Richard Sweet Johnston's weekend

Hi, my name's Richard Sweet Johnston, and I like to take some time to talk to you about my circle of love, and some of my friends that are in it. I have the circle of love in my mind, all the time, and it is a very positive force. Why, even this weekend I spent a lovely time with some of my lovely friends, so that we could celebrate the circle of love and my dear brother Kenny Richard Sweet Johnson because he is getting married in two weeks time.

First we went to a lovely place, in the love circle of Kinross (my brother Richard Sweet Johnston lives near there), where there is wooden shed called Big Cock.

My good friend Dave Richard Sweet Johnston was so surprised by the size of Donnie Richard Sweet Johnston's side burns,

 and the size of Phil Richard Sweet Johnston's mouth,

that he had to re-discover the circle of love by having a drink!

But that wasn't before Kenny Richard Sweet Johnston had opened the drink with his mouth. Lovely.

But Boab Richard Sweet Johnston, and Donnie Richard Sweet Johnston didn't like that

and Russell Richard Sweet Johnston was so upset that he had to be a little ill

But my good friend Kenny Richard Sweet Johnston was able to tell Russell Richard Sweet Johnston about the circle of love and everything was good again.

Well, almost!

But thanks to the circle of love, Kenny Richard Sweet Johnston was so happy he could fly:

All too soon it was time for Kenny Richard Sweet Johnston to say goodbye

Don't we all look happy.

I hope you enjoyed my little story about my good friends Richard Sweet Johnston, Richard Sweet Johnston, Richard Sweet Johnston, and Kenny Richard Sweet Johnston. I love the circle of love, and I loved explaining it to y'all. I hope to see you soon, or if not me then perhaps my brother Richard Sweet Johnston, or my cousin Richard Sweet Johnston.

Bye

Bye

xx

Adventures in nonsense: The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

Adventures in nonsense: The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

Finally, August-type weather

This weekend finally found us some nice weather and we actually got some stuff done in the garden. Managed to mow the lawn, get rid of all the weeds in the strip between front lawn and driveway, Abi pruned the blackcurrant bush (the very small crop have already started the conversion into a small amount of cassis), and we even managed to eat the first five haricot vertes off our bean plants! It doesn't sound like that much, but I'm sure we had a productive weekend. Oh and Abi got very sunburnt on her back and her right thigh!

Edinburgh July 2010

We spent last weekend in Edinburgh with my Mum and Dad, seeing museums, general sights, eating, drinking, and generally chilling out. Though we did walk quite a bit, not good for Abi as her blisters had still not completely recovered from last weeks exertions up Ben Lawers.

The National Museum of Scotland is huge, and has a lot in it. Abi and I had seen the pre-history stuff before, so we went to look at other stuff, including the Lewis Chessmen. We also went to see the Scottish Parliament. (Man this is reading like a primary school "What did you do at the weekend" kinda blog!) The main debating chamber I thought was pretty cool; but as you walk around the building you see a lot of the concrete bits of structure close up, which is a bit odd, and detracts from the better parts of the building.

Otherwise we found a couple of good pubs, one from the Good Beer Guide (naturally), a not so good Indian restaurant on Rose Street, and a good Italian nearer the hotel. Of course, as soon as we got back home, the McMillans arrived, with a crazy son! So we don't feel like we've stopped for quite a while. It'll be nice to not do anything this weekend.

Zemanta

Image via Wikipedia

Just trying to Blog using Zemanta (a blogging tool that should enhance the blogging experience!) I just have to start writing a few sentences and then the app should automatically start generating relevant photos, bits of blogs weblinks etc.

Erm, to fill up some space, Abi and I are off to Edinburgh this weekend with my Mum and Dad, just to chill out. Eat, Drink, see some Museums or something.

Mmmm Zemanta hasn't started doing anythin, oh it has now, what have we got? Mmm this looks like it might be quite cool, not that I blog very often, or about much. Oooh, it's generated a load of labels for the blog post as well!

So if I click a photo, and then click again, it takes it out? Yup. Except now that I've gone away from the computer and come back, I now don't have pictures of Edinburgh as you might expect, but people crying outside a school somewhere, or even more disturbing, and rather saggy pair of boobs belonging to an elderly woman who seems to enjoy blogging naked!!

