Open/Close

I went on an art hunt yesterday! Open/Close Dundee is a new street art project with artists decorating doors in some pretty odd locations around town. It definitely felt odd wandering around the alleys and closes of Dundee city centre, camera in hand, but it was worth it! I didn't find all of them but these are the ones I did locate:

The last one's not part of the project, Hawkhill Brewery already had a mural on their wall. Quite an array of different styles there! As an aside, I think Sugarhouse Wynd might be my favourite Dundee street name.....

I got well and truly drenched on the bike today. The forecast was for heavy showers to be fair, but I thought I'd chance it anyway. I made it along to Monifieth and back to Broughty Ferry before the heavens opened.  The sky was looking pretty ominous by the time I passed the Van Diner

And by the time I got to Broughty Ferry castle I could see exactly what I was about to ride through

Weird seeing the edge of the rain! Luckily I had my rain jacket, but it took approximately 10 seconds for my feet to be soaked through.  It had actually gone off by the time I got to grassy beach but that wouldn't be much consolation to all the people I passed on the way, dressed for summer! Funnily enough, facebook reminded me that it's a year to the day since we had pretty much the same experience cycling up the Law...

And of course it's turned into a lovely sunny evening!

Monday Monday

This was yesterday's plan..

..except that 8 of us arrived at the Bridge Access Car Park with dark clouds looming and a forecast for heavy rain. I think we were all pretty much in agreement when Elena and Helen suggested doing a shorter road road route! I would say it was the right decision as the rain was pretty heavy by the time we got to Balmerino. We did discuss continuing up the hill but decided the misery of cycling up a steep hill in the rain definitely outweighed any sense of accomplishment we might have felt at the top. It's not like you'd even really be able to enjoy the descent either in the wet. One of the ladies suggested a slight detour through Balmerino so it wasn't entirely a 'there and back' ride - I was sold by the description of the route as a 'Postman Pat route'. As we cycled up and down the narrow lane, past lovely old cottages and pretty gardens I knew exactly what she meant!
As the route no longer included Tayport we ended up stopping for brunch at kitschnbake.co.uk in Newport which is fast becoming a favourite! Thinking it sounded relatively healthy, I ordered the cheesy beans on toast, and if pretty much a whole tin of beans counts as healthy then it passed that test....

I actually couldn't finish the mountain of beans, cheese and toast in the end, which is really saying something!
Typically, the rain had actually gone off by the time we left to head back to the bridge car park! Still, it meant I could take some pictures of the Magellan cruise ship that was docked for a couple of days before it's trip to Iceland.

As you can see, it's some size. One day we'll probably book ourselves a cruise, either to Iceland or the Norwegian Fjords. You can usually get a 2 for 1 offer if you book far enough in advance, and although lots of things about cruising don't appeal (onboard entertainment, dodgy buffets...) it's probably the best way to see the Fjords.

As it was a shorter ride than planned I didn't need much persuading to go for a walk to Jessie's Kitchen in the afternoon, and it had actually turned into a pleasant day by then.  My strawberry meringue was very pretty but a bit of a challenge to eat!

Beer wise this week, we headed down to Duke's Corner on Friday for their fruit beer weekend.  I had a Lingonberry tart saison by Alpha State, which was absolutely as advertised - a dry, tart saison you could almost mistake for a cider. Perhaps unsurprising, being from Kent. Most of the other beers they were on sounded suspiciously like IPAs, so I opted for a Cranachan Killer - which according to Untappd I last checked in almost exactly a year ago in Brewdog, so I was definitely due another glass! It's a very fruity raspberry beer, and a beautiful colour, though hard to tell in a dark pub...

We had one for the road in Brewdog where they were doing a showcase of beers from an Australian brewer Prancing Pony. I went for the intriguing sounding expedition strength stout 'Magic Carpet Midnight Ride'. It wasn't bad, but I'd say it didn't quite live up to the name. Maybe I've been spoiled by Tempest's Mexicake and some of the Brewdog 'AB' series but it just didn't have enough disticntive flavours for a beer of that strength (9%) for me - maybe it just didn't travel well.
Saturday night was a beer and a film kind of night, so we watched the brilliant Sing Street and I finally had the Drygate breakfast stout that's been in the fridge for a few weeks now

Tasty, if a bit sweet. I'm a sucker for quirky can art, and Drygate do this pretty well.
As Dave's off Coast to Coasting next weekend I may well have a weekend off the beers, though hopefully not off the bike!

