… with news of a strange interlude of not just sunshine, but actual warm weather this spring. Not only that but it arrived just as I had an afternoon to kill in Bigtown between coaxing Stephen into riding a bike (still working on it …) and the Bigtown Cycle Campaign meeting.
First stop was the high street for a coffee in the sunshine (outdoors! Without my coat on!) and the traditional Bigtown way of passing the time: waiting to bump into someone you know.
Half a pleasant hour of cycling chit chat later, I headed off on the bike to check out a possible route for our family rides in the summer. It was not a route I knew well, and there has been an issue with a bridge washing out. The Coonsil assured me they were on the case and it seems they are dealing with it in time-honoured fashion, by putting up a couple of barriers and hoping for the best.
As far as I’m concerned, the main issue with the route isn’t the opening up of a small temporary ravine, it’s the fact that it ends like this.

Yes, that’s a 30 mph sign – on a long straight wide road with fields on one side. Guess how many cars actually do 30 on it …
(I always find it strange that when there’s a small chance of a cyclist coming off on an uneven section of path, we need to put up all manner of barriers and warning signs. But when it has become inconvenient to accommodate them in safety any longer we happily wave the same cyclists off into oncoming traffic on an A road a few hundred yards further along the route. Go figure.)
Recce done, and having duly got lost in one of Bigtown’s more confusing suburbs, I returned to the park and enjoyed the novel pleasure of hanging out reading the paper and not doing all that much, in weather that was warm enough to not do so in comfort. If I have learned anything at all since moving to Scotland, it is to savour these moments when they occur.
I would like to think we still have some warm weather to come, but in the event that yesterday was our summer (and it has reverted to grim grey miserableness since) I’m glad to have made the most of it.