Fri/Sat

More golf on Friday - 2nd round of Seniors Club Championship - and I played even worse than I did in the 1st round on Wednesday. Amazingly, I still made the cut and now have to play the final round on Monday - I was looking forward to a break - but no rest for the wicked!

Golf again this morning - weather a bit cooler and showery. Tomorrow (Sunday) we've got Carole's Mum coming over for lunch.

We watched Midnight Express tonight - first time we'd seen it - very good and still pretty harrowing despite being 30 years old now.

Weds/Thurs

Got a bit cooler here now - but still dry thankfully. Had to get a new windscreen put in my car as I was hit by a stone on Monday. Jo's car is in the garage today as well - bearing and exhaust noises (or is she just paranoid?) plus MoT and service - sounds pricey. Ross is running Jo to and from work today.

Played the first round of our Seniors club championship last night (poorly) and caught up with Nigel, who was on a flying visit over here. Tonight it's the Deeside league at Ballater.

Spoke to Kelly yesterday - her 3 Peaks Challenge is next weekend (21st) and she starts off up Ben Nevis at 6:00 pm, so we've booked ourselves in to a hotel in Fort William and will drive over to see her. Of course, whilst she's busy running up (and down) the mountain, we'll be visiting one of Scotland's best pubs - the Grog and Gruel (http://www.grogandgruel.co.uk/) - we'll be thinking of you, pet!

Appointment

Oh - and I've now got my appointment with the cardiologist - a different one this time - Dr. Broadhurst - I see him on Monday morning.

Stressed? Try this!

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

If you're really bad, use manic mode!

Quick trip to Glasgow

Having let Dad settle in to Erskine (Flanders House, The Erskine Glasgow Home, 200 Dorchester Avenue, Glasgow G12 0BZ if anyone wants to write to him), I decided it was time to pay him a visit last night. I found him in great form, striding round the corridors and laughing and joking with the staff:


He was initially a little reluctant to actually go in to his room with me, and, perhaps, on reflection, it would have been better if we had stayed out in one of the common areas - but eventually he agreed and we had a little chat and a laugh, then I started to show him some recent photos of the family. After that, I switched his TV on and we settled down to watch a bit of the Holland-Italy match together. He seemed quite content and even displayed some interest in the football - something that he has lost in recent years.

He went to the toilet and when he came back, he wouldn't settle down again and started to put on his big cardigan and talk about going home with me. It wasn't too bad, however - he just got a bit confused and eventually he went back to walking the corridors (with his slippers under his arm!) and I went over to Helen and Barry's for the rest of the night.

This is a short video of his room, which is lovely and airy and very tidy:



I think it's an ideal place for him and I really hope he settles there - check the web site (http://www.erskine.org.uk/) to see what they do for ex-servicemen.

Barry was working late but I had a bit of toasted cheese and some apple pie with Helen until he came home from a school play. I tried out my new trick with the automatic "smile and shoot" feature I'd just discovered with my camera - do you think Barry's trying too hard here?:

Got up sharp this morning and headed off north east, stopping by Airdrie to pop in and see Dawn and Jordon, whose smile certainly made the camera work:

Still haven't got this feature to work with a female yet - but most are camera shy anyway, so I haven't pushed it! Dawn's got a new car:

Meghan got the results from her Masters yesterday - she got a 2:2 - initially she was a little disappointed, but when she saw what some of her friends got, she apparently cheered up a bit and is now looking forward to going ahead with her PhD.

Luca videos

Luca took great delight in using our brush to sweep the slabs at the back:

18 months of intensive coaching from his educated parents and this is what Luca can do now:

Did you notice what happened as Gary put Luca down - seen in the reflection of the window?

Glorious week in Deeside!

Blog's been neglected a little - partly due to the magnificent weather, but also because it's been so busy. The annual CAMRA beer festival is now over - didn't manage to put in as much work as I would have liked and, of course, we didn't have our usual bus in from Banchory on the Friday night - so Jo missed out as well. I worked behind the bar on Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon - I offered to take Jo in then, but she had too much to do and couldn't make it. This was me taking a short break on Saturday afternoon - wearing my Oregon Beer Taster hat!:

We strolled along to the golf club on Saturday evening and sat on the balcony (for the second week in succession) - it was lovely and warm - and Colin and Johanne joined us as we ate alfresco:

Ross came home on Saturday night (or should I say Sunday morning!) - but no car - it transpired that he and his buddies went along to the beer festival on Saturday night for the first time - and enjoyed it so much they had to taxi home.

The reason for me not organising our usual bus to the festival was that the organisers had had to change it from its usual November date to June - and this clashed with an outing to Blairgowrie that I was already committed to. It was another fabulous day there and all the photos are available on my golf blog - http://bsvgolf.blogspot.com/

On Sunday, Gary, Carole and Luca came over for a while - they had been at Crathes taking Luca on the short train run there. I discovered a new feature on my camera - if you smile it automatically takes 3 quick pictures. I didn't believe it at first, but it worked with Gary - then me - but I couldn't get it to work with either Jo or Carole. Jo was trying desperately to grin from ear to ear to make the camera take a photo - and Gary even forced his way in to the frame to try and help her out - to no avail:

We tried with camera-shy Carole but no luck:

Luca's laser spots are clearing up rapidly:


Videos to follow.