September 2020

This month was a good month for running. I’ve been exploring the Pentlands recently, running 14, 16 and 21km over the first few weekends (I took a short video of the Pentlands run on my Osmo Pocket). PubRun was back briefly too, but had to be cancelled again due to Covid restrictions tightening. Hopefully we’ll all be back running together soon.

Most of the Pentland routes I have been exploring go up to Torduff Reservoir, looping back via the Water of Leith pathway, hopping onto the Union Canal footpath to get back to Morningside (Here’s my Strava route for the Morningside-Torduff half). I hope to explore more of the Pentland routes in October.

We brought back the classic “we should get in the sea” refrain in September, so I got in the sea at Portobello for an attempt at a wild swim. It reminded me that I need to work on my flinch when it comes to cold water.

I have a new home office, and with that a new view. I decided to include some birds in that view. I got the Meripac Window Feeder, which has worked well so far.

The last weekend of the month I took a two day trip to Dunbar for cycling and walking, with one overnight camp. I wrote a journal entry on the Dunbar trip and also put together a YouTube video of the cycling and walking. It’s one of the first videos I have done with a post-recording voice-over. Enjoy!

This month I read Politics is for Power by Eitan Hersh (tweet thread on Politics is for Power), and Fairness and Freedom: history of two open societies by David Hackett Fischer (tweet thread on Fairness and Freedom).

Next month I start an Open University course on the Arts and Humanities, so will be reading more around that. I’m excited by this course, as it covers a series of historical figures. It’ll be good to have guided discussions and tutorials around material that I’d find myself reading anyway!