If you go down to the woods today....

....make sure you're on a mountain bike! I did start the bike club ride today, but they've been resurfacing the path through Tentsmuir, and the gravel hasn't settled as it was supposed to meaning I just couldn't manage it at all on my bike.  A more proficient rider would have been fine but I just had no control over the bike at all and didn't fancy falling off and ending up picking gravel out of my legs so I turned round and cycled home instead. On the plus side, it did mean I got home before the rain started 😀
We had an interesting evening out on Thursday.  There's been a bit of cross pollination going on between St Andrews and Broughty Ferry lately.  Broughty Ferry restaurant The Tayberry has just opened a second branch over in St Andrews, and Forgan's of St Andrews opened in Broughty Ferry last year. This week saw them expanding by opening Mitchell's Deli next door to the restaurant. A few weeks ago a couple of friends tagged me in a post on facebook inviting people to knit a tea cosy for Mitchell's in exchange for an invitation to their preview evening, and it was too good an offer to resist! Last Saturday I cycled along to the Ferry with my hand knitted tea cosy in my bag and dropped it off at Forgan's, and got the call on Tuesday to book in for tea on Thursday.
This is the tea cosy - I should probably have put it on a teapot for the photo as it does look a bit like a slightly odd hat!

And this is Mitchell's Deli:

We were given a sharing platter and bottle of wine on the house, and then ordered tea and cake to follow.

The sharing platter was a generous selection of cold meats, two different cheeses, olives, pickles and some tasty bread. We both ended up going with the carrot cake, which was a good shout - lovely and moist. I had a pot of Earl Grey Blue Flower tea - all their teas are from Suki, who are a Belfast based tea company with a lovely range of different teas.
Forgan's is always pretty busy, and I imagine Mitchell's will be too!
It was pouring with rain when we left the house, but by the time we'd finished our meal it had turned out to be a lovely summer evening.  We decided to walk home along the front, and got some pretty decent photos (I think!) along the way!

Last night we met a friend for a few drinks in a pub thast wasn't Brewdog! Dukes Corner had some beers on from North Brewing in Leeds, including their amazing coffee and coconut porter, Full Fathom 5. I also tried the Bulkhead Brown Ale, which was less successful - not unpleasant, but a bit watery after the creamy porter. Quite sweet too, and with a touch of spice, so basically like fruitcake! We bumped into some other friends we hadn't seen for a while so stayed a little longer than intended before heading over to Draffens to introduce Ally to the joys of the Speakeasy! I really should learn not to stay our late in the pub the night before a bike ride, but the cocktails really are amazing, if a touch pricey.  They're also pretty potent, which could make the trip upstairs to the toilets a bit hazardous if you weren't careful!

I cycled to work on Friday and decided to go the long way home, up past the Blackwatch monument, just to get a bit of climbing in.  When I uploaded my ride to Strava I discovered I haven't taken that route since 2015 - no wonder it was a struggle! Turns out if I don't have a specific goal to work towards I'm quite lazy with my cycling, so I should probably set myself some targets!