4th post Saturday

Going to Tenerife on 20th March was the ideal date for most - especially Lucy - so I'm lnow ooking round for something else on that date. If I couldn't get anything, however, how would 27th March departure be for everyone?

Stephen Fry in America

He's now in Arkansas where we holidayed the year that Lucy first moved to USA. Nice memories.

He's doing every state in the Union - Oregon soon!

Saturday morning vegetation

Check out the football blog (http://bvetsfootballgroup.blogspot.com/) for photos and videos from the Lemon Tree on Thursday and the Legion last night.


I was tinkering with my camera this morning - I've not been happy with it since I bought it - the old one (that Jo now uses) was much better. I tried changing some of the settings and managed to accidentally include my toes:

It's a lovely morning and the turning trees are still lovely to look out at.

When I brought up the display cabinet from Dad's house, I also took his old address book. Jo was looking through it yesterday and came across this page:

The handwriting is a little shaky but it's my Dad's. I think it came from a few years ago when Barry was encouraging him to write - and the day centre also encouraged reminiscence. These are obviously song lyrics that he was trying to remember - a little sad aren't they?

Gary, Ross and I are going to see Aberdeen play today and then tonight, the Kilgours and Masons are coming round for dinner.

Just now, we're telly vegetating - we've done last night's 2 Corrie episodes and now we're watching Stephen Fry in America - it's the Mississippi edition and he's in Clarksdale just now - home of the blues - remember I wrote about it a few weeks ago in my blog?

Much ado about nothing

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5sLRLhwnuGo

Bad news

The villa's not available from 13th to 25th March! Boo-hoo - will need to start again.

Cold morning and one or two slippy roads on the way to the Broch today. There had been a snow flurry round New Deer and a couple of cars had gone straight off the road - the police were there to warn us.

Well done Cade - next thing to do is to learn to type it yourself!

Tonight, it's the Lemon Tree for Seth Lakeman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Lakeman). Yesterday, I managed to download his 2004 LP Kitty Jay, which led to his Mercury Music award nomination as a pioneer of "nu-folk". Don't think I'll have time to get back from Fraserburgh and out again, so it's probably Archibald Simpson's curry night for me after work.

Holiday plans

Looks like most folk are easy so we'll probably try and leave Aberdeen on Friday 20th March (Jo's birthday) as this suits Lucy the best. I've just made contact with the villa owner again to check it's still available - after that, it's flight booking time.

Good to see Luca's OK and that Gary and Kelly are blogging away like good 'uns - but what's happened to Jo this week? I've given up on Lucy!

Awake early again

Still waking up at about 4:00 am every day - of course, going to bed just after 9:00 pm doesn't help! Must be the change of clocks.

Jo spent a lot of yesterday sorting out her kitchen cupboard and relocating some of the stuff to Dad's cabinet. It certainly looks a lot better than the state I left it in on Monday evening - note my trophy corner:


Now Jo has to decide where she wants the Alcatraz poster re-hung. It looks rather forlorn sitting on the floor at the top of the stair:



(Poor picture quality - taken with Blackberry this morning).

I downloaded another 2 albums last night - James Taylor - Covers; and Jackson Browne - Time the Conqueror. Both are new releases so if anyone wants a copy of these or any of the ones listed yesterday, just let me know.

As promised, today's list is audiobooks I have downloaded from e-music. So far, these are:

Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise (not listened to yet)

Charles Dickens - Bleak House

Geoffrey C Ward - Jazz (currently listening to)

Jack London - Boxed Set - Call of the Wild and White Fang

Keith Zimmerman - Alice Cooper Golf Monster

Monty Python - sketches

Neil Simon - Biloxi Blues (stage show)

Philip Roth - American Pastoral

Rick Reilly - Who's your caddy?

Steve Martin - Born standing up

Tom Robbins - Even cowgirls get the blues

Likewise, if you want a copy, let me know.

Tuesday - 3rd entry

You can tell I'm not having a good day. We've just been served with Sheriff Officer's papers in connection with the court case we're still running against John Anderson - remember Scofish' former Sales Director who defrauded the company, forged documents and told endless lies, with $2m. of herring disappearing in to a black hole in China? Well, his lawyers have now asked us to produce all the documentation going back 3-4 years. We can do it, but it's just sheer hassle and a lot of time - classic stalling tactics on their behalf.

It's not even 3:30 pm and already it's looking dark outside with occasional snow flurries. I don't think I'll hang around long.

Time for another list before I go - I subscribe to http://www.emusic.com/ - one of the few who actually pay for their downloads! Here's the music I've downloaded over the last couple of years:

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Aretha Franklin - Best of

Beck - Modern Guilt

Bert Jansch - The Black Swan

Bjork - Volta

Brian Jonestown Massacre - My Bloody Underground

Cat Power - Jukebox

Eric Burdon - Crawling King Snake

Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)

Graham Parker - Don't Tell Columbus

Ian Hunter - Shrunken Heads

James Taylor - One Man Band

Joanna Newsom - Ys

John Fogerty - Revival

Katie Melua - Pictures (one of my weaker moments!)

