Saturday

Going rather slow today - I was late home after our headbang last night (details on football blog). Jo's not feeling so bright - she thinks she's now coming down with what I've had this week.

So, just chilling out today prior to going to play squash at 4:30 pm. More rain overnight so not sure if we'll manage golf in the morning or not - hope we do.

Next weekend we're heading down to Glasgow to scatter Dad's ashes. I've booked us in to St Andrews Bay on the Friday night, so a bit of a detour on the way down, but at least we don't have to dash down and back on the same day - and I'm sure the bed will be a bit more comfortable than the one at Barry's!

Friday the 13th!

Take care today!

I'm finally starting to feel a bit better - even had a reasonable sleep last night - didn't cough half as much as I have been recently. Now looking forward to our headbang at Dave's tonight - we start with our obituary spot - 12 notables (including MJ) have passed on since our last headbang in February - bet you can't guess many of them - come to think of it, you probably haven't heard of many of them!

We played doubles squash again last night - and we've got a new recruit to our ranks, who came along for the first time last night. He's a bit younger - just reached 55 - and a lot quicker and pretty useful, so the game was a bit more frantic than usual. Hoping to get another game on Saturday as well.

Great to see Kelly's blog up and running - with photos too.

Ross has had a few call-outs this week - he's got 2 jobs today in fact - Torphins in the morning and another one in the afternoon. He was out on Wednesday night as well to do a job, and he's been working a lot with Trish next door to get her computer systems up to date as well. She was obviously well pleased with him because she even came along and handed him a lovely thank you letter - I should have scanned it and posted it.

Some Blog stats

Still feeling choked up - coughing half the night away when I lie down. I feel OK most of the time - I'm even planning to play squash tomorrow (although I've pulled out of footy on Friday) - but it's worse when I'm lying down, trying to sleep.

Perhaps my mood contributed to me re-iterating the point that Gary keeps making and having another moan this morning about lack of blog entries. Rather than just having a general moan, I thought it would be good to try to be analytical and look at the actual stats:

1. Me - I run 4 different blogs - family, golf, football and squash. I started blogging in March, 2007 and have so far posted a total of 875 separate blogs - 595 of them on the family blog, of which there have been 203 this year alone. My overall average posting rate therefore works out at just short of one for every day since I started.
2. Gary - was a late starter (Sep 08) but has since posted 183 blog entries on the current blog (plus one he ran for a little while before moving to Blogspot). Gary, on average, is posting every other day.
3. Lucy - started November 2007 and has so far posted a total of 202 blogs - which works out at about half the rate of Gary's.
4. Jo - started September 2008 and has posted 184 so far, which, a little surprisingly, is almost identical to Gary's rate. There has been a big drop off in recent months, however - Jo will cite technical problems, but she will also confess that she has lost some interest.
5. Kelly - what can I say? We keep waiting for the Kelly in Oz blog to start up, but there's still no sign of it!

So -here's the challenge - set yourself a realistic goal, based on past performance, and then stick to it, so we all know what to expect - even if it's only one per week. I enjoy reading them all and personally can't get enough of them - and Facebook doesn't even come close to matching what a blog can offer.

Rant over - have a good day!

Sniffles

I'm sure you'll all be fascinated to check out all the beers that were available at the 1st Stonehaven Beer Festival last week - click to enlarge:

As Gary reported, we went to Pittodrie on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day and I parked the car near the Doubletree hotel and walked over Broad Hill and admired the views on a clear, crisp day - looking south first, then north:

My pathetic little camera doesn't really do it justice - I'm almost getting ready to toss it now - fed up with holding it together with pieces of sellotape. Mmmm - Christmas is coming soon!

As I peched my way to the top of the hill, I remembered how John McWhinnie and I used to run over it at lunchtimes 20 years ago.

I'm hoping my cold symptoms are coming to an end soon. I played golf on Sunday OK, but my head and chest have been full of catarrh and I'm constantly coughing and struggling to sleep properly. I even played squash doubles last night and just about coped, although I was struggling to breathe during one or two of the longer rallies. I'll probably head for the steam room at Bannatyne's at lunchtime today to see if that helps.

No more to say really - Ross has had a couple of enquiries and will hopefully get some work out of it. With Jo acting as his "secretary" and diary keeper, what are the chances of keeping appointments made? Good, I hope - but I'll need to keep chivvying them!