The finish of today's stage was pretty old and slowly I started to feel old as well. I noticed that the weeks behind me were slowly dragging on my mental strength. The really big challenges, I thought, were behind me and as so often the last 20% were quite difficult again, Vilfredo Pareto grins quietly in his grave.
The profile of this stage was not free of challenges. A few metres after leaving Aberdeen behind, I had to pedal a few kilometres uphill, sometimes quite steeply. That was only moderately compatible with my latent unwillingness. But even today it was a universal truth again: I wouldn't reach the finish line if I didn't continue to pedal one pedal turn after the other. At least the surroundings here didn't compete too much for my attention; at least in my memory this section was rather unpretentious, which allowed me to concentrate on the essentials, to get ahead. But this concentration was suddenly over when I passed Stonehaven: The sight of the golf course there distracted me instantly.
I briefly considered whether I should put in a spontaneous round, but on a sunny Sunday afternoon it is not so easy to play a round of golf at a pace that is compatible with my idea of speed of play. So I stayed a little in the local café, enjoyed the wonderful view over the first course and finished reading "Less", a novel about a less successful author who tries to process his love on a short term world trip. A thoroughly entertaining book, but whether it had to be awarded something as important as the Pulitzer Prize seems questionable to me personally.
An absolute world sensation, an innovation of the first order, I found in Stonehaven by chance. I left the golf club thinking about fish&chips and decided to stop at the next, the first place that was ready to prepare this delicacy for me. As soon as the concept was formulated, I rolled towards the blue and white sign of the Carron Fish Bar. That went well, but it should come much better! I literally jumped off the bike, leaned it against a grid and crossed the road. I ordered a nice, large portion of the British equivalent of Currywurst-Pommes-Mayo and waited, because that is part of it, since fish and chips are always freshly fried. I still appreciated the information on the posters that the local fryer was decorated with an award for young professionals of the fat-based cuisine, when suddenly my eyes fell on another announcement: By a coincidence, a divine plan, From all the fish joints in all the towns in all the world I walked into this, which had invented the - drum roll, fanfare! - fried Mars bar! Of course, there could be no doubt that I had to have it. The 1000, 1500 calories could not matter if you had the opportunity to taste history.
It was quite okay.
The lunch with the main ingredient fat has probably also contributed a bit to the fact that I did not go more relaxed on the second half of the daily distance. After all, the route my digital co-pilot sent me on was exciting enough to distract me. A narrow and sandy path, dotted with large stones, led me several kilometres parallel to the sea in the direction of Montrose. Probably this would have made me uncomfortable at the beginning of the trip, but meanwhile I had my vehicle under control well enough .
Towards the end of the day's tour, in addition to the quite respectable ups and downs, the strong south-west wind became clearly noticeable, which would make its significant contribution in the coming days. All in all everything didn't seem to be that bad, because right before Montrose I thought about how my packed bike would perform in another discipline:
I then decided against the experiment, the more so as I still had a few meters of cross-country to overcome anyway.
On the camping site I was received very friendly despite the late disturbance and was introduced to the infrastructural peculiarities (there were none). At least since the whistling Lawrence (HERE you can see the report of that time) I haven't been received that nice. In a good mood I built up the tent. The routine, which I had acquired in the last weeks with it, was necessary, since despite all the trees, the obvious south-western orientation of the campsite was very noticeable.
Well, even if today there should be the Golden Doughnut for the day, I'm just thinking whether too many prizes are awarded these days. But at least the greatest American president of all time did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize despite all the achievements of his regency. Congratulations, world. So I'm going to give it away to the day, the doughnut!