Miles Davis - Live at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival

Nils Lofgren - Sacred Weapon

Nina Simone - Protest Anthology

Otis Redding - Remember Me

Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full

Paul Weller - As Is Now

Pentangle - Early Classics

Pretty Things - Get the Picture

Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

Ronnie Lane - See Me

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Naturally

Thom Yorke - The Eraser

White Stripes - Icky Thump

That's it - I'm off. Tomorrow the audiobooks.

Holidays 2009

Apart from Lucy, nobody else has responded as to their preferred dates to Tenerife next year - hurry up, you lot!

I'm now thinking about our summer trip to the West coast. Possibly fly to Seattle this time, then down to Medford from there. A week in Grants Pass then we all fly from Medford to Salt Lake City for a week there, then back to GP for another week. Return back to Seattle and home. What do you think?

Winter arrives

First morning of frost today - had to scrape the windscreen. In fact, when I drove over the moor towards Garlogie, it was snow in places. Anyway, they say it's good to kill off the germs - and there's an old wives tale in the fishing industry that the sprats don't appear until we get some frost - and the catching season is due to start any day now - fingers crossed.

The collapse of sterling is going to increase our costs when we go to Florida next week - although the golf and accommodation is already paid for - we got an average rate of $1.80 for this, but it looks like we'll be lucky to get $1.50 next week. It's all a far cry from the $2.10 level a year ago when we booked it.

Had a quiet evening last night just watching Corrie - that was after Ross and I had brought up the bottom of the display cabinet from Dad's house. Gary and Ross had brought up the heavier top part on Sunday and we thought that might be OK, but Jo thought it looked like what it was - a top part sitting on the ground - so we've now erected the whole cabinet. It'll help with some of our storage issues - Jo says at least she can put my beer in it!

I've just finished off writing the latest Omnibus of Eastenders on DVD for Lucy, so that's me up to date now. This morning, I'm heading off to a seminar on fraud, hosted by one of the banks.

Camera shy Luca

Gary and Luca did eventually manage over yesterday. The first thing he did was run over to get a book and jump up on his Granny Jo's lap to get her to read to him. I took the camera out to try to get a photo but, as usual, like his mother, he managed to look away every time I clicked. Jo tried to encourage him to smile at the camera and eventually almost succeeded:


More medical news - Jacquie, our secretary, got the all-clear when she had her colonostomy this morning. Now all she has to worry about is when her husband Tom is going to get his triple bypass - he was prepared for it on Thursday morning but they had to cancel at the last minute as there wasn't a bed for him in the ICU - apparently there had been a couple of kids in road accidents and they took priority.

Jo's just back from the hospital - X-ray results in a couple of weeks - but her visit to the Doctor this morning was OK - her cholesterol was a little raised but nothing to get alarmed about. Her ECG results were also fine, although she still has a stress ECG to do.

And I've had my flu jab - ouch!

Hospitalisations could be an interesting list:

1) Medial ligament rupture - 1970

2) Rhinitis -1976

3) Peritonitis and appendectomy - 1977

4) Endoscopy - 1995

5) Cardioversion - 2005

It's only when I write them down that I realise I've had a few incidents - who can beat 5?

Medical week

It's all happening this week - I've got my flu jab this afternoon; Jo was at the Doctor's this morning re her cholesterol - and she's at the hospital this afternoon for the chest x-rays; and tomorrow Gary and Carole are off to Livingston again with little Luca for his next laser treatment.

Good luck to all!

Holiday time - vote now!

We have to decide - when to go to Tenerife? Flights are on Fridays so the choices are:

27th February

6th March (my actual birthday)

13th March (Friday the 13th!)

20th March (Jo's birthday)

Cast your vote now - rank them 1,2, 3 & 4 and we'll work out a consensus from there.

Weekend at home

Well I survived the football on Friday - and managed a few beers in the Douglas afterwards. Brian Fitzpatrick came along for a belated birthday celebration but spent most of the evening texting!

Golf on Saturday was a fun Texas Scramble and we managed a game of doubles later in the afternoon. The weather was not as wild as forecast and certainly not as bad as they seemed to get it in the west. There was some wind blowing the autumn leaves around - and the colours in the trees are fantastic - this is the view from our bedroom:

We were settling down to watch a movie on Saturday evening when Lucy called, so we just had a nice Skype with her instead.

The clocks went back so we had an extra hour to ourselves this morning - and what a glorious day it's been. I had my camera on the golf course with me and intended to take some more photos - I got Syd and Dick to pose then found out I had no battery power!

Gary phoned and apparently he and Luca are on their way here - but they must be running late.