We survived our brief trip down to the Central Belt - but only just. The journey down was via Edinburgh of course, as we were dropping Ross off at his flat, but we got snagged in traffic at Dundee and again on the approaches to the new Queensferry Crossing, which is now officially classified as motorway standard - that's a laugh - 70 mph? I wish.
Our planned pit stop at the Horn was thwarted - it was closed - so we diverted to Glendoick Garden Centre instead. We also stopped for a quick coffee at Ross' before hitting the road west to Glasgow. Yet again we got caught in heavy traffic, the aftermath of an earlier accident at Livingston, so we didn't get to Barry and Helen's until almost 5:30 pm - some 7 hours since we'd left Banchory.
It was a no-brainer for us when Barry and Helen gave us the option of going out for a meal or staying in for some home-made Shepherd's Pie. A couple of bottles of red wine in a comfy house with our shoes kicked off eased the pain of our journey.
The following morning Barry took me for a spin in his brand new BMW X3:
Bacon rolls consumed we were soon on our way over to Mary and Brian's in Elderslie. We had a fairly quiet afternoon - and then the Whaleys descended on us en masse. The boys are getting really big - the twins are almost my height now and it won't be long before they're looking down on us all. Take-away curries were consumed, again washed down with red wine.
We awoke on Friday morning to find ourselves in the midst of a snowstorm - the airport was closed for a while and the local bus services were suspended, but we knew we had to be back in Banchory by lunchtime so we set off not long after 8:30 am, after clearing the car:
It was a slow crawl all the way up to Gleneagles, where conditions eased and we were able to pick up the speed a little. By the time we got over to the east of the country, there wasn't even a sign of any snow. We even decided it would be ok to go over Cairn o' Mount - and it was. We were home before noon, in plenty of time for Jo to take the scheduled phone call from our local GP to discuss some changes to the various medications she's taking.
Saturday, of course, was Luca's 11th birthday and we were invited over to Inverurie for lunch. It had to be chocolate cake, naturally:
Then, all of a sudden, it was Sunday and Hogmanay. The Kilgours and Masons were coming over for dinner and to see in the New Year. Anne and Leslie had just got back from visiting family in Crail and Perth and Anne had a new selfie stick - from a cracker apparently! I decided to experiment with it:
Anne supplied a bottle of Moet for us to toast the bells. This time I used my camera:
We had expected the usual fireworks displays from our neighbours - notably the Tor-na-Coille and Fred Duncan - but nothing!
To close, I noticed that my previous blog posting featuring our Xmas tree had accidentally cut off the top of the tree, where we still place the angel Kelly made more than 30 years ago:
