Summer has arrived

Officially, meteorogically, as it's now June, we're in to summer - although it's actually been a little cooler than last week's highs.

This morning we had a little treat - Kelly FaceTimed to show us Asher has started walking - at last! Kelly confirmed they are moving to Chris' unit at the end of August - so bang goes our free accommodation! Anyway, now we know for sure they're not going to be in Semaphore next year, we can perhaps think about planning our next trip.

We're kind of booked now for our UK road trip - from 8th to 16th October - but still haven't done anything about the Fringe yet. Talking about Edinburgh, Jo was back down there again yesterday for a brief shopping trip with Anne Mason, and she managed to see Ross briefly as well. He'll be on his own as from tomorrow as Lizzie is returning to Banchory - what a shame.

Also going through a life change just now is Dawn, who has now sold the former family home and moved in to a flat with Jordon. We'll see them in a couple of weeks when we have another family lunch gathering in Glasgow.

I took Jo down to Stonehaven yesterday to catch the train down to Edinburgh and packed my bike as well so that I could take a brief wander round the Mearns. I cycled through Dunnottar Woods and up to Dunnottar Castle. It was a lovely morning for a short, but hilly, ride:

It was exactly 50 years ago yesterday that the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - as most of you will have heard. I'd prepared a special show for River Dee Radio, but got caught up in a golf tie and never made the transmission - Gerry and Andy had to do the show on their own.

That's yer lot for now.

Blogging again

I'm back. It's a quiet Sunday - we were entertaining again last night and it was pretty late when we got to bed - probably about 2 am. At our age, anything past midnight is a killer.

We've had some great hot weather - almost touching 30C. It was perfect for our Friday afternoon hillwalk as the temperature at the top was only low 20's. Everything is growing and there's pollen everywhere - covering the cars and even our newly refurbished bench:

I was finishing off the painting of the iron railings on our balcony yesterday and the little yellow dots kept landing on the wet paint - pretty annoying, but nothing I could do about it.

On Thursday, we finally got the chance to travel down to Edinburgh to see Ross. He was working most of the day but we spent some time with him before, during and after. He's now working for Barney's Beers (http://barneysbeer.co.uk/), who have a stall at the Flea and Food Market, down East Market Street, near the foot of the Royal Mile:

If you look closely that's Ross serving a beer to some customers at his stand - the second one along

It was a fairly quiet Thursday so Ross was able to sit out in the sun with us for a while:

Jo and I went away for a while - did some shopping, then went for a bite in the Halfway House, where Ross joined us again. We strolled down the Royal Mile and stopped for ice cream floats to cool us down in the hot sun. Ross had to get back to re-open the stall so we walked back with him:

Jo and I went down to Teuchter's Landing in Leith - it was mobbed - and we met Ross again after his work and before we had to catch our train home. It was really good to see him again - he's had a hard time, but he's fighting his way through it.

Last Monday, we had lunch with Jacquie Howden, who I worked beside for over 30 years. She was widowed at the end of last year and we had said at the funeral that we would catch up with her when we got back from Australia.

I'm halfway through organising our trip to London in October. We've decided to make it a bit of a road trip, taking in Liverpool, Winchester, perhaps Chester plus some old haunts. We'll take in a show - or two - in London and go to the Wine Fair.

I've made no progress with the Fringe yet, however. If we go, it'll be later on in August as we need a bit of time after returning from USA.

So that's a quick summary of some of the things we've been up to in the last couple of weeks. My work with CAMRA has been keeping me fairly busy as well - as has River Dee Radio. What's coming up over the next few weeks before we fly to Atlanta on 29th June? A fair amount of golf for me - June is always the busiest month of the year - lots of outings and matches to play. I just hope my knee stands up to it. I've been curtailing my golf to little more than once a week, whereas I had originally planned to try and play more this year, but haven't been able to.

On my low days when my knee hurts most - usually after 10 or 12 holes - I've often speculated that this might be my last year of golf. I sincerely hope not, but it is troubling me. Do I carry on playing golf and making my knee worse, bringing the inevitability of another big operation ever closer - or should I refrain from golf and stave off the date of the knee replacement for a while? Dilemma. I'll see this year out anyway and decide then - I'm already committed to a number of events this year and I'd like to try to complete them before deciding.

So, on that low note, I'll end this blog post. Bye for now.