Sunday 24th June

Bit of a dreich day today and I decided to skip golf as it was a bit damp. Anyway, it's maybe not a bad idea to have an easy day at home as I won't be spending another full weekend at home for 7 weeks! I'm away to London next week to see Lou Reed on Saturday night, followed by Lord's on Sunday for the ODI against the W.Indies. The following weekend, I'm at Slaley Hall for golf, and Jo's on her way to Cornwall to visit Kelly and Craig. After that, we're off to USA to see Scott, Lucy and the boys.

The above photo was taken from our back room window this morning and shows all the trees that we had chopped down recently (by our former neighbour Brett Nicol) - we decided to leave only the silver birches. After orderning our new driveway yesterday, we've decided to get Brett back to take down the so-called dwarf fir in our front rockery, that has now grown to about 15 feet tall!

Midsummer

I got my wish from my last blog - the sun shone gloriously on Thursday and we had a wonderful evening golfing in shorts in our weekly Quaich competition. Being the longest day, we sat in the bar until late, admiring the how light it was - and thinking to ourselves, it's all downhill from here!

On Friday, I was in to the office early but managed to complete all my meetings and was able to head off to Blairgowrie to join the rest of the guys who had played the Wee course there in the morning. There was warm sunshine and we donned shorts for the afternoon round at Rosemount. The forecast was for isolated heavy thunderstorms and lightning, and so it proved. From about the 5th hole, we could see a storm approaching and we began to hear distant thunder, then eventually forked lightning lit the sky. For the first time ever in Scotland, we heard the sign of the klaxon suspending play and they came out in buggies to ensure we left the course. We had got as far as the 7th hole, which, sod's law, was about as far as we could get from the clubhouse. We trudged towards it and then the heavens opened and there were several crashes of thunder and lightning strikes which seemed to be within yards of where we were.

Thankfully, we all made it safely back to the clubhouse and after showering and supping some very fine Young's, we decided to head back up the road to Banchory for a meal in the clubhouse. The roads around Blairgowrie were treacherous with standing water but, within a few miles, it was completely dry and there was no sign of rain anywhere in the North East - bizarre!

Jo was out at Tricia's next door - viewing her holiday photos! - so I toddled off to bed alone.

Saturday morning was dry and I managed a game at Banchory, but it started to rain in the afternoon. We had our appointment with the man from Everest and we signed up for a new driveway, which will also cover the existing bit of grass out front - but not the rockery. They will also re-harl the wall between us and Trisha and place new coping stones on top. We hope to combine this with the work to re-tile our porch and vestibule.

Mid-June

Nothing much to write about - just golf, golf, golf at this time of year! It was our Seniors championship on Weds, Fri and Mon - qualified OK, but no prizes.

We're still trying to find a builder to come in and prepare our porch for the new tiles - the old ones need removed and the area needs to be prepared for the tile fixer, but can you find a builder in Deeside nowadays? - they're all too busy and small jobs like this are at the bottom of the queue.

We've started looking at the driveway as well - Everest are now in to this market and the chap is coming back this Saturday with some ideas and samples.

Of course, we had Luca overnight again last Saturday - he was as good as gold again.

Got a phone call from Barry on Monday night telling me Dad had been taken in to hospital with a suspected bowel blockage. He hadn't shown up at his day centre and they had sent somebody round to check him and the ambulance was called. I got up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday and went down to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow to see how he was. It transpired that it was largely caused by dehydration - they X-rayed him and found that he was highly "compacted", so laxatives were prescribed and this eventually, with the aid of a glucose drip, resolved the matter. He'll stay in for a day or so whilst they re-assess his needs for care, but he seems to be OK, although more confused than ever.

I went over to see Dawn after the hospital - they're still doing things in the new house - the decking is laid at the back and a new sideboard had just arrived for the hall. We swapped stories about our kids over bacon butties and pineapple cakes!

Jo is going to one of her work-mates leaving do's tonight (Weds 20th) - ironically, this is almost the first night I haven't been golfing for the last couple of weeks!

Midsummer today/tomorrow, but the weather is far from seasonal - hope it improves soon.

Week ending 9th June

I had an exciting evening on E-Bay on Sunday. Dave Williamson and I are going down to London on 30th June/1st July - we're going to see Lou Reed at Hammersmith Apollo on the Saturday but the original purpose was to go to Lord's on the Sunday to see the One Day international against the West Indies. We had successfully bid for tickets at the Squash Club's Silent Auction last year but Robert Strang-Steel, who is a member of the MCC and had donated the tickets, missed the cut-off date for member's applications for tickets - and the match was now a sell-out.

We found 2 tickets on E-Bay but Dave, who does this thing a lot, was travelling to Cairo when the deadline was due to expire, so it was over to me. I was under instructions to leave it until the last few seconds and then outbid the previous highest bid - which I managed to do successfully - pretty tense and exciting stuff!

I had a match at Torphins on Tuesday, which I won, and the Quaich was switched to Thursday this week - played pretty well again and I followed this up on Friday afternoon when we had a "board meeting" at Royal Aberdeen - the two Clarks (handicaps one and two) plus Kevin Milne of Aberdeen Asset Management. It was a glorious afternoon and Francis and I beat Michael and Kevin, with both Francis and I having birdie 3's at the last - great way to finish.

Friday night was down at the Douglas and when I came home, Jo was sitting on the balcony talking to Lucy on the phone. I took over eventually - and got chastised again for not updating my blog - hence this flurry of activity on Saturday morning before I head off to golf - looks promising again and I think I'll don the shorts once more.

Week ending 2nd June

Fairly routine week although we did go to the theatre on Thursday night to see the new musical based on the Proclaimers songs - Sunshine on Leith. It was OK, although the storyline was contrived to say the least - you just knew the last two songs had to be Letter from America and 500 Miles and it was all too obvious the way the story twisted to accommodate them. Still the music was enjoyable enough and we had a nice supper and some beers at the Globe beforehand.

On Friday afternoon it was our football group's annual golf outing and we went to Craibstone on a beautiful afternoon. I managed to successfully defend the trophy I won last year at Peterculter. The photo shows Gary presenting me with the shield - note the "green" jacket which the winner has to wear each year.

After the golf we went back to Scott Skinner's for a charity Music Quiz, which was good fun.

On Saturday, Gary and Carole were going to Crieff Hydro for the night and so we were babysitting Luca overnight for the first time. He was as good as gold - and I was very careful not to sneeze in his presence this time, as I had blotted my copybook with him the last time he was over - scaring him when I let out an enormous sneeze. Jo put his cot up in our room because, naturally, she was concerned she wouldn't hear him if he awoke. She needn't have worried - although next time perhaps we'll put him in another room - I would hear him anyway - he talks in his sleep and it means you're always on the surface and never sleeping deeply.

Week ending 26th May

Monday 21st May - had our meeting with Mike Rumbles, MSP and he was very supportive and promised to contact Aberdeenshire Council to find out what was happening with the long-awaited Hill of Banchory development - and how much planning gain there had been.

We played squash at Crathes that evening and it wasn't at all bad and it offers us somewhere to play - at least in the short term.

The rest of the week was spent planning the Sponsored tournament at Banchory on the Saturday, including erecting the gazebo on Friday night. The day itself went very well - the weather was kind as you can see from the photo above, taken very early on Saturday. Jo and I were joined by Colin and Johanne for an evening meal at the club after the prize-giving and we were all entertained by "Sammy the Shammy"!