Adelaide

A little later than scheduled, we arrived in Adelaide to a welcoming party of Kelly, Miller and Asher. They whisked us off to a deli where Kelly had ordered a huge "breakfast box" - fruits, breads etc. We are still working our way through it over a week later.

We checked in to our "charming historical cottage" in Bridgewater in the Adelaide Hills. Handily nearby is the Bridgewater Inn which has an enormous beer garden looking over Cox Creek. Across the road from that is a small shopping centre which has a decent-sized Coles supermarket where we were able to stock up our accommodation with essential food and drink supplies.

The owners of the cottage had left us a generous welcome pack of essentials, including champagne, luxury ice cream and chocolate. Everything seemed perfect but we later noticed that there was a bit of a damp issue downstairs where the utilities, bathroom and bedroom were. We soon resolved this matter by running the dehumidifier daily - as instructed by the owners.

Kelly, Chris and the boys had just moved in to a rental property nearby while their new house is being built. It is just a 10-15 minute walk along/beside a train line used occasionally by freight trains.

Our first full day in S.A. was Friday. It's school summer holidays here so we arranged to take the boys to Stirling while their parents worked. It was just a 10 minute bus journey from our place. We had planned to take the boys to Cacao, a chocolate/coffee shop but it was closed. We did manage to pick up books for Kelly at the library and we had lunch with Miller and Asher in the smart Stirling hotel.

The return journey meant a 15 minute walk from the bus stop to Kelly and Chris' rental, passing this odd looking tree:

Finally, we arrived:

That evening we all drove to Lobethal for a return visit to what used to be one of our favourite places - the Bierhaus. It was mobbed but Chris had booked a table so we were fine. We enjoyed a paddle - and a couple of cask ales in the atmospheric surroundings:

End of (full) day one - Friday 16th January.

2026 Down Under - stage 2 - Darwin

From Singapore we flew in to Darwin - in the middle of cylcone season - but all was calm during our 3 nights/2 days stay. Our accommodation was at a fairly upmarket airport resort run by 3 diffeent hotel brands. We got picked up by the resort shuttle for the short journey to our room. We were so close to the airport that we could have walked it. Despite this proximity, planes landing and leaving never disturbed us - we never heard them.

Our room was at the fringe of the resort with what looked like jungle backing on to us. We had our own little pool too - lovely.

After a decent night's sleep followed by breakfast at the Pool Bar, we ordered an Uber to take us on the 15 minute ride downtown. The Tourist Information Centre gave us some good advice which we planned to follow, starting with a wander round the harbour:

A big part of Darwin's history relates to the second world war when it was attacked incessantly by Japanese war planes. There's a fine exhibition, complete with 360 degree vision via VR sets. It's attached to the history of the Flying Doctor service where we used the VR headsets again to fly over King's Canyon and land the small plane on a short dirt strip. There are static depictions as well:

Walking back to the town centre we had planned to jump on a bus to take us to the main museum but the timetable worked against us and we wouldn't get there until 10 minutes before it closed, so we decided to just chill with beers at a local bar before riding with Uber back to our resort.

We used room service and had a nice meal and a bottle of wine before turning in.

On day 2 we decided that, rather than go back to downtown Darwin we would have a well-deserved rest day and just enjoy the lovely resort instead. After all, we had a very early start in the morning so it was room service again and an early night.

Morning arrived and the shuttle took us back to the terminal. Some dark clouds were just about visible - a short storm was passing through. We boarded the plane but had to sit on the runway for 45 minutes to allow the storm to fully pass but soon we were on our way to Adelaide.

From snow in Banchory to the heat of Singapore

I definitely spoke too soon in my last post when I said winter hadn't started. Somebody must have heard me because the snow suddenly arrived between Christmas and New Year - with a vengeance. Gary and Luca didn't dare to travel from Inverurie to Banchory for their New Year's Day dinner - steak pie and trifle - and they made the right decision as they might have got stuck in Banchory for a few days. We had also had to cancel our plans for a Hogmanay late lunch in Drumoak with Anne and Leslie.

Once in to 2026, our main concern was getting out of Aberdeen. The day before we were due to fly to Singapore via London, our airport was closed, but thankfully the snow relented a little and we were able to leave on schedule.

