From freezing to almost balmy!

A week ago, everything's frozen solid under a covering of snow and ice spikers were the order of the day.

A week later almost exactly to the minute and only slightly further up the valley, the ice and snow have totally disappeared and in its place a stream of water.

What a difference a week makes, from sub zero and ice and snow adding to the fun we're back again to temperatures where I had to take my jacket off this morning to avoid "boil in the bag". Midweek was sheer hell as I slipped and slid on patches of ice and tried to cycle through about 4 or 5 inches of what seemed like soft icing sugar. I arrived back home on Wednesday night quite depressed at how much "hike a biking" I'd had to do to get round our usual winter loop> This morning was totally different, the ice was gone as was the snow and even though the tracks were soft in places and a bit muddy at least I was able to remain upright (well most of the time). 

A quick mention to Dougie and Dylan who did the Strathpuffer 24 hour race at the weekend and did a very creditable 20 laps (must be all that Pentland training) !