April Social 2018Monday 9 April
A sunny evening in Penicuik with great views of the Pentland Hills.
Plans for a minimalist social continued on the day with 3 people each doing the long and short courses around the Penicuik Estate plus a couple of people doing their own thing. It was a lovely spring evening though very muddy underfoot following showers earlier in the day. There were excellent views of the snow streaked Pentlands, especially on the Long course.
We retired to Les and Margaret's for refreshments and the usual convivial chat plus moving of equipment from the SOL event the previous day. As usual we were joined by some non runners and it's always a pleasure to meet those who no longer compete. So the final tally was 12. We also welcomed a new face. It's good to have these relaxed occasions to meet people. This is in contrast to the three line whip of the previous day's event at the Linn of Tummel, with a large number of club helpers, all focused on their own tasks, to ensure the event ran smoothly.
There was a small extra for the runners to focus their minds a little. The Long course question was to count the wooden slats on the first bridge they crossed (The Roman Bridge). The question for the Short course was to count the pillars on front of the ruined mansion. These apparently easy questions, as usual, caused concern and debate and it wasn't at all clear if anyone actually answered correctly! Nevertheless there was a mini Mars bar for every runner for good effort. The Penicuik House website has a picture of the Ruined mansion and of the Roman Bridge; the pillars can be counted there (strictly speaking 6 but counting those hiding behind the end ones you could say there was 8). There were 33 slats on the Roman Bridge.
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