We arrived in Singapore in the early evening and checked in to our beautiful colonial themed hotel just in time for a quick bite in the members' lounge before heading to our small but well appointed room for a good night's sleep.

We had 4 nights - 3 full days - in the city state and walked round places familiar and new to us. Often cloudy but the temperature never strays far from the 30 C mark - not even overnight.

One of the familiar spots was Fort Canning park:

Jo overcame her fears and made it to the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel this time - and felt completely safe looking over the whole country from 50 + storeys up:

One of our favourite evenings was when we went to what is known coloquially as "Satay Street". The road is blocked off at both ends and long tables are set up alongside a whole row of street vendors basically doing nothing but barbecued satay - lovely.

The Family WhatsApp group contains a number of photos taken on our stay in Singapore so I'll end here.

December woes

Season's greetings to all.

December's almost over and it's not been a good month for me. I believe I caught some kind of chest infection and have been housebound virtually all month. Jo was back and forward to the pharmacy/chemist to get advice and medication. She was told if it persists for 3 weeks then I've got to see a doctor - and persist it did.

So I finally got to see a doctor a couple of weeks ago and she was pretty thorough. She prescribed me a 5 day course of antibiotics and said if that didn't clear it, then I had to come back and get a referral for X-rays etc. The antibiotics weren't a magic cure-all but I think they did help, as, while I don't feel 100% yet, I do feel a bit better and have been able to get out and about a bit more again.

The downside is that Jo is now displaying some of the symptoms I had - coughing in particular. She doesn't, however, seem to be as bad as I was and is still, after a few days in bed, able to get on with her daily routine.

To boot, I've had a lot of difficulty with my new knee over the last month. It's stiff and painful - more so than it was after I got the all-clear late in September. Two theories - either I did some damage to my knee when I was going to the gym regularly in November, or it's due to my enforced inactivity this month. I self-referred to the physiotherapy team and managed to get a cancellation at Stonehaven last Monday (22nd). So far, I've been given new exercises to do - and ones not to do. It's only 10 days until we fly off to the southern hemisphere so not much time for anything else.

Our Christmas Day went well - Ross took over in the kitchen and we had a lovely roast beef instead of turkey this year. Regrettably, I didn't take a team photo on the day - I'll try to remember to do so on New Year's Day when Jo's promising steak pie for us.

Luca, as ever, was in charge of handing out the presents after our main course. This is one I got from Gary:

Restricted Code - the band we saw in Aberdeen last month - their new release - on yellow vinyl!

Dawn's big birthday - her 70th - is tomorrow and she's away to Iceland to celebrate - having just returned from her trip to Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong. Her Xmas card to us arrived just in time, with full but unnecessary apologies. It was very pretty:

We'll be catching up with her - and Barry and Helen - this Saturday (3rd) in Pitlochry, where we're staying here - https://www.athollpalace.com/

The shortest day has now passed - it would have been Dad's 105th birthday - but we haven't really had a proper winter yet. There was one brief snow day back in mid-November but that's all so far. Generally, the days have been pretty calm and dry, although the temperature is starting to drop a bit. The Northern Lights have been on display a few times - not that we can see them from our place down in the valley. We would have to go higher - up Scolty perhaps. However, there have been some nice sunsets:

You can just make out the tower at the top of Scolty.

I had to miss out - again - on our monthly beer night earlier this month but I did manage to join the revellers in the Legion for Dave Williamson's birthday on Xmas Eve:

Our football crowd have been getting together on this day for well over 30 years. Drams used to be preceded by a game of football but in more recent years this has had to be downscaled to a walk instead. Regrettably, I wasn't fit enough to join the active part of the celebration this year but I made it for the more important part.

Scott and Lucy took their trailer (caravan) up to Salem to spend Christmas with Cade, Audrey and little Kendall, who always manages a smile:

Kelly FaceTimed this morning. They've now moved in to their rented property in the hills, near where the boys' new schools are - and not very far from where we're staying for a couple of weeks after our stop-overs in Singapore and Darwin. The boys have certainly shot up from when we were there early this year - Miller is now eye to eye with Kelly. We look forward to seeing them all again soon.

Almost December

It's been a month since my last post so time for another update on our activities since then.

