Flask

It's about time I dedicated a post to my trusty flask. It's a wonderful thing a flask, not just because of that strange sounding word, but because of its ability to retain heat, or equally cold. Anyone who has ever cycled in winter will know that heat-retention is a tricky thing, and so flasks are pretty clever devices. Prior to owning a flask (quite possibly, pound for pound, the best thing I have ever bought) I used to have to find coffee shops en route to pimp my cardio up. To be sure, I enjoyed this process of caffeinated discovery, but it did begin to annoy when I needed a boost but couldn't find any cafes. The flask then seemed the obvious choice....

Atop the Kilpatrick Braes. Nothing beats climbing a hill with a full flask of hot steaming java (and some dark chocolate secreted into one's rucksack)... The bliss at the top, a combination of harvesting those endorphins and smoothing it off with the coffee, is like nothing I have ever experienced in even the most scenic coffee shop. Here, the views, the space, the solitude (which reveals a council of togetherness with all things), collude to make the next half hour or so the most timeless you have (n)ever had. 'Having coffee with a hill,' I once wrote, 'can be a real interesting experience.'

Looking west from the same spot as above. All my cycling excursions I once mused are simply an excuse to find great spots to enjoy good coffee...

 See what happens when your back's turned...

They come from all over. It's that good...!

This is the one that started it a few years ago atop Duncarnock Mount one overcast Sunday in September. I can recall it as if it were yesterday. This is what happens when you energize your self, your experience becomes embedded in the body, without the need for 'memory'. I can almost taste the air that afternoon, and I can certainly recollect sitting there gazing across and through the sacred strath, with java in hand, thinking 'no coffee shop can touch this, the serenity, the space, the aloneness that metamorphoses into an all-one-ness. No art can touch this, nevermind coffee shops. There are no words in spite of my feeble attempts. There is only the breathing, the inhaling-exhaling-conjoining... With a flask in my hand and the valley at my feet, I hold council with all.... How could you not remember that?

Swanning it by the river...