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Friday 9 August 2013

Friday already

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Yes, it's been a strange week - I don't know whether I'm coming or going - but the weekend is almost here already. I think I would like a 3 day week every week.

Still not got a settled sleep pattern - usually waking about 3 am every morning, although it was 6:30 am yesterday - the very day I did want to be up early as I had to go to Fraserburgh. I experienced some severe pain in my foot yesterday and it got so bad that I couldn't put any weight on my left foot at all. It was a struggle to get from my office to the car and then to drive home with a manual clutch.

Jo got me a bag of frozen peas to put on it last night as we caught up with some of our Sky box recordings (mostly old Corries) and that helped a bit, and today it seems a little better. I had no idea how it happened - the foot was fine when I went to bed on Wednesday night after golf, but it was suggested to me that it might be caused by fallen arches. After all, I had been waddling around for a month on flip-flops ("thongs" to those Down Under) and suddenly on Wednesday night I was wearing my golf shoes again with the orthotic wedges in them, which raise the arch, then it was back to work shoes on Thursday.

I've taken the precaution of putting the wedges in my work shoes this morning and it definitely seems to have helped. Fingers crossed.

I received the online link to our digital photos that were taken at the Venetian, Las Vegas - try http://store.cashmanphoto.com/create/image-creation-gs.aspx?a=AlwdrCOtoRdQZf3R9jlE to view them with the code VEGD-7RQ5-UH6R.

That's about it for today. Jo and I are making a very quick trip down to Elderslie and back tomorrow, as I promised to play in Brian's team at his club's Men's Invitational Day. Brian himself is up in Banchory the weekend of 24th/25th August to play in the same thing at my club.

Another future event is my annual trip to see my cardiologist on Thursday 22nd August.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Ross

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

OK - change of plan - here's Ross with his shorter haircut - courtesy of Gary, who seems to be getting a bit of a wigging here from Ross:


Back at work

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

We stayed up till 10 pm last night, watching the semi-final and the final of The Apprentice, which was aired in the UK just after we left to go to USA. Amazingly, we managed to avoid finding out who won, so it was fun to watch it "as live".

Ross came over with fish suppers for our tea. He looks very smart with his hair shorter - but we didn't ask him to pose for a photo.

So, after not sleeping on the plane on Monday night and then staying up until 10 pm last night, you would have thought I would sleep for 10 hours last night, wouldn't you? You would be wrong - I woke at 2:45 am, but refused to get up then. I rolled around until 5:30 am and eventually got up and came in to the office.

I wonder how long I will last here? It's Wednesday and, after tonight, there's only 3 weeks left of our midweek golf - how sad. I'll see how I'm feeling later on, but I'd like to play tonight - if I can stay awake.

Fraserburgh tomorrow - and I've got some organising to do, after the tragic accident a couple of weeks ago when Ken's (my right hand man) 14 year old son was knocked down and killed on his bike. I spoke to Ken on the phone when we were away and told him to stay away from work as long as he needed. Hope he's coping OK.

It's all happening a bit too soon, but we're travelling down to Elderslie on Saturday - it's the annual Invitational tournament at Brian's club. Ideally I would have preferred our first weekend back to be spent at home, but hey ho. The weekend after that we're off to the Fringe, so no rest for the party-goers.

That's it for now - although, I may have a couple of travel-related rants on My Pet Hates blog later on - if I have time.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Home again

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

We're home again now. We managed to get an earlier flight back to Aberdeen and were back in Banchory not long after 2 pm today. Nice to come back to some sunshine and a nicely warm 20 C.

Jo's watering her plants now - a few of them suffered a bit in the heatwave.

We're all delighted to hear Kelly's news - it was obviously a stressful birth - for both Kelly and little Miller - but hopefully both will recover soon. The time differences had made things a bit awkward as we were travelling home and we were getting a little concerned at the apparent lack of any news. Every time we jumped off a plane we checked for text messages - but there were none for a while, until we finally received the news when we landed at Gatwick this morning. Looking forward to FaceTiming when she gets home later in the week.

