Sunday night and the wind and rain are howling against the windows of the flat. Even with the heating on inside it feels cold just listening to it. Training is pretty much at peak level now – I’ll probably back off a bit as we get to Christmas. Ran 16k yesterday in the p*ssing rain. Not nice but felt worth doing.

Drove up to Perthshire last night to attend a private gig in a castle owned by one of Alison’s fiddle playing mates. A really good night with plenty music. We stayed in Alyth and took the road bikes in the back of the landrover so we could go for a decent pedal on country roads this morning. Rather stupidly we didn’t take a map. What started out as a gentle pedal in late winter sun ended up being nearly 3 hours of purgatory when we got lost and the weather turned windy and cold. Ended up on a climb up to 1300ft then repeated the exercise a couple of times to get over the hills back to Alyth. Freezing cold – it took me about 30 minutes in the landrover to heat up with the heater on full blast.

I’m kind of guessing that I might end up complaining about the heat in Argentina in January – but right now some sunshine and warmth would be quite welcome.

Some photos of the bike at my parents before it went to Patsy’s.