Will it ever stop?

What a week it's been - rain, rain and more rain. We thanked our lucky stars last month that we avoided all the bad weather and floods they had in Cumbria and the south of Scotland, but it seems like it's our turn now. Ever since Storm Frankie arrived last Wednesday, we've only had brief moments of respite, weather-wise. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week were definite indoors days - a pity because we had Luca here on 2 of those days and the only time he was out of the house was when Jo took him (in the car) down to Tesco.

Suffering badly from cabin fever, I donned my cycling gear first thing on Tuesday morning, ready and waiting for a break in the rain - but it never came. I repeated it on Wednesday and this time I was lucky - it was dry first thing so off I went as soon as there was enough daylight to make it safe.

I headed along the Deeside Way but it was blocked off by piles of debris halfway between the east end of Banchory and Milton of Crathes, so I turned round and went up through the Crathes Castle estate, where I took this photo using the timer on my camera - a lot easier than trying to take a selfie with my phone:

The back roads north of Crathes were fine and I managed to get 20 kms in.

One problem I've been having recently when out cycling has been numb thumbs - they always seem to get frozen and damp and I lose all feeling in them, no matter which combinations of gloves I wear. I decided to finally bite the bullet and go to our local outdoors shop and buy a pair of Sealskinz (http://www.sealskinz.com/UK/) gloves. Ridiculous price - and I also bought socks too - let's hope they both work.

We sampled my home brew last night and it was - I think the word is palatable - so I bottled it this morning - check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wt86qXq-D0. Now to sterilise everything ready to start the next batch when we return from Oz.

We're busy watching all the series that have built up on our Sky box to leave enough room on the disk for recording whilst we're away. Fargo is finished and we've got just 4 episodes of Homeland to watch. Some of the others I've now moved off the box and put on our network drive, so we can access them anywhere anytime.

I've also been doing some more digitising of my old vinyl albums. I've selected about 20 or so still to be done - no rush though.

As I write this blog posting, we're watching Wanted Down Under, which is from Adelaide today. Lots of places we know - McLaren Vale, Glenelg, Hahndorf etc - a nice reminder.

Wet Sunday

It's been a dreich weekend - certainly not the weather for getting out and about. Hibernation is OK for a day or so, but it doesn't take long before cabin fever kicks in. This morning (Sunday) I decided, despite the wind and rain, to go for a short walk down across the golf course to the Dee bridge:

The water level is much lower than a few days ago, when, for the first time in living memory, the bridge had to be closed.

I walked on to the Feugh to see what the torrent coming down from the hills to the Dee was like:

This is looking north towards the Dee

This one was taken from the footbridge, looking south

From the footbridge, looking at the road bridge

This short video gives a better idea - https://youtu.be/iFZgJ-Q4bQ0

It's been raining all day and it's not forecast to let up until tomorrow (Monday) night, by which time the water levels will be back up again.

I inspected my beer again this morning and it looks a little healthier today, so perhaps it's not a complete write-off after all?

I'm currently in the process of upgrading Jo's laptop to Windows 10. Can't do it for mine as it's too old - shame.