Eve of golf trip

It's Friday morning and I'm almost packed and ready for my early morning departure tomorrow to Edinburgh to catch the flight to Tenerife for a week's golf. I had planned to go for an afternoon cycle today whilst Jo was at her swimming - yes, she seems well again - but a bit of a spanner was thrown in to the works yesterday when we discovered that our hot water storage tank is leaking and we're now sitting here waiting for the Gas Engineer to come. We have been given an 8 am to 6 pm slot, but they never seem to arrive at the earlier end of this spectrum, so I suspect I'll have to cancel my plans for a cycle and wait in for him this afternoon. Ho hum.

We're wondering whether this leak has anything to do with the fact that we're not all that impressed with how our central heating system is working after installation of the new boiler - or perhaps we haven't quite figured out how best to run it yet?

Other matters on the go include further research in to what we can do with our Florida timeshare - there's loads of companies out there in the market, but we want to avoid the snake oil salesmen if we can.

I've started to look at possible holiday opportunities in USA next summer as well - as usual, dependent on what's available with Avios and Marriott.

Nowt much else to say today, but I thought I'd better add a photo to brighten up my blog a little - this one is a shot of the Brentwood B & B we stayed in last weekend in York:

That's our bedroom window top right - slightly ajar.

Back from York - to a shock!

(http://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

Well, that was a bit of a shock today. Jo has been struggling since she picked up a UTI a couple of weeks ago and she had a bad night last night, so phoned the Doctor this morning and got an appointment at 10:30. I was waiting for her to come out when I was approached by an ambulancewoman in uniform - "Mr. Stewart?" "No need to panic" - but, of course, that's exactly what I did. "We're taking your wife to hospital - I suggest you go home, pack an overnight bag for her and then follow us to A & E".

Jo's home now and seems OK, but Dr. Rough (the GP) was concerned when he examined her stomach - he thought she might have an Aortic Aneurysm, which made it an emergency. He phoned the hospital and an ambulance whisked Jo away - blue light flashing all the way!

By the time I got there, parked the car and walked over to A & E, Jo was being examined. I was eventually allowed in and was relieved to see that all was well - they had scanned her and there was no aneurysm. Her blood and urine test results were all positive too, as was her ECG, so she was allowed to come home.

Jo will go back to see the GP and continue to investigate her symptoms unless they go away soon - they suspect that it's all a left-over from her UTI.

So, we thought we were going to have a very quiet day at home today after our weekend in Yorkshire, but certainly didn't expect this. Here's some photos from the weekend:

We'd travelled all morning on the train - First Class! - with the Masons and Kilgours and we were all ready for a beer. This was in the Three Legged Mare 

Just along the road from the pub was the magnificent York Minster

Dinner on Thursday night was at Raj's Indian restaurant - a celebrity hotspot allegedly. Well, Dame Kelly Holmes was there once anyway.

On Friday, we took the train down to Harrogate and had coffee and cakes at the famous Betty's Tearooms, where we were joined by Linda Elgie - she and Colin moved down to the area from Banchory 16 years ago.

After Betty's we went for a walk round the Valley Gardens.

The short walk was enough to make us all thirsty again so we stopped for alcohol top-ups in the Old Bell Tavern

We stopped off briefly in lovely Knaresborough on the way back to York.

Dinner on Friday night was at the lovely, atmospheric Star Inn the City, where this caricature of all the celebs that have been there was displayed.

 Unfortunately, Anne got food poisoning and most of Saturday was a write-off for her. The rest of us spent the morning going round York Minster and the afternoon at York's Chocolate Story - the history of Rowntree's and Terry's etc. Anne managed to crawl out of bed and join us for dinner with the Elgies at the Lamb and Lion - I should have taken a team photo here, but forgot!

On Sunday morning, Johanne, Jo, Anne & Leslie went to Mass, whilst Colin and I took a stroll around the city.

Colin at Clifford's Tower.

After church, the girls hopped on a tourist bus, whilst Leslie, Colin and I went to the National Railway Museum. Here I am with a replica of Stephenson's Rocket.

Lunch was at the Hole in the Wall - Yorkshire Pud for some - and then it was the train back home. Nice trip - and good to catch up with the Elgies again.