Start of the week

Routine Monday - although I did squeeze in a game of squash doubles before going home to a lovely stew followed by another helping of conference pears in red wine - lovely!

I also managed to catch up a bit with Lucy's Eastenders recordings - I sent off 3 DVD's for her yesterday - but, with an apology - I'm missing 16th November - what happened then? - did we have a power cut?

I also found a download of Seasick Steve for Kelly - it's called Cheap and according to Wikipedia, it was released in 2004 - it's the first time I've heard him playing with a band (the Level Devils) - usually he's a one man band - although he did have a drummer with him when we saw him at the Music Hall recently.

We're going to have a very quiet Christmas - we knew Scott, Lucy and the boys weren't coming as they're here in March, and we also heard last week that Kelly and Craig couldn't make it, but, on Sunday, Gary told us that they wouldn't be coming over either. Was it something we said? Perhaps we'll pop over to Inverurie for a little while to see them before Jo, Ross and I have our Christmas dinner.

More snow overnight meant I had to change my plans for driving up to the Broch. Instead I went in to our Aberdeen office via the North Deeside Road - avoiding my usual route over the moor to Garlogie. The roads were fine, but the traffic was awful and it took me almost an hour and a half to get here. I'm definitely not hanging around until it gets dark again this afternoon.

Nothing much else on the agenda this week - perhaps another game or two of squash - optician on Thursday, headbang at Dave's on Friday.

I finally got a booking for the annual golf/squash Xmas dinner - usually we go to the Derbar, but there were several requests to change it this time, so I tried, but failed, with the Milton. I did manage to get Franco's (Italian at By-Dee Inn) on Friday 19th December - a great date I thought - until I went home and told Jo and she said whoops - she thought she was going out with the girls that night! Ah well - I'm committed now - numbers are rising as well - 28 at last count.

I'm also edging ever nearer to getting our golf trip to Tenerife sorted out for February. It looks like we're going to leave on Friday Feb 27th - which means I will be back in Banchory for my 60th birthday - but only just! It was pointed out to me last night that I could be in Tenerife 3 times next year - February, March and possibly October as well!