Of course typing all this now is presumably like a self fulfilling prophecy, whereby the more I type, the more crying and boobs I will see appear! Or not, now have more picis of Edinburgh! Unfortunately, it seems as though I can only insert images at the start of the blog, rather than after I have typed something relevant, and then have the image immediately after. And I can only insert one image in my blog not multiple ones, that sucks. Maybe this Zemanta is a bit pants after all! It may just be useful for inserting links and nothing more.

Loch Tay 2010

Thursday 22nd July saw us going off to Loch Tay for our (becoming) annual visit to the cottage hired by Abi's Uncle and cousins.

On the Friday, Abi and I decided to bag Ben Lawers. Last year we had only climbed Beinn Ghlas, not really aware of how close Ben Lawers was, so this year we decided we would do the bigger hill. At over 4000 ft, Ben Lawers is the 10th highest Munro, and this time,the weather was lovely, so much so that I got quite sunburned on my head.

The route we followed was initially the same as last year, starting from the Ben Lawers (now obsolete) visitors centre (marker in the bottom left of map below), and following the path out through the nature trail. Then instead of heading straight up Beinn Ghlas, we took the path that slopes gently up the west side of the mountain, and then actually goes around the back of the summit before coming out at the col between Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas.

We then headed to the top of Ben Lawers (top right marker, 2 hours 40 min), before heading back down to the col and going up Beinn Ghlas (centre marker), and then returning off the end of Beinn Ghlas to the nature trail and car park.

View Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas in a larger map

Like I said, it was a lovely day, and a good walk. This was the first time we had both walked using Trekking Poles; for Abi it was a case of seeing if it would ease pressure on her hip which has bothered her in the past. For me, I wanted to know if it would prevent my left knee from hurting on the descent; a knee that has hurt on descents ever since I hurt it when falling over in the snow in the Cairngorms years ago. Well I think they helped Abi's hips, but my knee still felt sore, and still seized up when I sat still in the evening.

It was a straightforward climb, but it is quite steep and rocky after the col up to the summit of Ben Lawers, but after that the descent and then climb to the top of Beinn Ghlas was an absolute doddle. The descent down the front of Beinn Ghlas is quite steep in places, but a lot of it has been eroded in the past and so now there are lots of rough stone steps down the path, which makes the walk quite boring and more jarring on the legs.

It was a super days walking though, as can be seen, we actually had blue sky and sunshine at the top, quite a difference from last year (see: http://rbetney.blogspot.com/2009/07/loch-tay.html). It's a shame our thighs were wrecked for the next three days, and Abi's blisters on her heels were awful.

Of course we also had a great time with the Mavor family ,associated spouses and offspring. Lots of good food, and cake was eaten, and quite a competitive game of Battle of the Sexes was played! It slips my mind who won! Oh OK it was the girls; but I'm quite proud of the fact I know nothing about Eastenders, Coronation Street, or Emmerdale, and the fact that the only answer I knew that none of the other guys knew, was that Noo Noo was the the vacuum cleaner in Teletubbies!

The Great Inverurie Bike Ride 2010

Sunday 18th July 2010

Hot on the heels of our Pirates of the Caribbean day, we cycled 25 miles around Garioch on the Great Inverurie Bike Ride!

The route was 25 miles, leaving Inverurie Kellands park, heading round Chapel of Garioch, past Bennachie towards Monymusk, before returning to Inverurie (see map below, long dark blue line, in an anticlockwise direction).

There were some fairly hard-going hill in the first part of the route, I don't think I had to resort to the Granny ring at any point, but Abi had to stop a few times on them. However, Abi was carrying the pannier on her bike with all our stuff in, whereas I had nothing. It was good that there was a juice and biscuits point at the top of the first really nasty hill!

Just before Monymusk, after the third and last nasty hill, we were rewarded with a downhill, but into a vicious headwind. Turning left, the wind dropped and we were really able to find a good rhythm and fly into Monymusk, where there was more juice, strawberrys & cream and cake to be had!

We had thought that Monymusk was the half-way point, but it didn't seem very long until we were told that Inverurie was only 2 more miles away! After Monymusk it had been possible to keep a good cadence going and chew up the miles quickly. So our official finish times were 2h 35min 58s for Abi, and 2h 36min 3s for me, and it was just left to pick up or complimentary T-shirts!

See, we don't look that knackered!