Active week

Monday did turn out just as the weather forecasters had predicted - wall to wall sunshine and temperatures in the 20's C. Lovely - even although my golf was poor.

Tuesday was our monthly Board meeting in Aberdeen and later on we presented CAMRA's Club of the Year award to the Legion (http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/legion-presentation-and-more-publicity.html).

I had a lot of reading and research to do on Wednesday so I didn't waste any time travelling to and from the office and just worked from home for a while. This did allow me some free time, however, and I was able to join the midweek Cycling group for the first time for a while (http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/robins-match-report-from-this-mornings.html).

It was a damp day and it didn't let up in the evening when we played golf. I had to leave my gear in the drying room at the club overnight.

Thursday was Fraserburgh and the weekly Management Meeting. I got home in the evening and was knackered. How can this be after only 3 days' work? It's not the work, it's the travel - I'm finding it harder as I get older. Thankfully, I could have a lazy lie-in on Friday morning - I slept for over 9 hours.

We were finally able to FaceTime with Kelly again. She had called me at work on Thursday and we arranged to call her back on Friday morning when we had more time - and Jo was around to see little Miller crawling all over the place. He even managed to stand up for the first time on Thursday - but then promptly fell back down again! Kelly sent us this photo of him holding himself up:

I know - the photo's sideways and it looks like Miller is horizontal, but he's not really.

Jo is finally feeling a bit more like her old self and she was able to take her first tentative steps back swimming again on Wednesday and on Friday. You could say she was dipping her toes in the water - not yet quite back to her usual 40 lengths, but at least able to do some exercise again.

This meant I was at a bit of a loose end on Friday afternoon, so I decided, on the spur of the moment, as it was such a nice day and I had missed out on Sunday's planned walk, that I would go and climb Hill of Fare - all by myself. It was delightful - I never saw another soul - it was just me and the Arctic Monkeys. Here I am at the top:

(More photos and stats at http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/hill-of-fare.html)

I met Keith Gray for a quick pint at the Legion after my walk - it was the end of his first week back at work again. I had a couple more pints later in the Douglas Arms with the usual Friday night crew.

I'm travelling to Elgin tomorrow to play in a Texas Scramble and we're hoping to walk up Clochnaben again on Monday morning, so, I decided to pull out of this afternoon's golf at Banchory, on the basis that I would be knackered by Monday if I went through with everything.

Jo's pal from college days - Sadie - has been in touch again and she and her husband, Brian are coming up to Ballater in a couple of weeks' time, so we've arranged to meet up with them. It'll be their first meeting for over 40 years. They share the same birthday and have swapped cards every year but have never actually met up since we moved to London in 1974.

Sunday evening - USA FaceTime

It's Sunday evening and Jo and I were planning to watch the first episode of Fargo, but Lucy has FaceTimed so I'm sitting here listening to the two of them talking - mostly Jo of course.

Lucy has blogged again (check the sidebar to my blog for a link to hers) and told us about Scott's accident with his motorcycle - doesn't sound good. What sounds more positive is Cade and his girlfriend - can you believe it?

My planned walk up Hill of Fare this morning with Colin Kilgour, Ken Black and Andy Marshall had to be aborted due to poor visibility - there was a bit of haar and we would have been walking through low cloud and wouldn't have got any decent views. Having already cancelled golf, and knowing I had to do something, having not had any exercise since Wednesday night's golf, I decided to go for a cycle on my own. I headed east on the Deeside Way past Crathes and then turned up the hill at Myrebird, just before Drumoak and looped back that way. 12 miles (19 kms) in all, lasting 86 minutes and climbing almost 700 feet. Here I am at the end of my cycle at the War Memorial:

Forecast is for high temperatures in the North East tomorrow - 20-21 C - and I'm playing for the Seniors against Royal Aberdeen. That will at least be some compensation for missing out on yesterday's Medal at Banchory, which was cancelled due to overnight rain. The course was open again before noon but it was too late for the competition.

That's about it. Nothing special for this week other than a Board Meeting on Tuesday morning. Otherwise, same old, same old.