Edinburgh - Monday mornings

Argentina, February 2011

We unzip the tents at 5.30am. It´s still dark and there´s a sliver of silver moon. All is still and quiet around our wild camp in the desert beside a salt lake. By the time we are having breakfast, huddled in fleeces against the dawn chill, there is a band of golden light on the horizon. And as we push the bikes back to the road, the sun´s peachy morning rays are already touching the rocky peaks of the Andes to the west. We slip into our toe clips, push off along the road and share a smile - this certainly beats heading into work on a Monday morning!

Edinburgh, March 2014

I pedal west along the canal as the sun rises above the city. I love it up here on the canal. I can see across the whole of the morning. I drop down to the river and cycle beside its rushing waters as beams of sunshine penetrate the trees. A dipper darts between rocks. A heron hangs around in the shallows. I weave a path through the industrial zone to the office. Ugly, boxy warehouses crowd in but there’s a backdrop of wild hills and a skein of winter geese in a salmon sky. It certainly beats heading into work in a traffic jam on a Monday morning!

Today was my last Monday morning at the office. By the end of the week I’ll have finished my job, packed away my belongings and loaded up the bike to set off on my next cycling adventure. Over the coming months, I’ll be following the winter geese north as I cycle to the land of the midnight sun. 

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