Benlicious.

Spook got up at 4am and took the first photo of today's blog. He declared it a great place to live and got back up at 6am to go for a cycle. It can be quite tiring living with that kind of attitude.

I left Meg at work, Spook manning his town centre spot for the motorbike people, Finn and his mates at the Downhill Mountain Bike event at Nevis Range, and I headed off up for a wee half Ben. Saturday is a very busy day on the hill and there were guided groups going up in their masses. This made it extra sociable for me as their guides were Ben Race Stalwarts. These 2 expert dudes in the dark glasses will have done about 40 Ben races between them, most under 2hrs. I got hugs at the half way point before heading down the grassy bank (pictured). They took the long way and were there ahead of me. One of their group looked up and saw me on the bank and said "look at that crazy bloke running down the grass!" Then I was rewarded with whoops of encouragement from the whole group, followed by a critical appraisal of my running style from the men in black. As they are at the front of the race and I am at the back, they have not had the pleasure of seeing how it works back there.............and it's not pretty.

There were more hugs when I met up with the lovely Emmy who was guiding in the company of young Ruairidh. Ruairidh's father was kindly waiting at the bottom with a pint of water and a whisky and I stayed there for hours in the sunshine, getting the 'craic'. Spook was probably right about it being a great place to stay.

Finn has played rugby 4 times this week, and Meg and him were in the park last night, playing rounders with loads of kids. Finn has been at the park most nights. It was a great winter, but you cant beat the long daylight hours for getting a bit of extra vitality.