29 Oct - Dentist. He told me that were small signs of pus developing where my broken implant is and that I would need to have the broken half removed from my gum within the next year - which has kind of made up my mind about getting a replacement implant - and rid of my rogue-ish pirate look.

1 Nov - the 12th anniversary of my first knee replacement.

3 Nov - attended Wellbeing Gathering in West Church to promote a new initiative for River Dee Radio - Monday Night Live - where we invite representatives from local organisations to come in to the studio to chat about their activities. The last time we did live shows was pre-Covid so it was a real re-education - and pretty scary too.

6 Nov - drive to Glasgow for another catch-up with old school pals. Jo came too as we were staying with Mary and Brian for a couple of nights. This meant she had to drive from Glasgow city centre to Johnstone - with the aid of Sat Nav - but, in an echo of her last visit (with Lucy back in August), she got lost again and it took her about 4 or 5 times as long as it should have, and when she arrived at Mary's she demanded alcohol to calm her down!

7 Nov - I travelled to West Kilbride with Brian and walked round the golf course as he and his pals played a round (my knee's not ready for golf yet). In the evening the Whaley gang arrived and we had a take-away Italian meal:

8 Nov - Aunt Nancy's 100th birthday bash. Her actual birthday had been on Thursday but Saturday was when everyone was invited to her house. Here's the team photo:

Afterwards, Barry, Helen, Dawn, Jo and I went to the Three Craws for a meal and then we drove up the road.

9 Nov - Lucy called and she also sent this nice photo of her and Kendall:

In the evening we travelled over to Westhill to have a meal with Gary and Luca:

10 Nov - My Gym induction. I had been concerned for a few weeks that the rapid progress I made in the first few weeks after my knee op had ceased and perhaps I was even going backwards a bit now? I decided I needed to do some gym work to build up the strength in my legs to support the new knee so I enrolled at the Sports Centre. Why didn't I just use the Unit gym next door? They wanted £50 per month compared to the Sports Centre's £15.

There are signs of activity next door with a surveyor spotted in the back garden with his theodolite. What will the next move be?

12 Nov - our flu jabs. As an over 75 I was also offered the Covid booster. After 7 adverse reactions in a row, I didn't take it in spring, but swithered over whether I should take the winter one. In the end, I declined again.

14 Nov - another gathering of the Headbangers, in-person and remotely

15 Nov - a trip in to Aberdeen for a gig. Anne Mason's brother Tom - the international wine expert - was in a band who were quite niche in the post-punk 80's - they did John Peel sessions. The band decided to re-form decades later and they've recorded a new album and arranged some gigs in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen to promote it. We had a meal in the Noose and Monkey beforehand then descended in to the tiny Cellar to see them perform. I wasn't expecting much but they were pretty good so Restricted Code's new album, Chasing Shadows, is likely to make an appearance on my Xmas gift list - vinyl, of course.

19 Nov - first snows. Not much to begin with but some heavier stuff later and a drop in temperature meant it hung around on the pavements and fields for a few days.

21 Nov - our Friday night crew took the bus to Ballater for some decent ales - something we can only now get in the Legion in Banchory.

23 Nov - I had arranged a visit from Scottish Gas. Some time ago, Jo had re-arranged the "coals" on the gas fire in our front room but couldn't remember how to put them back properly. When she had lit the fire again a couple of days ago, it set off the carbon monoxide alarm. The engineer detected that the real problem was the chimney which was showing signs of debris dropped from above - the bloody seagulls again! As it was a potential hazard, the engineer disabled the fire until we could get the chimney swept - which looks like it'll be next year before we can get somebody to do it. Maybe it's time to replace the gas fire with a wood burner.

25 Nov - I went in to Aberdeen for the monthly CAMRA meeting, courtesy of Ross after my bus didn't turn up.

A few more things to look forward to over the next week or two but I'm sad to report that we still haven't had all our money back from BA after the cancellation last month of some US flights. I've emailed, registered claims and phoned several times, each time being assured that the money was on its way but it never seems to arrive. I'll keep on their case.

To close, a bit of nepotism with Gary's company sponsoring Luca:

Last day of BST

Yes - tonight our clocks go back one hour. Some people say that means an extra hour in bed but I know it won't make any difference to my sleeping pattern, other than the fact that the clock will say 5 am when I awaken instead of 6 am.

