August update

This blog seems to be taking a bit of a back seat - I've just managed to skip the whole month of July. I used to be able to keep this blog diary up to date - virtually daily when I was working but it seems it is getting less and less frequent. I suppose the rise of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have something to do with it - as has the time I spend putting programmes together every week for River Dee Radio. Anyway, let me attempt to fill in a few gaps in the story with photos that haven't appeared on other social media over the last few weeks. First, the coffee shop that Ross is now working at in Edinburgh - this was just prior to opening when they were painting the walls etc:

The next one is of the new furniture we got for the front balcony, having moved the previous stuff to the back:

Oh - did I tell you that we had put back our USA holiday again? We had originally naively thought it would be safe to go there last September (2020) as by then the pandemic should be over, shouldn't it? Wrong - so we re-booked for March, 2021 - that should be safe? Wrong again. We then tried June, then September - and now it's May next year. On every occasion we thought it would be OK to travel by then, but how wrong we were. I do sincerely hope we can go there in May, 2022, but having already had to cancel 4 times, we can't be sure. Fingers crossed. Avery - Meghan's little girl in NYC - is growing up fast. Dawn regularly sends us photos at our Thursday Zoom meetings. Here's one from a few weeks ago:

Last Friday (23 July) a few of our cycling group rode out to the Deeside Activity Park at Dess and visited the new Lost Loch Distillery facility there. It was a really hot day and when we cycled back to Banchory, a few of us were ready for a quick beer so we headed to the balcony at the golf club. It was so nice that I got in touch with Jo to see if she fancied wandering over - and she did, and we ended up having our meal there:

Over the weekend the news came through from Ross that he was making a quick trip back from Edinburgh to pick up some stuff from his Aberdeen flat and try to clean it up a bit as well. Jo had previously offered to help clean the place and so, last Monday (26 July), after some of the clean-up had been done, 3 of us partially loaded up my car and we all headed down to Edinburgh. We arrived about 7:30 pm in the evening and it was still 26C then, which is pretty hot for that time of the evening in Scotland, and we still had to empty the car and take Ross' stuff up all the stairs to his top floor flat just off Gorgie Road, near the Hearts football ground. We certainly had earned a beer or two so we walked to the "Diggers", a pub we used to visit 40 years ago when we lived in Balerno:

On Tuesday morning, Jo and I packed our bags ready to return home, but first of all we had to pay a visit to Ross at work:

On Wednesday evening, I had arranged another virtual beer tasting with my CAMRA colleagues. This time the beers had come up from Nottingham - organised by one of our regular Zoomers. Some of the flavours were pretty exotic - check out the descriptions - and see our votes:

Meanwhile, I've been re-painting the garden bench that sits at the front of our house. Jo thought the previous colour was a bit drab, so she selected this bright colour:

Looks like we'll be taking another trip to Edinburgh soon.