Saturday Deeside run

My real birthday (Friday) was a fairly quiet one, having had my nice family meal the night before. Jo always goes swimming on a Friday afternoon and I go to the pub on Friday evening. Creatures of habit, both of us, we stuck to tradition.

I had, however, been invited by Keith Gray to go to Kippie - the Aberdeen Petroleum Club - in the afternoon. It was nearly scuppered when D & D, Slaters turned up unannounced mid-morning. They had some work to do on our roof and cladding and we knew they were coming soon, but we didn't expect them to turn up now. They finished what they could do by lunchtime, which let me go to Kippie with Keith, and they'll be back on Monday.

Keith and I hit some golf balls on the range - it was a little soon after my operation, but I managed OK without too much discomfort. I did a little work on my quads in the gym afterwards and then went for a short swim and steam room.

Today, I decided it was time to finish off the Deeside deliveries of the local CAMRA quarterly newsletters, so Jo and I set off late morning and drove down to Braemar. We had a bit of time to kill, so we thought we would go a little further west in to the hills to Linn o' Dee, a place we hadn't been to since all the kids were at home.

It's a spectacular spot as the Dee charges under a bridge and through a narrow gorge, carving huge swathes out of the rocks over the centuries. The following video - http://youtu.be/TPtXMdUQ_so - and photographs, demonstrate:

Back in Braemar we went to The Bothy for a plate of soup:

The outdoor tables weren't all that inappropriate - North East Scotland was reputed to be the warmest in Europe today with temperatures peaking at 16/17 C - not bad for this area in early March.

Ballater, Tarland, Torphins and Banchory deliveries were made after this and that's us done now.

Tomorrow, we're off to Glasgow for a family reunion, organised by Lesley Bannatyne.

Friday - birthday boy

Got my stitches out on Wednesday. The nurse put a couple of small micropore strips on but they will fall off soon. She also advised me to rub E45 cream on them after 4 or 5 days to help with the scarring, and to keep taking the Ibuprofen. The swelling is reducing and there's less pain now when I walk - so much so that I managed a slow 36 kms on the bike yesterday morning. When I got home, Jo was hard at work in the back garden:

Last night we all went for a pre-birthday meal at Echt Tandoori:

and here's some of my birthday cards:

Wednesday - stitches out

Two days ago, exactly one week after my knee op, I finally got to take off the Tubigrip from that leg. I've still got the compression stocking on the other leg - that has to remain there until I see the surgeon again at the end of the month - but today, I'm heading to the nurse to get the stitches out.

Progress has been made - it's still a bit stiff and sore, but it's a lot better than when I last posted to this blog. I've stopped the Ibuprofen as well - or rather, I've finished our stock. After a short session on the exercise bike, I thought I would try the real thing on Monday. I had to drop off some CAMRA stuff at the pubs and the bike seemed like a good way to do this. Plenty of stops of course, so it wasn't too difficult, but I managed about 18 kms after looping round Crathes Castle.

On Saturday, I took the bus in to Aberdeen to attend the CAMRA meeting, and, on Sunday, Gary and Luca popped in after Luca's football at Laurencekirk. Luca was in the bad books for not trying hard enough at the football.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we were back to the old routine, picking Luca up from school - for the first time this year. He always seems pleased to see us, smiling and running over with big hugs. Grannie first of all, of course, but he makes sure I get one as well. He was carrying an oversize bag:

When we got back to his house, he showed me the Inverurie family spider:

Not exactly a Huntsman, is it?

Gary came in, hot and sweaty, after he'd been to the gym:

The full beard is staying on until he completes his latest challenge - an ultra marathon. Jo wants him to reverse the upside-down look and shave the beard and grow the hair back on his head.

The more observant will have noticed that I've finally got round to doing another episode of Renshaw's Chronicles - http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.co.uk/