Just over 2 weeks since we got back from Spain – and until this weekend, the weather has been very pleasant, but you sense things are changing now.

So, what have we been up to? Well, on Tuesday 14th October, Ross was good enough to drive me up to Aberchirder again to join some of my CAMRA colleagues at the New Inn's monthly music night. There was a lovely warm atmosphere as the singers, poets and musicians all did their turn - and we got a mini-tour of their in-house brewery as well, not to mention a few of their beers.

Two days later my car was in John Clark's in Aberdeen for the annual service - and it was a big one this time plus a full set of 4 new tyres and a repair job on the spring that was broken when we were in Mallaig. I'm glad I took the chance to book a courtesy car - normally, I would just wait there, but, as I suspected, it took all day - and there was a huge bill to pay afterwards as well. Ouch.

This week a group of us went out for a cycle prior to attending our monthly beer night in Ian Dring's "man cave". Numbers were reduced a little this time but we had a fun time and some nice ales:

Jo and I went along to Taylor's and looked at thermal curtains for the back (TV) room. So many decisions to make. We had to enlist the help of AI to give us some rough idea of what it might look like afterwards:

We've made the choices on fabrics, pleats, linings etc and yesterday they were professionally measured and we have our quote now. We hope they will be in before Christmas but it's all dependent on availability of fabric.

I've been busy looking forward to next year's holidays in Australia and America. We've got the majority of the Australian one booked now. It was a bit more involved this time as Chris and Kelly are in the process of moving from Old Noarlunga up to the hills where Miller's and Asher's new schools are so we had to sort ourselves out with accommodation etc. This is what the programme looks like so far:

Wed 7 Jan                                                                ABZ – LHR - SIN

Thu 8 Jan                                                                  Arrive SIN

Thu 8 Jan – Mon 12 Jan (4 nights)                    Maxwell Reserve

Mon 12 Jan                                                              SIN – Darwin

Mon 12 Jan – Thu 15 Jan (3 nights)                 Mercure Darwin Airport Resort

Thu 15 Jan                                                               Darwin – ADL

Thu 15 Jan – Sat 31 Jan (16 nights)                 Bridgewater Cottage

Sat 31 Jan                                                                ADL – Gold Coast

Sat 31 Jan – Sat 7 Feb (7 nights)                      Marriott Surfers Paradise

Sat 7 Feb                                                                  Gold Coast – ADL

Sat 7 Feb – Wed 11 Feb (4 nights)                   The Retreat at Stirling

Wed 11 Feb – Wed 18 Feb (7 nights)              Possible road trip?

Wed 18 Feb – Thu 26 Feb (8 nights)               Accommodation still to be booked

Thu 26 Feb                                                              ADL – SIN – LHR

Fri 27 Feb                                                                 LHR - ABZ

When we first arrive in Adelaide, our accommodation is a 200 year old cottage which was once the local village's police station!:

We then fly up to the Gold Coast (c. 70 kms south of Brisbane) for a week. When we come back to Adelaide, we have 4 nights here - https://www.the-retreat.com.au/stirling-accommodation

After that, we're planning a road trip somewhere. Kelly and Chris are suggesting the Yorke peninsula (we've never been there). Kelly showed us some of the possible attractions there - https://southaustralia.com/itineraries/yorke-peninsula-itinerary

We've also still to decide what to do and where to stay when we come back from our road trip. By then, the Adelaide Fringe will have started so we might take in a couple of shows.

So, with Australia (almost) sorted, I started to look at USA next year and I managed to book flights out on 6th September, 2026, with the help of some Avios points and a BA Companion voucher. It was too early initially to book return flights - you can only do this 355 days in advance - but on Monday (20th) I started to check out the BA site, just in case.

I input return flights on 20th October, 2026 and was amazed that the site gave me options of flights then. That's when I should have smelt a rat. I jumped at it and booked the flights. As usual I sent the confirmation to Jo to add to her calendar. Thankfully, Jo was on her i-Pad at the time and she said "what's this? Flight from San Francisco to London tonight?"

That horrible sinking feeling in my gut - the booking was 20th October, 2025 not 2026! How could I be so stupid? I didn't notice the year had changed. Frantic phone calls to the BA Club where, after an eternity of waiting for someone to answer, a woman with an American accent responded. "No worries - it's well within the cooling off period - I can cancel it and you'll get all your money and your points back" Whew. "I just need to put you on hold for a few seconds".

