Good start to the week, weather-wise - hope it holds until the weekend as I'm heading to the West Coast for our annual walking weekend, which is being held a bit earlier than usual this year. Of course, I'm not really up to keeping up with the rest of the guys nowadays, and initially I had said I wouldn't be going at all, but I changed my mind several weeks ago and decided on a compromise solution which would involve me travelling over on Saturday and returning with them on Monday.
The rest of them - Ken Black, Ian Sharp, John McWhinnie, Colin Kilgour and, for the first time, Gordon Moir (plus dogs) - are heading over to Torridon on Thursday morning - with an afternoon walk there - and then a big walk on Friday round the Plockton area. On Saturday, they had intended to catch the ferry to Raasay and do 2 walks on the island, with me joining them for the second, easier, coastal walk in the afternoon, with us all heading to Skye afterwards. Their plans have now changed, however, primarily due to ferry times - they are now planning just one walk on Raasay, returning on the late afternoon/early evening ferry, which gives me no time to drive over from Banchory in time to catch a ferry over to the island.
Dilemma - what should I do? Do I just drive straight to Skye on Saturday and join them for dinner only and not do any walking that day - or do I just do my own thing and create a walk of my own somewhere and then meet up with them later? A third option is to travel over on Friday afternoon/evening to Plockton so that I am there, ready to go with them on Saturday morning - but I don't really want to do that if it can be avoided. Of course, all plans have to be flexible and are weather dependent anyway, but I hate not knowing what I'm doing.
Since my last blog, we've managed to FaceTime Kelly - and see her bump for the first time. It's her birthday today. Kelly was the only one of our four who was born at home - I vaguely remember that day, trying to play a support role to Jo and the Midwife, running up and down the stairs in our house in Broxbourne. Then, just a few months later, we left Hertfordshire and moved up to Edinburgh. There's a pattern here - we moved from Lanarkshire down to the South East within a year of Lucy being born, and we moved from Edinburgh to Banchory within a few months of Ross being born. The only exception was Gary, who was born in 1975 - we stayed in Broxbourne for a further 4 years after that. Anyway here's some 30 + year old memories of what little Kelly was like then:
Hope it was a nice birthday, Kelly - miss you - although the skin on the lobes of my ears have finally recovered after years of your twiddling!
It's a busy time of year golf-wise - we had the first of our bi-annual trips to Boat of Garten on Sunday/Monday 12th/13th. It was cold and I didn't manage to defend the trophy this time, coming in 4th out of the 12 who attended, but at least that means I don't have to organise the September outing now!
Played squash last Tuesday - the first time for a while - and it was a pretty hard session, by our standards anyway. Wednesday was the usual midweek evening golf, then on Thursday I went to get fitted for my knee brace. It was an odd experience - I had been promised he would be in touch within a week of me having seen the knee surgeon, but 3 weeks had passed and no contact, so I upped the ante and contacted the hospital again. Immediately, the physio's secretary phoned me and I got an appointment within 24 hours, but when we got there, he didn't seem to know much about why I was there. Anyway, he looked at the knee and took some measurements and said it would only be a matter of days before the brace arrived - although it could take longer than this to get an appointment again. It would be neat if I could get it before I went walking this weekend.
On Friday, I was invited to play the Old Course at St. Andrews. It was a late invitation from HSBC who are keen to get our business - and it was a no-brainer for me to accept it. There was a bit of a late whoopsy on Thursday when I found out they don't allow trolleys on the course before noon - concern that they might damage the hallowed turf, especially if there was a morning frost or dew. My host soon sorted that by booking me a caddy! It turned in to a magnificent day, with wall to wall sunshine and only a light breeeze. It was a blast to get a chance to play here again - it's more than 20 years since my one and only prior round there. Here's our fourball in front of the famous R & A clubhouse early on Friday morning - before the sun came out:
More golf in the medal at Banchory on Saturday morning, but this time I got wet as the heavens opened for the last 3-4 holes.
Yesterday (Sunday) was the last day of the English Premiership season, so Colin and I took the train down to Newcastle to watch them play Arsenal. It was a nice day out, marred only by us being seated amongst a loud, rowdy group on the Edinburgh - Stonehaven leg. Here I am at the match:
So that's me up to date again.
