" and you may ask yourself...." How did I get here?"

The journey from John and Marjorie's up to Aviemore passed without any delays yesterday. We arrived to sunshine and the opportunity to stretch our legs: Joanne set off up through the beautiful Rothiemurchus Estate woodlands for a run and I recce'd the climb up to Cairngorm ski station. TT bike will be fine tomorrow so no need for a bike change. 10 miles or so of climbing which will, doubtless, take me more than yesterday's 35 mins as I'll already have biked 150 miles by the time I do it next time. J and M arrived a bit after us and after a very pleasant meal we went to bed and waited for it to get dark.....and waited.......and waited. Still a glow in the sky at 11 and already light at whatever time the pubs kicked out and the drunken dawn chorus awoke us from our deep sleeping. Tomorrow we'll know exactly what time that was as we'll already have some miles under our belt, having set off from John O'Groats at midnight. A strange way to spend the first 8-10 hrs of your 53 rd ??!!? birthday. For those of you who are worried about whether it's wise for Joanne to return to Aviemore, we're fairly certain that her misbehaviour here as a college student has all been forgiven.....if not forgotten. She did get some strange looks and comments as she ran through the centre of the village yesterday but we're putting that down to the misguided behaviour of a drunken minority. No- one has mentioned Cyril the Squirrel yet, anyway. Oops, the cat's out of the bag. Off for breakfast in a moment but will post before we head to J o'G with some more sensible thoughts on how things may go over the next hrs / days! Richard