It’s my first time in a shop (excepting supermarkets) in over a year.

Salesman: “You don’t want that, it’s shite. I only have it in the shop as a warning not to buy it!“

It was good to see customer service in Glasgow hadn’t changed…

It was both ‘less strange’ and ‘more strange’ than I thought to be shopping in town.

It was strange to be shopping as Mrs TwinBikeRun and I had brought Baby TwinBikeRun with us and it was harder than I thought to move around while pushing a pram. We even walked different streets because “it’s quieter if we go to the next street rather than walk up this one”. While, in shops, Mrs TwinBikeRun was stuck by displays blocking the pram from getting round – shops are not designed for babies, which I’m okay with, as they don’t have a wallet so why should they have a say in how shops are laid out!?!? 🙂

It was less strange than I thought to be in town because there wasn’t a great change in how I shopped. I walked in, I looked round, saw nothing I wanted to buy and then walked out, just as I did a year ago. I’m not a slow browser: I check shops with all the speed of a soldier running across an exposed courtyard with a sniper somewhere on the roofs above.  

I was in town to find a new pair of jeans as I don’t like ordering jeans on the internet. They always look different, and you can never tell the fit from a website photo. And I don’t want to order them just to send back. It’s for the same reason I wouldn’t order a mail order bride. Some things need to be seen first.

Baby TwinBikeRun slept through the whole trip and missed out on seeing all the shops with queues out of the door. Primark’s queue stretched along the front of the shop and around a corner. Zara too had a queue which stretched down Buchanan Street. I wondered if the queues were a sign of popularity or a sign of a decent social distancing policy. Perhaps the shops without the queues are the ones to avoid because they spray COVID on the clothes and cough in the changing rooms?

Most people were wearing masks, even on the streets. A few had them over their mouth, most had them around their neck, or, in the case of one man, on top of his head like a clown hat.

“That’s because he talks out of the top of his head,” says Mrs TwinBikeRun.

We put masks on each time we go into a shop, so did everyone else but, in Glasgow, the numbers have still been rising all month. As the rest of the country has moved in tier 2 we remained in tier 3 and, as I write this on Friday 28 May, it looks likely we’ll stay in tier 3 for at least another week.

If so, it’s another week I can’t leave the city unless it’s essential travel – and Celtman is not essential travel.

I now put my chances of taking part in Celtman at less than 10%. I don’t feel at all confident that I have the swimming strength for 3.4km. While I have managed 1 – 2 swims a week since mid April, my arms are very tired after 2km and I haven’t managed to do anything longer.

I’m comfortable with the thought of the bike and the run, and think my running is probably the strongest it’s been before any other long distance race, but, just like evolutionary biology, you can’t run before you can swim.

You can ready my original reports here: Loch Ard and Loch Ard-er

On Monday, someone had used white chalk to write the following message on a nearby pavement: “Ally, I love you, please call me!”. It was surrounded by love hearts.

By Friday, the message was changed to: “Ally, you are a GIMP!”

The path of true love does not run smooth, even if you use an actual path to declare your love…

This message was the only thing that changed this week as Glasgow remained in Tier 3 COVID restrictions for another week, month and year. We’ve now been locked down so long that, if we were in prison, we’d have been eligible for release on compassionate grounds.

I must admit, despite trying to follow the rules, that I’m not quite sure what the current rules actually are. I live in a postcode that borders the highest rate but also borders one of the lowest, an area which is in Tier 2. If you turn right at the end of my street the pubs are open, if you turn left the pubs have been turned into an emergency COVID vaccination centre to halt the spread of the virus. It’s all quite confusing.

So, this report is brought to you with the slight caveat that I’m not sure if I was or wasn’t breaking the lockdown rules by swimming in Loch Ard last week. Certainly Kinlochard, the village at the end of Loch Ard, was giving very strong ‘Haste Ye Back’ vibes with every parking space displaying a “Do Not Park Here” sign and the local community hall car park closed.

Instead, I parked in the same spot as last time and would point out that there’s only space here for four cars so you may want to come here early to make sure you have a spot. I was there for 9am and there was one other car parked.

The loch itself has warmed up nicely and was around 12 degrees. Depending on your cold water reaction it was either starting to turn cold but pleasant or still on the chilly side. I wore a vest underneath my wetsuit and was fine without gloves or boots. At the end I tried swimming without a wetsuit and it was okay…ish…

For the swim, I swam to one of the islands and back, a swim of around a mile, if you can swim in a staightline. My goggles kept steaming up so I was more crooked than Al Capone and veered to the left as I swam.

Be careful of the water becoming colder the further you swim out. While the water is shallow near the bank it quickly becomes deeper and colder the further out you are. I wouldn’t try this swim unless you were confident that you can swim 2km.

Overall: a fantastic setting for a swim with plenty of options for short or longer routes. The water should only get warmer as we get into summer. Just remember though to check the COVID restrictions.