Cycling and Serpents in Glen Garry!

Well it's been a busy week for us at Invergarry Lodge, the sun still hasn't stopped shining and we've been doing our best to make the most of it.

My birthday is soon approaching, and I must have been a very good girl all year as Matt decided he would buy me a mountain bike. This was probably influenced by my raving about how much fun I had on Emma's hen do, where I was introduced to mountain biking and absolutely loved it! Since going all the way to Fort William is a fairly big event these days, there wasn't much point in him trying to surprise me, so we went in together to try some out. We weren't sure what we'd find, but as luck would have it we stumbled on a great little bike at the last minute - the perfect size, a good price, and most importantly - it looked pretty and had butterflies on!

Luckily we were able to take the bike home that day. I also decided to go for some new clip-in pedals and shoes, which Matt assured me would make life a little easier once I got used to them. It seemed a little silly to keep the bike in the shed until my birthday, and as soon as we got a quiet afternoon we nipped out for a quick test ride round the forest at the end of our road. The bike was brilliant, as conveyed by the big smile on my face! But after a couple of toppling incidents, I'm still not entirely convinced by the pedals - surely clipping your feet to the pedals is just a recipe for disaster?!! Apparently I will get used to them soon enough, I just hope I don't get too many more bruises in the process...

And when I've not been out enjoying my lovely new bike, I've been sweating it out in the garden digging holes for some new fruit bushes, so hopefully this time next year we'll be adding raspberries, redcurrants, gooseberries and blackberries to our harvest. I got a slight surprise when I reached down to pull up a clump of grass, and found this little chap slithering away! He was a bit camera-shy but we managed to get this photo before releasing him into the field next door.


Jen x