Football at Goals went ok last night - and it wasn't too cold. Our headbang went well - check football (http://bvetsfootballgroup.blogspot.com/) blog for details.
Today has been slow - I had arranged to pick up my car this afternoon - I left it at Dave's last night. Unfortunately, this meant me missing out on a trip to Inverurie - Carole called Jo out on a late mercy mission to babysit.
Ian R. Stewart Family Blog
Saturday 6 December 2008
Friday 5 December 2008
Friday - busy, busy, busy
Still no snow, but some rain on top of ice on the back roads could be dangerous. No problems on main roads or in Aberdeen.
I thought yesterday would seem like a long day to me, being at home and with no time wasted in the car - but it slipped by fairly quickly. In the evening, we managed to completely catch up with our backlog of Little Dorrits - an intriguing tale and one that's got our resident Poirot/Sherlock foxed for now - if you know the story, don't tell her!
I went to the optician and got the all-clear again on the glaucoma tests - I've been getting annual tests done for years because Mum had glaucoma. All Scots also now get free two year eye tests, so that was also done yesterday. She said she could tweak my prescription a little on my distance (driving) glasses, and she asked again why, as both prescriptions are only minor ones (0.5/0.75 + 1.50 for near), I didn't go for varifocals - I said I'd done that before and didn't like them much, but we'll see - I might try again some time.
Playing footy again tonight - it's normally at the Beach, but it's not available, so it's outdoors at Goals - brrrr! From there, it's straight off to Dave's for a headbang.
Spare a thought for Jo and Mary - their Mum would have been 86 today. I like this photo from our trip to Spain in 1999:
I thought yesterday would seem like a long day to me, being at home and with no time wasted in the car - but it slipped by fairly quickly. In the evening, we managed to completely catch up with our backlog of Little Dorrits - an intriguing tale and one that's got our resident Poirot/Sherlock foxed for now - if you know the story, don't tell her!
I went to the optician and got the all-clear again on the glaucoma tests - I've been getting annual tests done for years because Mum had glaucoma. All Scots also now get free two year eye tests, so that was also done yesterday. She said she could tweak my prescription a little on my distance (driving) glasses, and she asked again why, as both prescriptions are only minor ones (0.5/0.75 + 1.50 for near), I didn't go for varifocals - I said I'd done that before and didn't like them much, but we'll see - I might try again some time.
Playing footy again tonight - it's normally at the Beach, but it's not available, so it's outdoors at Goals - brrrr! From there, it's straight off to Dave's for a headbang.
Spare a thought for Jo and Mary - their Mum would have been 86 today. I like this photo from our trip to Spain in 1999:
Thursday 4 December 2008
Dawn
John phoned to let me know that Dawn had her knee operation this afternoon - he was heading off to the hospital to see her. She's in the Golden Jubilee hospital, Clydebank - East Wing, Level 2, Room 217 and will probably be there until Monday. Phone number is 0141-951-5000.
Thursday working from home
As I half suspected, having re-arranged everything to work from home today, the snow never arrived - I feel like a cheat!
We watched the final part of Stephen Fry in America last weekend and this one covered the West Coast, including the drive-through tree that we were at a few years ago and the Rogue River, where we went on one of the Hellgate trips last year. Here's a snippet:
Haven't seen Q magazine's 50 best albums of 2008, Gary, but I've just glanced at its sister paper Mojo's one - I think I've only got one of their choice - Beck.
I played football at Banchory last night - mistake. Somebody decided to play with an outdoor ball which whizzed around like a dervish - maybe the youngsters enjoyed it but I certainly didn't. What's wrong with using an indoor ball for indoor football? It was made worse when Stephen Thomson - half my age and twice my size - banged one at me and it caught me full on the side of my face - boy it hurt!
In between work today, I'm preparing for our headbang tomorrow night. The beer has been delivered to Potarch and I'll take the projector and screen out to Dave's later on today - probably when I go for my optician's appointment later on.
Old cliche but, as if to prove the point, Jo said to me last night when she spoke about getting our Xmas tree and wanting me to go with her - "I thought when I retired I would get to spend more time with you?". That was last night - this morning, it's "you're upsetting my routine with you being at home"! Fickle or what?
Wednesday 3 December 2008
Preparing for the onslaught
Getting home before 4:30 pm yesterday meant an evening of telly watching. Jo had been saving up the Little Dorrits for me and I finally got round to watching a few episodes. Dickens' tales wander and weave in a slew of characters, many of them eccentrics - and the BBC's production emphasises this trait - good viewing. OK, I'm hooked now - perhaps a few more tonight.
My journey to work was OK this morning but everyone else seems to be complaining about the roads. We've had dire warnings about tonight's weather and I've already cancelled one of our management meetings in the Broch tomorrow. Bring it on - I'll just work from home.
It was my pal Dan Corbett's 66th birthday yesterday - you all remember him? He left Banchory over a decade ago and now lives in Linlithgow, although we still see him at various golf outings etc. You might remember what he used to look like before the beard came off - this rather grainy one came from 1993:
More recently, at Chicago airport on the way home from Florida:
The one constant, however, is Dan's "lazy" right eye. He told me yesterday that, after all these years, he was in hospital last week to have it sorted. Dan reported "That is the right eyelid that has been more or less closed for up to 60 years. One opthalmic optician had told me that I had probably been uniocular for all that time.
The procedure that the doctor followed was to chop a bit from both eyelids and tie them up a bit higher by shortening the tendon that works each eyelid. It was a terribles 2 hour ordeal but the results are, in a word, spectacular; that is from what I can now see vis-a-vis what I could see a week ago.
I will have the external stitches out this evening and the internal ones will dissolve in time. The photos are quite horrendous and I will not be circulating them; it did look like I had gone a few rounds with a particularly hard-hitting boxer. But I expect there to be an improvement before the end of this year."
So there you go - there's always hope!
Finally booked our flights to Tenerife for the February golf trip - phew!
My journey to work was OK this morning but everyone else seems to be complaining about the roads. We've had dire warnings about tonight's weather and I've already cancelled one of our management meetings in the Broch tomorrow. Bring it on - I'll just work from home.
It was my pal Dan Corbett's 66th birthday yesterday - you all remember him? He left Banchory over a decade ago and now lives in Linlithgow, although we still see him at various golf outings etc. You might remember what he used to look like before the beard came off - this rather grainy one came from 1993:
More recently, at Chicago airport on the way home from Florida:
The one constant, however, is Dan's "lazy" right eye. He told me yesterday that, after all these years, he was in hospital last week to have it sorted. Dan reported "That is the right eyelid that has been more or less closed for up to 60 years. One opthalmic optician had told me that I had probably been uniocular for all that time.
The procedure that the doctor followed was to chop a bit from both eyelids and tie them up a bit higher by shortening the tendon that works each eyelid. It was a terribles 2 hour ordeal but the results are, in a word, spectacular; that is from what I can now see vis-a-vis what I could see a week ago.
I will have the external stitches out this evening and the internal ones will dissolve in time. The photos are quite horrendous and I will not be circulating them; it did look like I had gone a few rounds with a particularly hard-hitting boxer. But I expect there to be an improvement before the end of this year."
So there you go - there's always hope!
Finally booked our flights to Tenerife for the February golf trip - phew!
Tuesday 2 December 2008
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!
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!
Sunday 30 November 2008
Seasick Steve
Sorry, Kelly - despite being a fan and recently going to see him, I don't have any of his albums. Got a few videos for our headbang, but that's all.
Another superb day today - very cold but bright and windless - see my golf blog for a photo.
Another superb day today - very cold but bright and windless - see my golf blog for a photo.
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