Bank Holiday Blues

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

It's not a Bank holiday here - but it is in England and, seemingly, some other parts of Scotland. They can have it, though - it's pretty miserable in most of the UK anyway as yet another wet front passes through our island.

It's still August, however - we must hope that it's just passing. Perhaps we'll have an Indian Summer? Hope so - the golf season is rapidly coming to an end. This Wednesday is the last of our midweek evenings competition for the Quaich - an event I won last year, incidentally - and, on Friday we're at Aboyne for the Terry Edmonds' Memorial, then it's off to Boat of Garten on Sunday/Monday.

Talking about golf, this has been my worst season for a couple of decades in terms of scoring and events won etc. What can I put this down to? Perhaps my knees? I did play pretty well at St. Andrews last Tuesday, however, and again at Kintore on Thursday, so perhaps there's hope there yet.

The news that Neil Armstrong had died was another bit of our past gone. Like Kennedy's shooting, everyone can remember where they were on that day in 1969 - "one giant step for mankind". I was in a caravan in Paignton, Devon with my pals. Coming so soon after they successfully landed the probe on Mars, it was slightly ironic.

We watched the DVD of War Horse last night. I knew it would be a bit schmaltzy, but it was classic Speilberg and kept us well entertained for a couple of hours.

I've dished out the CAMRA LocAle stuff to the Douglas and the Burnett in Banchory, but need to get round to some of the other Deeside pubs soon and do likewise.

I'll finish again with a medical report. I had my annual full "M.o.T." on Wednesday at Nuffield Health. We usually go to Albyn, but thought we would try Nuffield for a change this year. They're pretty well organised, even although they had to postpone my medical by a week when the doctor who was due to see me left them at short notice. However, they were able to ship another in from Glasgow for the day, so that's the advantage of being with a national chain, I guess. It seemed to go OK, but I'll wait for the full report before further comment.

I also went to see the nurse at our local medical centre on Friday to have a look at the apparent foreign body in the sole of my foot. I can't see it, but she reckoned it was a verucca and so we're now treating it that way. Jo has since spotted another one on the same foot - where did I pick them up from?

This morning was my annual check-up with my cardiologist - ECG, treadmill, heart scan and physical examination. He reckoned my heart, apart from the known AF, was fine. He noted I couldn't do as long on the treadmill as a couple of years ago, but, equally, my heart rate didn't rise as far, which is due to the beta blockers of course. Just carry on, he said - get as much exercise as your heart - and your knees - will let you do.