Friday

Had a chance to play 5 a sides again tonight - but declined - didn't want to risk my ankle yet. Planning a lunchtime trip to Bannatyne's - it's going be painful going back there after all this time! I asked Jo if she wanted to come in some time today, but she said she didn't know what she was doing and so declined - probably more coffee planned with Anne!

Kelly and Craig are up this weekend and are at a wedding today, so it'll be tomorrow before we see them. Climbing Scolty is on the agenda for some - but probably not me, if I get a game of golf in the morning. The forecast is pretty dreich again - we haven't been very lucky since we came back.

Other than that, it's just a routine Friday - the Legion is tonight's drinking venue.

I chased up CALA's agents again asking for a copy of their revised plans - they didn't reply to my first message. I'm probably on their black list!

Historic Scotland finally found their records on the Tor-na-Coille hotel - an application was made back in 2004/05 - apparently through Aberdeenshire Council - to have the building listed, but was rejected after inspection on the following grounds:

"Although there is a fine Victorian structure at the core, it has been seriously eroded by
large extensions to both East and North, as well as some large out-of-character dormer
additions and a lift shaft which completely destroy the fine roofline, particularly to the
principal elevation.
Also impeding inclusion in the statutory list is the fact that the garden grounds have been
divided and built on, weakening the integrity of the original setting.
The interior details are fine but limited only to 2 ground floor rooms while the rest of the
rooms have been altered for use as hotel accommodation and are generally very plain."

Bang goes another potential avenue of resistance!

The birthday gift we got for Gary - a digital radio system - has apparently broken down already. Hope he can get it sorted out through the warranty.

Useless fact of the day - there are 7 days in a week - 5 working and 2 weekend. (That one was for you, Gary - you still seem reluctant to go to Spain for a full week!)

Spain

For everyone's benefit, but especially Gary - flights to Spain/Tenerife are usually charters, which means a minimum trip of one week - e.g Flyglobespan's winter schedules to Malaga depart and return on Saturdays, whilst Airtours to Tenerife is Friday to Friday. Surely 5 days off work is not too hard to organise?

Sad week - today was the 4th anniversary of Dr. Francis Clark's death - Michael's and Francis' father.

Wednesday/Thursday

Managed to get a round in at Banchory last night - and it was fairly pleasant - dry and reasonably warm. Hurt my ankle again, however - will have to be careful with it.

Now that I'm back to driving up and down the road to the Broch again, I've taken to listening to my downloaded audiobooks again. I finished off Alice Cooper, Golf Monster - not bad - narrated by Alice himself. I'm now on to "Who's Your Caddy?" - an account by a writer from Sports Illustrated of caddying for big names -he tried to get Tiger to agree to let him caddy for him, but failed. So far, I've listened to his accounts of his experiences with Tom Lehman, John Daly, David Duval and Donald Trump - they're hilarious if you're a golf buff. The narrator is excellent - I couldn't stop laughing as I was driving.

Tonight we were originally planning to go to Bannatyne's (first time for over a month for me!) but Jo's got the hairdresser this afternoon and it wouldn't be a good idea to visit the gym or the pool immediately after that.

Tuesday in the Broch

Got back from Fraserburgh at a reasonable time last night and sat down to a lovely stew, potatoes, broccoli and peas that Jo had made. We then settled down to watch a movie - La Vie en Rose - Edith Piaf's life story - I would say it was about the best biopic I've ever seen - possibly even better than Walk the Line. Catch it if you can - it brought Jo out in a fit of the weepies!

Thinking ahead to next year - it's my 60th in March and Kelly's 30th in May. It was hinted when we were in Grants Pass that we should do something special to commemorate this - possibly hire a villa in Spain, big enough for all of us, for a week some time between our two birthdays. What do you think? The Costa or the Canaries is the easiest for us all to get to - there are usually direct flights from Aberdeen and, of course, London - and these would be the best places relatively near at hand to get some fairly guaranteed sunshine. Comments, please!

It's dry in Aberdeen this morning (Wednesday) and we're due to play golf tonight - fingers crossed! Talking about golf, Jo needs to get up to the driving range soon. She's now a fully paid up member of the golf club again, with time on her hands. If the weather had been a bit better, I'd have taken her out for a few holes some evening, but we haven't really had the chance yet. Perhaps Irene Page will give her a call some time and encourage her to get out there?

My Mum

It was 6 years ago today that my Mum died. I still remember the drive down to Glasgow. Barry had phoned in the morning and said we should come down as Mum was going downhill. I made arrangements at work and Jo and I packed and eventually set off about lunchtime. Barry phoned me as we were half way between Dundee and Perth - we were too late. The rest of the journey was a bit of blur. Wish we had set off sooner.

Monday

This posting is my 150th this year - I started this blog back in March, 2007 and have published a total of 261 so far (now 262) - plus another 45 on my golf blog and 12 on the football one! Let there be no doubt about who's winning the blog contest! Lucy has posted 55 so far, and Kelly and Craig exactly 100. Gary, who had the cheek to complain recently about others not posting regularly, has a mere 33 to his name - come on, you can do better!