Several minutes later - "sorry, but I can't do it this way - you'll need to raise a formal claim with BA". Oh no, here we go.

I've spent many hours this week making the claim, following it up and endlessly waiting on the phone for responses. Thankfully, it looks like we're almost there. We've had part of the money back, with promises of the rest to come, and we've had all the points refunded too.

What a dope I was - I can't believe I would make such a simple, and potentially damaging, mistake. I've never done anything like this before. Hopefully, I won't repeat it - I'll be treble checking everything.

Meanwhile, our American famaily have all travelled down to Louisiana to catch up with Braeden - Scott, Lucy, Cade, Audrey and even little Kendall all flew there.

It's now 11 weeks since my knee replacement and I seem to be doing OK, although I have a slight feeling that the rapid improvement in the first few weeks has now plateau'd out. The early weeks' exercises are now too simple. It was good when we were at our resort in Spain, I was able to use the gym there for specific knee strengthening exercises. Perhaps I should join the gym at the Sports Centre to continue with this?

Our (relatively) local brewery - Burnside - has just expanded in to a new building and I got a couple of their first brews from there:

To close, a photo of Asher that I picked up from his school's FB post:

It was Origami Day - and Asher loves that.

Marbella etc (6)

MONDAY 6 Oct (cont'd.)

Despite Jo's lack of mobility she suggested we go out for a short walk in the afternoon so off we toddled, past the relatively new Rafa Nadal Tennis Centre:

and on to the humpy-back boardwalk:

then rewarded by a small bottle of Frappucino:

and later, dinner, beer, wine and bingo in Charlies bar.

TUESDAY 7th October

Yesterday was going to be a down day - books and pool - but today definitely was. Still, we had pre-dinner drinks back at Charlies:

WEDNESDAY 8th October

The day started, as usual, with a hot bath to ease Jo's back. Afterwards she felt able to suggest another walk - this time eastwards towards the boardwalk at Dunas de Artola where we'd been a few times before. We weren't sure we would make it all the way there but in the end we did. We hadn't previously noticed that the beach there is officially a naturist one but somebody with orange paint obviously didn't think it should be allowed:

Then it was boardwalk all the way, past the Monument and on to a beach cafe for lunch - yes, gambas pil-pil again:

We slightly lost our way on the return journey so, at the end of the day, I had clocked up almost 19,000 steps - all in flip-flops/thongs - the highest total yet.

We had booked dinner at El Med, the resort's upmarket restaurant down by the sea, but first we had to finish off the 2 remaining beers in the fridge plus what was left in the gin bottle. When we did finally get to El Med for our 7:30 pm booking we were surprised to see that the Spanish Night, which started at 6:00 pm, was still going strong - the flamenco section hadn't even started.

We setttled down for our meal anyway and took a few pictures as the sun was going down:

I chose my meal badly - whole sea bass but done in the Cadiz way where they slice up the meat and then deep fry it:

Liqueur coffees afterwards - mine was French (Cointreau) and Jo's was Calypso (Tia Maria):

Jo may have been straining to see a bit of the Flamenco dancing - but what a racket it was. Hardly a nice quiet dinner in lovely surroundings.

THURSDAY 9th October

Packed, checked out and Uber'd all the way to airport, where we now sit in the VIP lounge (as they call it). Ross is picking us up at ABZ.

Marbella etc (5)

SUNDAY 5th October

Jo's still struggling with her back and finds most movement painful. That said, once she's up and properly dosed, she can walk a bit. We discussed whether we might try another beach to boardwalk saunter but the uneven surface of the sand wouldn't be good, so I looked at where else we might go that didn't involve a beach and I noticed from Google Maps that one of the very first golf courses our group played on back in 1998 was less than half an hour away and the walk would take us through a bit of parkland on the other side of the main A-7 dual carriageway.

It was, however, our hottest day yet - 32 C (90 F) - and we would be walking in the heat of the day. Nonetheless, we set off and, once over the A-7, we came across some nice bike/walking trails in the woods that would lead us up to Santa Maria Golf Club, bringing back some very fond memories for me of the days when I used to be moderately capable and competitive at golf:

In the clubhouse for some lubrication, looking towards the 18th fairway, I took this photo of Jo and her new sunglasses, acquired at a little supermarket on the way here:

I wandered down to the first tee where I recalled there was a fairly big fear factor in our group back in 1998, but, seeing it now, I wondered why?:

That fairway looks plenty wide enough to me - just don't think about the water all the way up the left!

