pleased with the outcome. What was a bare, space wasting recess is now a neat little bijou storage corner for books, DVDs and silly (light) ephemera that has no other permanent home. The sharp eyes amongst you might spot Fish face the tiger from China [here].

I almost forgot! I also went to a tiny recording studio here in Glasgow and read the classic Scottish poem, Hamnavoe for a crowd sourced audiobook. This is very exciting and I hope to have a copy of the recording shortly (to email to my mum and ex drama teacher) and to have news on it’s future. I have no idea whether it will be available in shops or online, but it was fun to be selected. I sent in a recording of the requested audition poem A red, red rose by Rabbie Burns. I did it for fun but had completely forgotten about it. I even listened to the recording the day after sending it and regretted it immensely as I felt I had hammed it up far too much. More news as it comes!

* Windowless room / huge cupboard in my flat, mainly used as a storage facility and dumping ground.

– Today Rosie is going on another potentially dangerous walking trip with friends in the Glasgow area, Scotland –

Being a person of an easily persuaded disposition, I am fairly game for many activities that are potentially a hazard to my physical or mental wellbeing. This in mind, along with all the other people in this photograph, I have agreed to attend a walk to raise money for charity. You may be yawning right now at the very thought of it, but wait. Have you ever walked 50 miles in twenty-four hours? Well I haven’t, but that’s what I have signed up for later in the year. In light of that rather impulsive promise, our group began to realise that such an epic walk may require a certain amount of prior training, and better to start early. So, though the walk is not until May, we are already donning walking boots and anoraks and braved the frosty morning this Sunday to tackle a hill or two.

We traveled a mere thirty minutes south west of central Glasgow to Lochwinnoch where we’d researched a few walks surrounding a couple of small lochs. We saw many exciting things on our traipse around along the lochside and surrounding woodland. There was a stone folly, as you can see in the photograph, then deer tracks, icicles, little waterfalls, an abandoned church, fluffy white and wooly tree fungus, sunshine (very rare this time of year), crenelated scam medieval style bridges, mushrooms, many different breeds of dog, swans and cygnets, crepuscular light* and a vole (or unfortunately an ex-vole. The little mite must have simply frozen, perhaps waking from hibernation in the milder weather and then being struck by frost). I personally had the biggest treat when I saw the ground rushing towards me at an alarming rate. I slipped and fell from a rock in an expert fashion; I managed to hurt both the back and front of my body – first one and then the other. I fell forwards into gravel from this slick boulder, reaching my hands out in front of me – on the way down I banged my knee and then grazed my hands impressively on the palm, back of the hand and the. I continued this theme by also grazing my thigh and nastily bruising my backside and forearm – possibly, but not necessarily in that order. I lay there for a few moments, on my back as my body filed a damage report to my brain. I find that rarely are graze or bruise injuries immediate (especially complex aerobatic ones like this one), but that I require a few seconds to fully acquaint myself with the painful results of my usually foolhardy actions.

My hands seeped blood and I was patched up with three plasters on the worst affected palm areas. Luckily, the remainder of the walk was still enjoyable and we estimate we covered over seven miles. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Hopefully we can rack up the miles in the coming weeks and by the time May rolls around, we’ll be ready to take on the double-marathon-in-a-day walk. More on that as it comes. If you need more proof that we’re under-qualified for this walking malarkey, you can see other pictures of our day out here.

* Those shafts of light that appear to shoot from the holes in clouds, looking ethereal and impressive.

– Today Rosie is nursing doubly injured hands, going to the dentist and doing a lot of Photoshopping, followed by a gig in Glasgow, Scotland–