Haven't set Jo's blog up yet - she's paranoid about doing it now, having conducted lengthy conversations with Mr Conspiracy Theory himself, Ross!

Anyway, yesterday was the start of my first full week back after vacation - it'll probably be a long one! I left the office early to go to the meeting with Jamie Burnett to find out the latest on the planned Hill of Banchory sports centre. It's still some away yet and the exact timing will be influenced by how soon Tesco get planning permission and how quickly Bandswim get the funding in place for the 25 metre pool - remember how the whole town collected for this over a decade ago? Anyway, I'll keep working away in the hope that squash courts will return to Banchory - long after I've given up by the look of it, but hopefully a new generation will get a chance to play a sport that I've had a lot of fun from - and made a lot of friends.

After the meeting, Keith, Richard and I went up to Jamie's court at Crathes - new toilet fitted, but no showers yet! - and played racquetball for the first time for a couple of months. It was great fun and reminded me of what I would be missing if I had simply taken my cardiologist's first advice, rather than "persuading" him that it would be OK to carry on playing with my fellow seniors at our leisurely pace.

As usual, we showered at the golf club and, as I was wearing my new Kaleidoscope (http://www.kaleidoscopepizza.com/) t-shirt, I thought there might be a photo opportunity - they have a collection of photos in their pizza pub in Medford of customers wearing their t-shirts in far-off places - but nowhere as far as Banchory. However, immediately after squash, this was not my finest moment and I think I'll leave it until another time before I send them a photo!:

Sunday

Well, we made it down to Forfar yesterday morning but the portents weren't good - the start was delayed by 35-40 minutes but at least it was dry (and sunny in parts) for most of our round - that was until the heavens opened round about the 14th hole.

The round took so long that I was going to be late for my tie at Torphins, which the committee had told me, rather brusquely, had to be played by Sunday evening. I was a little late, but not too bad and donned the waterproofs again and got my clubs and powacaddy all set up and we started off. It was pretty obvious that my opponent, however, did not like the looks of the gathering storms around us and eventually suggested we should just toss a coin. Secretly, I didn't fancy playing either - I was knackered - but equally didn't want to get knocked out of the Learney Cup (I am the holder after all!) by such random means. Eventually, however, I relented - and I'm happy to say I won the toss! Excellent result with the minimum of pain!

I seem to have been fated with my golf since I came back - I was so looking forward to playing some competitive golf again - especially at Banchory - but we were rained off on Wednesday - and Thursday - and then I had to cancel Saturday. I suppose I did get a full round, albeit rain interrupted, at Forfar yesterday, but Torphins was aborted last night as well, so one out of five is not a very good return, is it?

Anyway, tonight (Monday), we have a meeting with the Laird to discuss the Hill of Banchory sports centre development, which currently has 2 squash courts in the plans. However, we don't have a club any more and the very small band of ageing former members are weary from years of battling, so we don't really have much to offer - definitely not cash - and this could be the problem. We hope Jamie will build the courts on a purely speculative basis and then we can try and drum up the enthusiasm again - but I'm not holding my breath!

There were articles in both the P & J and the Piper last week about CALA's exhibition last week of their revised plans:

Keith White, chairman of Banchory Community Council is quoted as saying that the changes are purely cosmetic. I've written to the agents and asked them to send me a copy of their plans - we'll see if they are willing to do so, or whether this "consultation with the community" exercise was merely them playing games. I've also had some correspondence with Historic Scotland about listing the building - but I think that's a really long shot.

Jo's getting better now but Ross is still off work, awaiting his blood tests.

Well, I turned up for football on Friday - but it was truly awful - the brain was sending the signals out OK but they never reached below the waist - my feet were floundering on their own - it was like Bambi on ice.

I staggered home and had something to eat and had a brief chat with Lucy on the webcam. Then Carole and Luca arrived and once he was ready for bed, I wandered down to the pub and left Jo and Carole with a bottle of wine.

I got up on Saturday morning, looking forward to my first game of golf since we got home, but Jo was ill (S & D), and with Gary heading off to Donald's soon and Carole having a hair appointment in Aberdeen, guess who had to look after Luca and Isis? No golf today then, but I put Luca in the pushchair and got Isis' lead and walked up to Burnett Park, where I let them both off the leash - they had a whale of a time, running around in the empty park.

Luca and I had lunch then Carole got ready and I dressed Luca for the church:


I dropped Carole and Luca off at the church in Torphins and went home for a brief rest - but I dozed off and it was 3:00 pm by the time I awoke - I had to dash off and pick up Carole and Gary and take them to Glentanar for the reception. We made it eventually and here they are:

I took Luca home and fed him then went out for a walk, stopping off at the Douglas for a quick beer. On the way home, we went in to the War Memorial and I let the two of them run off their surplus energy again:

and here, in video:

This morning (Sunday), I'm the only one up and am now heading off to Forfar - sod's law, it's raining again. I'm also due to play a tie at Torphins this afternoon!