Sweetness and light

OK - I'll try hard not to moan too much tonight - just one quick word about our bank - they had made a mistake - they hadn't undercharged us £40K - it was actually £56K!

And yes, we have lost all of our money in the Flyglobespan collpase - almost £4K. Much more important, however is finding another carrier to take over the Aberdeen - Faro flight - let's hope one appears soon.

Had a nice game of squash tonight, followed by Jo's latest soup/porridge concoction - very nice actually. Getting ready for our night out at the Milton tomorrow night now - 27 of us going.

I was offered 3 corporate tickets to go to the Emirates on Saturday to see Arsenal - Hull. I would have loved to have gone, but, it's a bit near Xmas and, anyway, we're babysitting. We've got our tickets to see Arsenal - Everton on 9th January, so I'm not really missing out.

Still haven't got anything for Jo's Xmas - any suggestions? Oh - and I finally got round to buying myself a new jacket the other day - and it's brown - I don't like brown - what do you wear with it?

More moans

Just heard the news about Flyglobespan going in to administration. I've just paid almost £4K for a group of 13 of us to fly to Portugal on a golf trip next October! What's worse, I used my debit card as they charge you less for this than a credit card, for which I would have been covered!

On top of the Flyglobespan news, I've just booked flights with BA to go to London on a footy weekend on 9th January - will they be on strike then?

Yours disgustedly,

Moaning Minnie

Shall I have another bleat today? I think so. Luca had a bad dream and woke us all in the middle of the night. Then, at 4 am, the cooker timer alarm went off and we were all up again - and guess who couldn't get back to sleep after all this?

Anyway, I'm now a few chapters in to my "blast from the past" book, No Mean City. It was written in the 30's about the hard life in the Gorbals and the razor gangs that abounded then. Leaves you with a slightly queasy feeling - although there's no real bad language or too much graphic detail. I learned what a "hairy" was - it's a phrase no longer used - I guess the modern equivalent in Aberdeen would be "minger". I must have had these horrid graphic images of the derivation when I was a teenager, but it transpires that it's a bit of a class thing - i.e. hairy means they weren't wearing/couldn't afford a hat!

B****y banks!

Well - after nearly 9 months of me complaining and their denial, our Bank finally fessed up today - they had overcharged us interest - just a mere £40K, that's all! True to form they then decided that they had to raise additional charges and increase the margins they were taking, so that they would get virtually it all back again!

I had a little rant at them, but I know full well that what goes around comes around, so there's little point in having a complete fall-out - that's what's so frustrating about it all. Of course, they need to increase their charges because they're having to pay the Goverment a huge premium on the money that baled them out a year ago. Meanwhile, relatively small local businesses who have survived (so far) through the Credit Crunch without any Government intervention or aid are being punished for their failures. Where's the morality in all this?

I've started so I may as well get all my rants off my chest now. We're still having fun and games with our number one customer - our Senior Technical Manager's head has rolled and we're now re-organising internally.

OK - who's next? What about Harvey's? Yes, the sponsor of Coronation St - and supplier of the settees in our back room. My seat is getting ever more uncomfortable and I'm seriously thinking of ditching it after not much more than 18 months' use. The photos don't really show the deterioration - on the left is the photo from exactly a year ago, when their rep came out and declared it was just normal "TV seat". On the right is tonight's photo. Maybe this is the reason for my grumpy mood.

On a brighter note, we are looking after Luca overnight - he seems to enjoy coming here to see his Grannie Jo and he's always on good form.

Tomorrow, it's the dentist for me again - but this time, it's a relatively routine visit to the hygienist - wish me well.

Fife trip

We had a nice little trip down to St Andrews on Friday - eventually! I had agreed to meet Jo at Stracathro and phoned her at 1:30 pm advising her to leave now, hoping she might get there about 2:15 pm. Given the previous track record, I didn't rush leaving Bridge of Don, but I was still down there with plenty of time to spare. I waited - and I waited. Eventually, I felt I had to phone - no answer of course. I tried Ross' phone, as I knew there was a possibility that he would be driving his Mum over Cairn o' Mount - no answer from him either. What had happened to them?

Round about 3:10 pm, the little Almera pulled in to view, with Jo looking slightly stressed in the passenger seat. They had got a little fed up following slow moving traffic over the hill, and Ross had decided to take a left turn at Clatterin' Brig. Where does that take you? To Drumtochty, and, if you take another wrong turn, Auchenblae. It seems that Ross has inherited his mother's legendary (lack of) sense of direction.

After that, the trip down to St Andrews was relatively plain sailing and we got there with time enough to stop off in the town to book a table for dinner at the Doll's House. At the hotel, we had been upgraded to a suite with what would have been a lovely view out to sea, were it not for the fog enveloping Fife. My camera was still in the car, but Jo took several photos of our room and hopefully we'll see them on her blog.

I had booked us in for a massage - what a shock to the system that was! We were both in the same room on adjacent tables this time and I discovered later that we were playing a game of chicken - who would squeal with pain first of all? How could a little slip of a girl inflict so much pain on me? Was it worth it? I think so - although Jo was still complaining about the pain in her shoulders the following day!

There was no shuttle service running to town after 6 pm so we had to order a taxi, and we had a G & T while we waited. Our booking wasn't until 9 pm so we also managed a couple of beers in the Central Bar first of all. Our meal was excellent - I'd go back to the Doll's House again.

On Saturday morning, we weren't quite ready for breakfast, so we nipped down for a quick dip and a read of our books. After breakfast, we noticed the fog was lifting so we set off for Crail and a short walk along the Fife Coastal Trail. This is Crail harbour:

This was the street we walked down to the harbour:

and here's Jo with the sea behind her:

Crail is at the very start of the Firth of Forth and we could see right down to East Lothian and the Bass Rock - although it was still a little misty and the camera wouldn't capture it all. This was the view of the mouth of the harbour from the viewpoint:

We did a loop round the town and came back along Market Gate, where Jo was taking some  photos: