Tag: cycling
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In the paper, cat news, a kilt in a cargo bike, Foodstory, and zombies
I’m in The Scottish Daily Record today in an article about the state of cycling in Scotland. This is in response to the tragic death of a young woman in Edinburgh this week. It’s a good article that got a full double page spread and my photo spans from top to bottom of the paper!…
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Not a kitten any more, cycling lessons, and in the paper
Victoria sleeps in our bed most nights now and I mean literally in our bed. She buries herself under the covers head and all. I don’t know how she can stand it. It must get terribly hot. I think she probably alternates and spends some of the time on the bed and some of the…
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I can’t even begin to desribe my frustration and disappointment with Aberdeen city council … again
Last month for the first time ever I was impressed with the Aberdeen city council for installing European-style bike lanes at the beach. This was a first for Aberdeen which is an oil city with a transport strategy straight out of the 1970s. The bike lanes were built with funding from the Sustrans Spaces for…
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Engine idling and nobody in London needs an SUV
As regular readers of my blog will know, one of my pet peeves is when people sit in their cars with the engine running. This happens a lot outside primary school gates where children gather and inhale the fumes. Pollution from motor vehicles is especially harmful to children because they are smaller and absorb more…
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Storm Alex, cycling, and cat-shaming
This weekend we’re getting the tail end of storm Alex which has brought a deluge to France and Italy and caused severe flooding. Yesterday we had heavy rain non-stop all day here. Elizabeth had highland dance in the afternoon and so I cycled her there in my cargo bike, Hoss. One of the nice things…
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Pavement cycling
David Hembrow is an Englishman who lives in the Netherlands and writes a blog called A view from the cyclepath. He also has a You Tube channel about cycling infrastructure. He’s very good at making observations about people, transport, and infrastructure and drawing conclusions from what he sees. This video is a very good one…
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Strawberries galore, in the paper, and changes afoot
It’s Friday already. I don’t know where the week has gone. We’re getting so many strawberries just from our backyard right now. They almost spread like weeds here. This is what I picked when I went out this morning. Aberdeen is going through some very exciting changes. On an almost weekly basis now the council…
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Eating weeds
When everyone was panic-buying in March I saw some stinging nettle springing up in our backyard and decided to leave it there rather than weed it out. Stinging nettle is a highly nutritious food. It has anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties as well as being high in calcium and iron. How do you eat it…
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Ramblings on cycling, the pandemic, and climate change
I had such a busy week this week that I haven’t had the chance to write since last weekend. It has been mostly work-related busy but also some cycling advocacy busy-ness too. We at the Aberdeen Cycle Forum published a list of ten suggestions for the city council to implement for social distancing. So far…
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A walk in the cemetery and frustration with the council
We’re allowed to go out for exercise more than once per day now provided we maintain social distancing. We often don’t go out at all because we do Joe Wicks’ PE class daily and we also have the trampoline but it’s nice to explore a bit on the weekend. The weather was very strange today.…
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The Dirty Vegan and a momentous announcement from the government today
I found a new vegan cookbook today. When I first went vegan they were hard to find but they started breeding a few years ago and now you can find them everywhere. This particular one appealed to me because the author does not exactly fill the weedy hippie vegan stereotype. Indeed, there’s nothing sexier than…
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Tollohill Wood by bike
The one thing I find myself missing during this time of lockdown is long country walks up hills, past lochs, and through castles. I miss our weekends away and Sunday adventures. Last week on one of his bike rides, Ben discovered Tollohill Wood, a woodland only 2 miles from home. I never knew this place…
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Rachel’s allotment and hot cross buns
I’ve got the day off work today so I cycled to the allotment to put up my new sign. I met a couple of other people there and one fellow told me he received a phone call from the city council because his plot was also missing a number. Of all the things going on…
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I’m in the newspaper, allotment signs, and more jumping
I received another email from the council this week about my allotment. You may remember that they emailed me (and presumably everyone with an allotment in Aberdeen) a couple of weeks ago to say plotters would not be able to go to their allotments while the pandemic restrictions are in place. However, this was quickly…
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Cycling to the rescue
It’s the last day of school today for goodness knows how long but it’s not all bad. There are some benefits to this virus. For instance, there’s noticeably less traffic on the roads, especially around the school gate. I think many parents have already withdrawn their kids from school. The air smelt cleaner and fresher…
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Sometimes we need pancakes for dinner
I’m really snowed under with work and cycling-related activities right now that I couldn’t be bothered cooking dinner tonight and since I’m the parent I get to decide what we eat so we had pancakes. The kids were shocked and delighted all at once when they found out. I’ve found a great recipe for vegan…
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Motorist hits cat and doesn’t stop
As we were walking to school this morning we saw a motorist run over a cat. The motorist didn’t stop and the cat was screaming in agony in the middle of the road. We gently picked her up and went door-knocking to find the owner. She was badly injured but still alive. A cyclist also…
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Those who say it can’t be done should not interrupt those who are doing it
I saw this great Tweet from Pedal Me a few days ago: Those who say it cannotbe done should not interrupt those who are doing it. 300kg of whisky being delivered 4.5 miles for @DistillinginE3 The future is coming. Get on board.https://t.co/ulp84Qi8mR pic.twitter.com/aQxnQuYJXi — Pedal Me (@pedalmeapp) October 26, 2019 I’m not sure where this…
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On hating vegans and cyclists
There was a good article in the Guardian yesterday titled, Why do people hate vegans? It references a 2015 study that found vegans suffer from the same level of discrimination as ethnic and religious minorities. In 2015, a study conducted by Cara C MacInnis and Gordon Hodson for the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations observed that vegetarians…
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In the paper and studying for the life in the UK test
This past week has been a very busy media week for me. As part of my volunteer role with the Aberdeen Cycle Forum I respond to all queries from the media and they seem to come in waves. For months it’s quiet and then suddenly everyone wants to write about cycling and they call the…
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