Lazing on a sunny afternoon

Well, it's going to be a short one this week - not a single beer has been drunk! Good job we had a club ride today otherwise I'd have absolutely nothing to report...
Ian, who plans most of our rides, was away for the weekend so Paul asked me for a route.  Naturally I opted for the flat, road ride with a fab cafe in the middle.  We passed loads of other riders whilst we were out so I'm obviously not the only one who likes this route 😉
I set off from home around 10, and met Patrick along the way -always nice to have unplanned company when you're battling a headwind! We made it to the meeting point, the Riverside Inn, pretty much dead on 10.30 and set off West towards Errol with Douglas, Dina, Paul and Dave. Blair and Dave M were setting off from Monifieth and said they'd meet us on the road - which they did, and promptly flew right past us, obviously in a hurry to get their coffee....


Apart from the wind it was a pretty trouble free ride, with one stop to pump up a flat-ish tyre, and only one drink/fuel stop required on the way to the cafe.

Some club members take the whole 'club' thing more seriously than others - there's no way I was going to spend £40 on another jersey when I've already got more than I could ever need, but I suppose it does look quite smart.

I feel like I'd look 'all the gear, no idea' in club kit to be honest!
We got to the cafe just before noon, so I could have ordered from the breakfast menu, but the call of the haggis toastie was too strong to resist. I did manage to resist the cakes though, which was good as it meant I could have a home made scone with a cuppa once I got home 😆
Happy to report, I seem to have finally cracked scone making. I even made some spur of the moment, cheese and prosciutto scones at the community cafe, with no recipe, or scales, and they actually turned out okay if I do say so myself! Savoury scones are definitely underrated - warm from the oven, slathered in butter...I'm drooling just thinking about them 😋
I may have to stay away from twitter for the rest of today - the reveal of a female Dr Who is going to cause an internet meltdown isn't it? Though, actually from what I've seen the number of people who can't cope with this bit of casting are massively outnumbered by the people who are really excited by the change of direction.  Much though I like Dr Who, I do find it strange that grown men (and it is mostly men) get so invested in what is frankly a kid's show. It is a weird world we live in!

If you go down to the woods today....

....make sure you're on a mountain bike! I did start the bike club ride today, but they've been resurfacing the path through Tentsmuir, and the gravel hasn't settled as it was supposed to meaning I just couldn't manage it at all on my bike.  A more proficient rider would have been fine but I just had no control over the bike at all and didn't fancy falling off and ending up picking gravel out of my legs so I turned round and cycled home instead. On the plus side, it did mean I got home before the rain started 😀
We had an interesting evening out on Thursday.  There's been a bit of cross pollination going on between St Andrews and Broughty Ferry lately.  Broughty Ferry restaurant The Tayberry has just opened a second branch over in St Andrews, and Forgan's of St Andrews opened in Broughty Ferry last year. This week saw them expanding by opening Mitchell's Deli next door to the restaurant. A few weeks ago a couple of friends tagged me in a post on facebook inviting people to knit a tea cosy for Mitchell's in exchange for an invitation to their preview evening, and it was too good an offer to resist! Last Saturday I cycled along to the Ferry with my hand knitted tea cosy in my bag and dropped it off at Forgan's, and got the call on Tuesday to book in for tea on Thursday.
This is the tea cosy - I should probably have put it on a teapot for the photo as it does look a bit like a slightly odd hat!

And this is Mitchell's Deli:

We were given a sharing platter and bottle of wine on the house, and then ordered tea and cake to follow.

The sharing platter was a generous selection of cold meats, two different cheeses, olives, pickles and some tasty bread. We both ended up going with the carrot cake, which was a good shout - lovely and moist. I had a pot of Earl Grey Blue Flower tea - all their teas are from Suki, who are a Belfast based tea company with a lovely range of different teas.
Forgan's is always pretty busy, and I imagine Mitchell's will be too!
It was pouring with rain when we left the house, but by the time we'd finished our meal it had turned out to be a lovely summer evening.  We decided to walk home along the front, and got some pretty decent photos (I think!) along the way!

Last night we met a friend for a few drinks in a pub thast wasn't Brewdog! Dukes Corner had some beers on from North Brewing in Leeds, including their amazing coffee and coconut porter, Full Fathom 5. I also tried the Bulkhead Brown Ale, which was less successful - not unpleasant, but a bit watery after the creamy porter. Quite sweet too, and with a touch of spice, so basically like fruitcake! We bumped into some other friends we hadn't seen for a while so stayed a little longer than intended before heading over to Draffens to introduce Ally to the joys of the Speakeasy! I really should learn not to stay our late in the pub the night before a bike ride, but the cocktails really are amazing, if a touch pricey.  They're also pretty potent, which could make the trip upstairs to the toilets a bit hazardous if you weren't careful!

I cycled to work on Friday and decided to go the long way home, up past the Blackwatch monument, just to get a bit of climbing in.  When I uploaded my ride to Strava I discovered I haven't taken that route since 2015 - no wonder it was a struggle! Turns out if I don't have a specific goal to work towards I'm quite lazy with my cycling, so I should probably set myself some targets!

