The 2nd Haggis Run - the planning stage...

Phew, busy day last Tuesday. Went out with Mrs BC and Captain Bill and ran through the routes for the Alford Convention and the 2nd Haggis Run - our "Road Safety Run with a Touch of Fun".
Met Bill at Alford, where both of the runs will start from, and set off to do 'his' route first. It's a great little course, some 30 miles or so around the local lanes, taking in some nice views and countryside. I drove, Mrs BC ate, and Bill drew the route in rough in his sketch book, so that he can then go home and tweak his drawings, put them into boxes on an A4 sheet of paper which can be copied for the riders, and hey presto, that's yer route card. After a quick pit stop in the Grampian Transport Museum for soup and a sarnie, we set off again. This time on a longer route for the Haggis. Obviously I can't tell you where it goes, otherwise there'd be no point in you coming and doing the run, but I can tell you it's way better than last year, it goes up high and it goes sweeping back down low, through farms and sleepy villages, past herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, we even went across the middle of a grouse moor. No shooting going on though. It would seem that every back road in the area was due to be resurfaced that day, and somewhere near a village called Keig, we were confronted with "ROAD CLOSED" signs. Not much help when there is only one road that goes where we had to go. So I boldly drove up there, hoping that there wouldn't be a huge chasm in the middle of the road, and ended up bonnet to bonnet with a road resurfacing machine, behind which was a road roller, a white van and half a dozen blokes all sitting around, er, I mean, working hard for the council. Not one to let such things get the way of our route, I had a chat with them, fluttered my eyes and smiled sweetly, and they kindly moved the machines out of the way and allowed us past. They forgot to mention the still ever so slightly damp tar around the corner, in which we left some artistic tyre tracks. And they also forgot to mention that Mrs BC would have to move two huge "ROAD CLOSED" signs at the other end! They looked a tad heavy.

The weather stayed dry, although the strong winds a blowing made it somewhat irksome to have the windows open, yet it was such a hot and sunny day we needed to. Mrs BC noted down mileage and times at relevant points, and Bill did the drawing again, rather more of it this time, for the route is approx 90 miles and when we got to the lunch stop, they were so fatigued by their sterling efforts that we had to go and have freshly cooked pancakes with butter and jam. Oh, such hardship. With time flying by we weren't sure if we were going to be able to run the second half of the course, but we had to get back to Alford anyway, so we went for it. Met a grizzly farmer who told us some interesting local history about the 40 families who used to live up on the hill behind his farm, and how they all moved out, one by one, as times were tough and a living was very hard to scratch from the sparse mountainside. His 5000 acre farm incorporates a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and I think he said it's because there are outcrops of Serpentine rock, amongst other things. I have to confess, I'm not sure why a lump of rock is so special, but maybe someone can enlighten me. Zoomed back to Alford, and by this time we were starving, so we were, so it was off to the fish and chip shop, where we had to queue for about half an hour, and the prices, oh I tell you, the prices were ridiculous! £1.80 for a portion of chips, he must be having a laugh. So that's the route all planned, and it's all down to Captain Bill now to draw it all out and make it make sense. I'm just waiting for a few bits of info from various places before I can put the entry forms out for the Haggis, but when they're out, you'll be the first to know.

Right, fence demolishing day today. And Duff House show tomorrow. Then I've got to fit in doing my nails some time.

Oh, what do you think of the music? I can't seem to get the volume down unless I turn it down physically on the PC. Don't fret, it's just a laugh, and I won't leave it on here for too long....unless you like it of course.... and if you really really really don't like it, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click 'pause'...

Don't forget to leave a comment on the post below and tell us what 3 bikes you would have if you could have any 3 in the world....

A picture posted just for Kawa, has anyone else seen one of these before? Apart from people who went to the Glamis Extravaganza!



Those guys and girls in the S&T section of the VMCC have now got their website up and running, you can pop in for a lookie at http://www.stirlingcastlevmcc.co.uk/ but you're advised to wait a week or so as webmaster Gordon is off on his hols, and won't be adding any photos until his return.

I've got the same old problems again, getting down to the VMCC Committee meeting at HQ in Burton upon Trent. No flights from Aberdeen that get me there early enough, unless I go for the crack of dawn one again, but I don't fancy getting up at 4am too many times. Can't go from Edinburgh as it's a 3 hour train journey to get there, and A) the flight is at something like 8am, so would have to be there for 7am, and there ain't no trains that leave Aberdeen early enough and B) I then can't return home on the same day as there are no trains north after 9pm. So it might be a train all the way, which only takes a little over 7 hours and home the next day. Could drive down but that would take even longer and besides, I can't sit and read while I'm driving. Well I could...but....

Lunch time over, back to work.