I had arranged to meet up with my friend 'A' in town and decided to cycle in. Having recently fixed the brakes on Bicycle, I had the pleasure of no longer needing to use my feet to stop and I could also pick up a bit of speed. I took my camera with me and had these two themes in mind:
- bicycles and cycling
- signs and signposts
I present this selection of photos as they were taken, in chronological order. There is some accompanying commentary.
This is the first time I am using the #cyclefeed tag. The #travelfeed tag is already one of my main go-tos and my experience using it has been excellent. These two tags flow from a similar space of good vibes - here is cyclefeed's introduction.
All images are sized to a width of 1680 pixels, so if you'd like to zoom in, you can use the right-click (CTR-click) options to 'view image'.
Thanks for stopping by.
🚣
I set off under an alternating sky of sun and cloud, no rain on the horizon. I go past some signs. The first one is friendly
...then two more hugging a post. One passively aggressive, the other actively so
...before cocking my head at this one!
I followed the sign down the hill and through the park where the Braid Burn flows, until it disappeared under a stone bridge
...and I hit the road again, Edinbugger castle perched on the hill in the background and a church steeple sticking out of Number 23's doubled-up decker
I don't need to ride with the traffic for long, and soon turn off onto another of Edinburgh's many green spaces
I descend gently to the Meadows where I meet up with A. We sit on the grass, catching up and enjoying each other's company, fulfillment of sign #1's prophecy 🌞
After a while, A goes back to work and I head into a town that is getting ready for the month-long Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
I park Bicycle near the University, good girl that she is....
...and walk through one of my favourite graveyards
....and out, past a gent mirrored in the wall
...and someone spying on the cyclist
...before bursting into the Grassmarket, bowels of Edinburgh, cleaned up a couple of centuries ago and now buzzing with humanity. Cyclists are exceptional sez the sign on the right :)
And cycles??? Whatever guys, whaaaaa tever!
Stonewalled with a rusty old caution....
...and dumped!
Oh the facade, the promise of bright skies - yet entrance is blocked and parking forbidden!
Where else to go pushing the load but into the unknown eh?
Aha! Now you're talking, although pleeeeze consider adding some THC to mine. Patience friends, the time will come when the leaf will roam free again. And yeah, vegan too btw 😉
...regardless of official ridicule and what they may say!
Right, heading back now, with a stop in a secluded, walled-in, little-known, concealed and overgrown graveyard. I sit and have a smoke
Bicycle's chilled and waits patiently with the Peaceful Dead
I decide to go along the Union Canal, which starts at this very point, and carries on out West to Glasgow, 50 odd miles away. The cycle/pedestrian path runs the entire distance.
...no swimming apparently!
Some local stats and figures
Barge! You here? Now fancy that and who would've thought it?
Cycling is much quicker than barging. I move on to the acqeduct, where the canal goes over the Water of Leith, and a cyclist is bracketed between two blurred stalks of grass that bomb the photo
What, yet another barge wtf? How??
Right, getya, it's Area 51 and all sortsa weird shit's takin' place....I see!
Well hello there Sir! Smiles of such Utter Delight as yours are seldom seen, thank you and good day to you!
I leave the canal and take the old railway line through the woods, now a cycle path that runs alongside the Water of Leith
Bicycle flirts with some wild red flowers. I don't mind!
I cycle through the tunnel, my whistling echoing back and forth
Down to the water's edge for another smoke, nicely timed with the lighter, 50-50 with the auto-focus :)
Nearly home, farewell shot of a cobweb I saw on a bridge - fascinating reminder of the inter-connectedness of it all.
...and finally, welcomed back home by the Sunlit Princess, who doesn't like being left out of anything 🔆.
Bees
Echinacea
Flash the cat
New York City
Workers in Dubai
Bitch on the Beach
Tahiti & French Polynesia
Fly Life – macros and verse
Diary Travelogues:-
UK to India overland by car (1973)
Eastern Europe - Poland, Russia, the Baltics (1994)
The Nile and the Pharaohs - Egypt (1996)
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon (1996)