Love it when a plan comes together

Or more accurately I love it when I accidentally do something better than before, like todays Sunday run. Yes, you heard me, I ran again (so hush you doubters!). Alright its been a few days, like 10 or something, since I last ran but I felt I even wanted to run today and so I set off just before 12 noon while N and Jnr went off to collect Jnr's new slide. 4.66 miles along the river and through the woods to near Crathes and then back. In 42:33 minutes. That means for the first time in a very long time, I'm 9 minute mile-ing (09:07 min/mile to be precise - not the 08:55 min/miles I excitedly texted my running mates before accurately converting km to miles..). Felt harder, unsurprisingly.

On the way back I stopped at the main Fishing Hut near Park House (above) to remove a layer and noticed the flood level indicator on the door. Basically, where the lines are, that where the water's been. Now I've read a fair bit about the Muckle Spate (Great Flood) of 1829 on the River Dee (and others, inc Lossie and Spey) and knew that the water rose 27ft above its normal level near Banchory but its hard to comprehend how much water that is. However, when I saw the 1829 levels on the door at just over 13 feet, it really bought it home.

In the photo below, you can see the river and the hut - and the 13ft level on the door is near the roof line of the hut, bad enough! Now add another 13 or 14 ft on top of that and that is what it was like just 4 miles upstream. Scary. You can read more about the Muckle Spate of 1829 in Royal Valley : The Story Of The Aberdeenshire Dee by Fenton Wyness and also the poem by David Grant written in 1851.

So, 9 min/miles and a bit of local history. Alright for a sunday morning :)