In other news, Ross has had his hair cut! We popped in to Tease this afternoon and had to do a double take. I'll try and post a photo - if he lets me.

So, back to work tomorrow. Hope I get some sleep tonight - I certainly didn't last night.

Monday 5 August 2013

USA 2013 (10)

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

We're sitting here in the lounge at McCarran Airport, Las Vegas waiting for our big flight across the Atlantic. But let me tell you first of all about our initial problems getting from Medford, Oregon to here yesterday.

Lucy drove us down to Medford and we were early enough to have to wait for the check-in staff for Alaska Airlines to show up. When they did, it was with bad news - the first flight from Medford to Portland was delayed - by anywhere between an hour and a half and two hours. This would mean we would miss our connection to Vegas. It was now approaching 6pm in the evening and we began to panic a little about how we would get to Vegas in time to pick up the BA flight this afternoon (Monday).

Options were to go back to Lucy's and sleep for a couple of hours (if we could) then head back to Medford and catch a 5 am plane to Portland this morning to link with a 7 am flight from Portland to Vegas. Possible, but not really desirable. Also, we had already paid for our room at the Trump Hotel, Las Vegas and that would be lost.

We initially thought about just waiting for the Alaska flight to Portland and staying there overnight, but apparently that would have negated our through tickets with them - they wouldn't let us split the journey like this.

Eventually, we spied a better solution - there was a flight with Allegiant scheduled to go directly to Las Vegas in a couple of hours. Could we swap? Alaska Airlines agreed and arranged for us to get tickets (which we had to pay for) and promised they would refund what we had paid Alaska, on the basis that they couldn't get us to Vegas that night. Result!

So we made it to Vegas in good time and spent the night and this morning in a large suite at Trump International Hotel, which, almost uniquely in Vegas, doesn't have a casino. Our bathroom was bigger than many of the hotel rooms we have stayed in in the past:


WC on the door to the left and large double shower room to the right.

Now we're here at the airport just counting the minutes. We thought we might have heard from Kelly and Chris this morning - Kelly went in to labour yesterday, but no messages yet. The time differences don't help, of course. Soon, we hope.

To finish, here's me posing in our trailer in the t-shirt that Scott gave me as a present yesterday:


Sunday 4 August 2013

USA 2013 (9)

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Final day here in Grants Pass. Our flight leaves Medford at 6:50 pm tonight, but, before that, Scott's Mum, Dad & Sister arrive over here for a birthday lunch.

On Friday we hung around here - the skies were blue again, although there is still the smell of smoke and the ever-present threat of the wind changing and smoke smothering Grants Pass again. They say these fires could burn for months yet. When we first arrived in Vegas, the flames we saw in the mountains had apparently been burning for 4 months and still they couldn't control or contain them.

Cade's new laptop was acquired on Friday evening. We were dropped off at Southern Oregon Brewery whilst they shopped and then we were picked up and we all went for dinner to Red Lobster:


When we got up on Saturday morning, the living room was appropriately decorated for Cade's birthday:


We - or, rather, Cade - decided that a day in Eugene would be nice, so we got up and loaded the truck and hit the road, but, first of all, we took the opportunity to pose for the traditional holiday family photo:


Cade then suggested they do a silly face version of this - Scott and I declined:


When we got to the University town of Eugene, we walked round the Saturday market and Cade spotted a bonsai tree that he wanted to buy for his birthday, so thank-you Uncle Gary and Aunt Carole for this:


Braeden bought some berries. I thought at first that the type was mock-Scottish, but apparently Lockness is a real type of berry:


We had lunch at the Eugene City Brewery, and Cade and Braeden had root beers - not stout!:


Then we walked round the campus and took some photos:


The "Cas" deliberately obliterated
Next stop was the home of the Ducks:


Cade's request for dinner was Chinese at PF Chang's and here he is scoffing his birthday dessert:


So that's about it then for another year - although we will see them all again at Christmas in Scotland.

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