Bridges and sunshine

Life has been pretty thesis-centric these days and it’s been causing me a great amount of stress. Part of that stress is because I have felt a need to work on my PhD every moment of my waking day. And so, I decided that today would be an adventure day out!

With a forecast for sunshine, I invited my adventure partner on a day out to Dr Neil’s Garden followed by a nice wee pub lunch at The Sheep’s Heid. And that was the plan until my co-adventurer sent me a message yesterday suggesting we “get out of the city” and head out for a walk across the Forth Road Bridge.

The adventure started at Haymarket Station with a short train journey to Dalmeny. From there, we walked a short distance to South Queensferry, stopping for two geocaches along the way. Then, it was off to the Forth Road Bridge!

The Forth Road Bridge is the car bridge over the Firth of Forth. To the east is the Forth Bridge (a rail bridge opened in 1890) and to the west is the nearly completed Queensferry Crossing, a replacement road bridge due to open this summer. There are pedestrian and cycle lanes on both sides of the bridge so we walked south-to-north along the east side, with views of the rail bridge, then returned on the west side with views of the new road bridge.

The journey across the bridge was about 3 miles round trip. But all told, I managed more than 11 miles worth of walking for the day. My ankle is slightly tender from the walking, but I figure it’s a great way to strengthen my ankle (and the rest of my body) for my half marathon in September.

Importantly, today’s adventure will also help to keep me going with my thesis writing. A day’s break from thinking will hopefully keep me energised and motivated so that I am more productive over the rest of the week! And with that… I’d best share my thesis update before we get to the photos!

Today’s thesis writing season update:

Current word count: Approximately 20,000, but nothing is in its “final version” yet.

Next week’s task list:

• Organise various drafts and documents in preparation of creating a first main draft version for the literature review chapter
• Work on findings chapter for my second research question
• And write as much as I can!!