Sunday we set off to go to the lecht to ride the lift accessed trails with the Cartlidge family and Richard.  Lainie strangely was quite on the way there, only once ever have I seen her in this state, and that was 2 years ago driving to Orciere Merlette when she had her first go at skiing….. odd.  It was to be Lainie’s first go at proper trail riding, she was strangely not her normal chatty self.

Once arrived and baby camp set up in the restaurant we set off up the hill on the lift that the British history museum might have interest in as well as any corrosion experts out there.

It was the girls and I who went first.  I took Lainie down to give her a few pointers on technique, speed and generally being rad.  She took it all in her stride and took off down the hill!  Think she is a bit of a natural and was whizzing down the hill with out a second thought, with most importantly a huge smile on her face!

We took it in turn after this to look after Sophie and Ellis whilst other rode.  It fell on my turn that Ellis was to be fed.  My lovely daughter decided she wanted to fidget alot whilst I was trying my best to get the spoon into the small opening that is her mouth.  I failed, she had ants in her pants and was a nightmare to keep clean.

I was a little scared of mummies return as I thought a bollocking was going to happen for covering her daughter in orange mush.  but she laughed – phew.

As the runs progress, things turned from nice amicable riding to racing, elbows out, and mashing the cranks to try and overtake each other – even from the start

To anyone who has not been – the tracks are good, they are not to technical but the more you ride them the faster you go and you get a real sense of achievement as you notice yourself progressing throughout the day.

Above is Euan on the exit of the rather large berms with Rich ‘pro elbow’ Bannister hot on his tail.  Lainie called it a day after 3 runs as she felt tired, it was her third day biking on the trot.  Lara advised her that this was wise as the dreaded ‘one last run’ always ends badly.  Lara announced ‘one last run’ and off she went back up the hill with Euan and I.  The wind was rather strong in one direction so going one way you jumped a lot further than expected, and then once a corner was turned you tried jumping and went no where. 

On the ‘ bigger than expected jump ‘ direction, Lara was highly tuned into her ‘gnarlyness’ and somewhat over cooked a jump with me following behind.  All I saw was a flash of wife high in the air, then spread across the floor seconds later.  It was the next bit that scared me most – she swore using words high up the severity chain.  This means it is bad!!!!  After a while we work out it is her hip and hand.  End of biking. (it was ok though as it was the last run anyway!!!)

We walked back up to the lift as we were closer to the top than bottom and got the lift down.  Poor thing was in a lot of pain so home and curry it was.  She was wincing a lot, on close inspection i diagnosed a badly bruised hand and reckoned it would be a week or so and should keep it moving lots.  We all know women are slight martyrs with the pain stuff and milk it a little.  I gave her sympathy.

She slept sporadically last night with the odd yelp when she rolled over.  I set off to work thinking she might have a hard day with a sore hand but nothing a few nurofen shouldn’t solve.

I returned home after work to find this:

The pain had gotten worse during the day and Lainie took her to A&E where an X-ray confirmed the middle Metacarpal was broken in two places.  I felt bad.  I have taken a mental note to always remember that my wife is in fact ‘hard’ and probably a lot harder than myself in pain suffering.  God knows how I forgot how she coped during labour.  If I was thinking I would have looked backed to that and then saw the pain she was in with the arm and then come to the conclusion she would have shattered it all the way up to the shoulder!

So, Poor lara has a cast for the next 6 weeks – any ideas on how i should decorate it?  I will look after don’t worry mums, and Ellis is about to get a lot more daddy feeding time, so get ready for some more baby covered in food pictures!

Unfortunately we didn’t seem to get the good weather the rest of the UK got this weekend, but when you live in Scotland you learn just to get wet!  Saturday we once again employed the wondrous service of Nancy next door to baby sit Ellis for a few hours whilst we went to the Pitfichie Downhill track with Rich (Nancy’s worser half).  This is where we really enjoy and reap the rewards of buying a 4wd car last winter – ‘Scrappy’ (yes she has a name) can drive to the top of the DH track with bikes on the back thus giving us the luxury of not having to push up after each lap for 35 minutes and can get more time going down than pushing up!

The rain showers were coming in and out making the track really slippy, once again Lara’s fear of wet slippy off camber roots came into play.  Many a cloud of blue air came from the wife as these things strike the fear of god into her! 

apart from the wet roots we managed to get four runs each (as we take turns in shuttling to the top) and had a great time, it is one of those tracks the more you ride it the more you get to know the lines and get faster and faster each time you go.

I have one of my best mates Mr &Mrs to be Raven’s Weddings coming up in a few weeks, normally I love weddings and get very excited for them.  Not this one, for some reason I thought it a great idea to offer my services as the wedding photographer.  It seemed a great idea at the time, but as the time gets closer and closer I am really starting to sh*t it!  I have been a keen amateur photographer for many years, usually just trying to get decent pictures for blogs or records of our doings.  I have done little what I would called ‘ proper ‘ photography.  Now doing the pictures for someones’ wedding is what I would call important, and thus should be taken seriously. There is only one other added pressure, the Mr and & Mrs to be have just started a blossoming career as wedding photographers…… so no pressure there then!

I have started practising, mainly on lara and the baby, but I am going to soon meet up with a few friends and start having portrait sessions with them.  Basically the more pictures I can take the better chance I have of not completely messing up the pictures for the big day.  With the ever suffering wife we went off to take some pictures.  Don’t worry I will not bore you with hundreds of pictures, but maybe just one or two.

Above : I sat there trying to coax a smile out of her for about 5 minutes and then gave up as she was just sitting there randomly rolling over into the dirt and then chatting to the twigs. But I wanted a picture of Ellis in the woods so just took it, I like it but would have been better if she would have given me a smile.  I think Ellis is going to have to work on her modelling abilities before I offer any sort of pocket money!

Again , far more interested in the wheat than looking and giving me a smile….  thankfully Lara was a much more helpful model and was being kind to me, I shall give her her pocket money 🙂

As a side note Richard and his five year old daughter Katie came to the woods with us and went for a bike ride together

I watched then ride off down the little singletrack paths into the woods, and I have to admit I was rather  jealous of Rich being able to go riding with his daughter, she was having a great time loving being on the bike only having dumped her stabilisers 6 weeks ago and whizzing around everywhere with a smile on her face.  I suppose my time will come and before I know it Ellis will be having to wait for ‘ the old man’ when we go biking together.  All good things come to those that wait.

We went to Glentress with Matt, Emma and Rich.  It was great to get Lara back out on the bike again, I looked after Ellis as Lara went off and biked, it was the first real time I was left alone with Ellis for a great amount of time due to her not taking a bottle easily.  It was good to allow Lara some time off, as she dissapeared off into the forest, I looked down and it dawned on me ” oh sh*t, I am alone with the baby!”  She just sat there adn dribbled a bit.

Above the bikers.  We stayed over night in Peebles as well and it being Lara’s birthday we all went out to dinner in Peebles.  We stayed in the camp site and it was Ellis’s first time camping

We had been doing some internet reseearch and there are not real sleeping bags available for babies as small as her thatIi would be comfortable allowing her to sleep outside in.  So instead we bought her a goose down snow suit to sleep in.  Looks toasty doesn’t it!

We put her to bed and sat outside the tent drinking wine to celebrate Lara’s birthday.  Was great being back outside and camping again.

We even brought the baby monitor with us.  Ellis was fine and slept no problems, a huge relief which gives us the green light to take her away alot more.  She is a good little baby.  She even comes for morning cuddles with dad in the tent.