Knee residue

Twelve weeks on, with the top of my scar (where the wound was closed) still a little swollen and angry looking, this morning a tiny fragment finally came out of the area that we have been treating to coax any residue out of:

Can you see it? A tiny little piece of we know not what. Will my knee now finally settle down? We'll have to wait and see.

End of the week

The last 2 days of the working week have been pretty hectic - I've hardly moved from my desk - mostly doing annual appraisals of our Managers. Eight down, five to go - scheduled for Monday/Tuesday. Then comes the worst part - documenting it all - that's always a pain.

I haven't been to Bannatyne's since Monday. I did half an hour on the bike then, and have had a few shorter sessions on the static bike at home since then. I've managed to move the saddle down another notch, so that's progress, I guess.

At least it's almost the weekend now and our regular Friday night will be at the Burnett tonight, when our friend Nigel Meany will be making one of his infrequent appearances, having flown in from Dubai - on the day of his 55th birthday too.

Tomorrow morning we've got a house call from Everest - apparently just checking that everything was ok with our kitchen installation - although I suspect there'll be some hard sell going on as well. We've got Woodend Barn in the evening to look forward to, preceded by dinner at Buchanan's.

Last night, I featured in a vintage photo in the local Evening Express. This would normally have been one for Renshaw's Chronicles, but I'm already past 1987 when the photo was taken, so it'll have to appear here:

That's me lurking at the back, 6th from the left, eyes almost closed. I vaguely recall the event - the one outstanding thing I remember is talking to joint prize winner Ray Dinsdale (5th from the right). He was the MD of Richards, carpet makers, (in)appropriately, because he was wearing probably the worst "rug" I had ever seen. Your eyes were magnetically drawn to this thing on the top of his head - it was spooky.

That's our (now deceased) Chairman, Dr. Francis Clark, receiving the award, 4th from the left, with my colleagues Bill Hazeldean and Ron Porteous, 2nd and 3rd from the left respectively. I was but 38 when this was taken.

Tuesday/Wednesday

Ross was first to leave Gary's after dinner last night and he took Jo's car back to Banchory, but Jo and I weren't far behind in my car. We watched Corrie, with Hayley's closing scene - Jo was in tears at her death - and then it was part 6 of The Bridge. That was enough TV for us for one night.

The downside of Ross taking Jo's car was that all my leg massage oils etc were still in it, so I missed out yesterday - and today so far. I've spent a lot of time in the car the last few days as well - over to Aviemore on Sunday, back to Aberdeen on Monday, and then up to Fraserburgh on Tuesday and back to Banchory, via Inverurie yesterday. The leg gets a bit stiff sitting in the car.

I did get to Bannatyne's on Monday and spent 30 minutes on the bike, moving the seat steadily further in to stretch my knee. I had a snack there too as my evening meal, with Jo and Ross still in Aviemore and me home alone.

Today some of us received the following picture of Miller in the bath from Kelly:

Wish we were there. Need to plan our next trip out.

Back in Deeside, we're still waiting for a proper winter to arrive - it's still too mild and when we do get precipitation, it's rain. Bound to change soon.

This weekend we've got Newton Faulkner (http://www.newtonfaulkner.com/gb/home/) at Woodend Barn, preceded by dinner at Buchanan's - that's something to look forward to. We're also considering going to the Winter Words Festival (http://www.pitlochry.org/whats_on/winter-words-festival.htm) in Pitlochry next month - as we did in the last few years.

In between, we have the first Headbang of 2014 two weeks on Friday (7th), followed by a tour round Deeside Brewery the following day. I had hoped to be able to do this over Xmas/New Year when everyone was here, but couldn't get it organised at that time.

I think that's about all that's on the go just now.

Weekend etc

Ross and his pals seemed to enjoy their short weekend in Aviemore, and Jo and I drove through on Sunday afternoon to take Ross out to dinner in Aviemore. We walked from Dalfaber - sorry, now called Spey Valley Golf & Country Club - down to the other end of Aviemore and had a nice meal in the warm and friendly Bridge Inn.

After dinner, we stopped outside and admired their external smoking shelter, complete with old piano, Chesterfield suites and logs for the winter too:

Very nice. On our walk back, we popped in to the Winking Owl for a quick half.

Monday morning and I had to go back to work - eventually - but Jo and Ross stayed one more night, and I am meeting up with them later on this afternoon in Inverurie, on my way back from Fraserburgh.

That's about it for now. Must dash.