Just Wednesday

I've had a cheeky day off work today, waiting in for a very exciting delivery! Okay, so a sideboard isn't that exciting, but as we ordered it in February, and it's taken us till now to finish decorating the living room, it does feel like we're nearing the end of a longer than expected project, so that's pretty exciting. With hindsight, it might have progressed a bit quicker if I'd actually properly project managed the whole thing - I'm thinking a spreadsheet at the very least. Anyway, it'll be good to go through all the stuff that's currently in other rooms in the flat and decide what's allowed back in the living room and what's going to the tip.  I'm trying to apply William Morris's golden rule 'Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” even if it's only one room.  Quite difficult when, like most people, we seem to have aquired a ridiculous amount of 'stuff' over the years but I think it's a good aspiration at least!

Before - sort of!

After

Should have done a proper 'before' picture really 😉
As mentioned last week, we did a bonus bike club ride on Sunday. Nine of us met at Waterstone Crook leisure centre in Newport on a windy but sunny morning. Once again Ian had planned a really good route - challenging for me and a couple of other riders I think, but manageable. We headed off through Newport and Wormit crossing the A92 at the Five Roads roundabout and joining the A914 at St Michael's as we've done previously.  I think we're getting a bit better at staying in a tight group - we're hardly a proper peleton but the more compact you can get the better when you're out on the road, so that you're not annoying drivers too much! We continued on through Guardbridge and stopped just after the Guardbridge Hotel for a quick fuel stop.

From there we joined the cycle path to to St Andrews.  This is Dave's route to work so there was a bit of a risk that we'd lose him as he disappeared off into the distance on autopilot! Next stop was St Andrews for another breather/drink/snack before starting the climb up to Strathkinness.  This was probably the toughest part of the ride to be honest.  It's a shallow climb - you wouldn't necessarily even realise you were climbing until you look at the route profile on strava. That's when I realised why I was so knackered by the time we stopped at The Strathkinness Tavern, sadly before opening time as I could have done with using their facilities really! The head wind didn't help either.  From there it was a fast descent (some faster than others - I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to speed 😊) back down to Guardbridge then on through Leuchars, past the edge of Tentsmuir forest, turning off before Tayport. There's a new farm cafe on this stretch but Ian hadn't realised it was open so hadn't planned in a cafe stop. I'm sure we'll fit it in on another ride though! The next section was the hilliest - when Ian says use your lowest gear you know it's going to be a bit of a killer! Luckily I had Ian with me for the climb so he could tell me when we were nearly at the top, otherwise I might have given up and walked - which is rarely the best course of action.   The scariest part of the ride was crossing the dual carriageway heading towards the Tay Road Bridge. Luckily it wasn't too busy, being Sunday lunchtime, but I don't think I'd attempt it on my own. From there it was a short ride back to the start where I dropped my bike and headed straight for the leisure centre loos - I reckon that's the longest ride I've done without a 'comfort break' 😅
 There's a lovely cafe in Newport called kitschnbake so we drove round there for lunch and were lucky enough to get a table.

I thoroughly enjoyed my 'posh' fishfinger butty, and just had room for a lemon meringue sundae, made with delicious ice cream from Luvians!

On reflection, going out for beers on Saturday night probably didn't help with Sunday's ride! However Brewdog had some tiny rebel beers on tap, and I couldn't pass up the chance to get my hands on the Stay Puft marshmallow porter.  Yup - marshmallow porter! I love a sweet stout anyway, but this was next level insane.  It smells like the taste of old fashioned candy necklaces if you can imagine that, then has a slightly burnt sugary sweetness, like a toasted marshmallow.  Definitely a 'wait, what wizardry is this?!?' kind of beer. Not to everyone's taste but I loved it!
I followed that with a banana-y wheat beer from Amsterdam brewery brouwerijhe t'IJ (easy for you to say....) which was nice a summery.  Next up was a beer that's been on the wishlist for a while, Common Grounds by Magic Rock from Huddersfield. It's a coffee porter made with 7 different malts and 7 different coffees (from Dark Woods coffee) and pretty much tastes like an iced coffee. I'd put it up there with Northern Star from their fellow Yorkshire brewers over in Leeds, Northern Monk, which is high praise indeed!

Brewdog have recently stopped selling Pie Minister pies (boo...), replacing them with a new pizza menu (yay). I went for courgette, pine nut and rosemary - delicious!

Now common sense would have had me heading home at this point, but it was the Blues Weekend in Dundee and one of my work colleagues was playing a set in a pub with his covers band George and the Jungle, so we popped in there for a couple of drinks, and ended up having a bit of a late one.  The Star and Garter is a proper old man's pub, with beer list to match, but they did have bottles of 71 brewing's German style pilsner, so despite not really being a lager drinker I went with supporting the local brewery and opted for that.

 From there it was on to the chippy for chips and cheese then a taxi home for a cuppa and bed.
The plan for next Sunday is a more off road ride, weather permitting, so no pub for me on Saturday night!