Heading back through the trails again we got a close-up of the adventure park (https://aventura-amazonia.com/parques-amazonia/marbella-eng) - a bit like Go Ape or Landmark - only a whole lot scarier:

Stopping at the small(ish) supermarket where Jo bought her sunglasses, we picked up a few groceries and headed back - but not before Jo insisted on stopping for her ice cream treat at Kalt Helados:

Another 12,000 steps day.

Dinner back at our apartment was bread and garlic prawns cooked in butter (we didn't have any oil).

MONDAY 6th October

I'm afraid no improvement in Jo's back but at least the pharmacia was open again, so off I trotted to acquire a huge tube of what the Spanish call Voltadol Forte and some extra strength paracetomol (650 mg).

We actually saw some clouds this morning but, although a bit cooler than yesterday, it's still plenty warm. Looks like a book day for us.

Marbella etc (4)

WEDNESDAY 1st October

Our first full day at the resort. We weren't in our usual villa but it was fairly close - adjacent to the reception block and roughly above the Market Place. This was the view from our balcony:

The last time we were here it was a full house - Gary, Luca and Ross came too. This time it's just Jo and me - so much room! We purposely hadn't hired a car this time - we had planned just to have a relaxing break mostly on-site.

Being away from home and having spent 3 nights in a hotel in Malaga I had fallen out of my knee exercise regime so I needed to get back on track quickly and I thought the best way to do that was to use a couple of the machines in the gym - so that was my start to the day, after which I picked up our morning croissants - lovely!

We spent some time at the adult-only outdoor pool but otherwise did very little other than read our books. We had managed to cast my Netflix account to the TV's in the apartment and had started watching the House of Guinness on Tuesday evening so we were on to episode 2 now.

THURSDAY 2nd October

Today we were booked to attend another sales preview - something we had booked the previous year as it seemed like a good deal. It's not something we look forward to but we got through it unscathed.

After lunch we decided to walk to the local mall where there is a decent-sized Carrefour supermarket. We didn't plan to buy a lot - only stuff that we couldn't get, or was substantially cheaper than, the small market at our resort. It's a bit of an up and down walk but it took less than 15 minutes to get there.

Nothing much else today - other than laundry, cooking, reading and eating - then another episode of the House of Guinness.

FRIDAY 3rd October

I didn't go to the gym this morning - my knee was sore and swollen. Jo thinks I overdid the gym work yesterday. However, the croissants had to be got so off I went, cheered on by Jo looking out from the small balcony at the back of our apartment:

Time to stretch our legs a little - a beach walk, heading west in the direction of Marbella town. The sea was very calm and settled and we paddled a little on the way. After an hour or so we were ready for lunch and we came across the beach cafe we had stopped at last year. We enquired about tapas, but no, all they did was "racion" - basically small portions. We chose a mini hamburger and something that was described as aubergines with honey - and this arrived:

Deep fried aubergine chips in honey? Really? There was enough there for 4 of us.

On the way back there are stretches of boardwalk - part of the long-term plan to cover the whole coast:

We alternated between the boardwalk, the beach and, towards the end, pavements through other resorts:

We made it back "home" safely:

Over 16,000 steps again today.

SATURDAY 4th October

Jo had a bad night - her back again, so it's been a slow day. I was back at the gym this morning and this afternoon I decided to walk to the local pharmacy/pharmacia to get a top-up of Voltarel for her. Unfortunately, I got there a few minutes too late - they closed at 2:30 pm and the next nearest is over 12 kms away in Marbella town. I found out that you can't get any medicines - not even paracetomol - unless you go to a proper pharmacy. No disaster for now as Jo has adequate to see through the weekend.

It's Saturday so it's pizza night and I planned to go to on-site Charlie's Bar to get it. I wondered whether they would be showing the Manchester United match but was disappointed to see that Charlie's doesn't open until 6 pm now - I'm sure it used to be 4 pm which was perfect for watching Premiership football on Saturday afternoons.