Squash wasn't without incident - I packed my bag and went out the front door - but no car! Where had it gone? Ross had gone in to Aberdeen earlier on and I had suggested he should take my car which would be better in the snow - and cheaper! He declined on that occasion, but I guess he must have taken it as read that he could take my car any time he wants - which is mostly OK - as long he tells me!
I tried to get a lift up from Keith, but he was taking Richard (who couldn't get his Jag out of the drive because of the snow) in his little 4 wheel drive Audi TT and there really wasn't room for me as well. I then had no option but to take Jo's car - then I remembered that my racquets were in the Volvo so I had to phone Keith back and get him to take a spare racquet for me.
As I climbed up the Glassel hill, the snow on the roads got steadily worse and when I left the main Torphins road to turn up at the Tor-na-veen crossing it was pretty deep and Jo's car started sliding about. Fortunately, there was nothing coming the other way. I turned in to the Findrack estate and tried to climb up the road towards the squash court. I (just) managed up to the first level in front of the main house but couldn't risk any further so I left the car there and walked the rest through the deep snow.
When we came out after squash, there had been more snow (see squash blog - http://deesidesquashracquetballclub.blogspot.com/) and I had to be pushed to get going again.
We watched Charlie Wilson's War on Sky Anytime last night. It stars Tom Hanks as a senator supporting the Mujahideen in their guerilla war in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 80's. It's written with the full benefit of hindsight and the obvious irony of what's happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere since. Not bad. Sky Anytime is now showing virtually all of the Bond Movies - may watch some of them, but I think I'd quite like us to pay a rare visit to the cinema soon - everyone who has seen Slum Dog Millionaire tells me it's great.
A beautiful day today but it looks like it's going to be cold enough for a while to keep the snow on the ground - so definitely no golf! I'm going down to Glasgow on Tuesday - it's Dad's 6 month assessment at Erskine - I may try to book the train.
I'd been encouraged to write a short article for the next edition of the local CAMRA's branch's newsletter, North Sea Ale on the question of my 10 favourite beers. It got me to thinking about where and when, and our move down south in 1974 brought back some happy memories. We often used to visit the Bull in Broxbourne at weekends - particularly if it was sunny. They had a nice garden and Lucy (and eventually Gary) could run around whilst we supped a couple of pints. I looked up McMullen's web site today and there is a recent photo of the pub there:
Sadly, it looks like all the grass is gone and it's been tarmac'd over.
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