October in Northern Oregon

Can't believe it's 4 weeks today that we arrived in USA. Just over a couple of weeks left in our holiday.

Scott and Lucy have completed their first week in their new jobs - it was all introductory stuff with a lot of computer modules. They can't wait to get some proper patient care done. They normally work 4 day weeks - 9 hours per day with the week lengths varying. Tomorrow (Monday), Scott's at work but Lucy has a day off - she'll be child minding for part of it.

I can't quite recall everything we've done over the last week - if I don't take photos, I don't have any record to fall back on - but I do know that on Wednesday we took a drive downtown to hunt down a particular type of collagen that Jo wanted. We took Lucy's recommendation and paid a visit to Gerry Frank's "Konditorei" - a cake cafe basically - https://gerryfrankskonditorei.com/.

You'd think that by now we'd have wised up to US-sized portions, but, no - we both had a cake each:

Jo's carrot cake in particular was a real killer. We must remember to order only one of any food and share it.

I had checked the weather forecast earlier in the week to see when it would be best to take a trip to the coast and Thursday looked like the best day. The Pacific coastal climate is completely different from inland Oregon - and, incidentally, I've noticed that Salem is a fair bit cooler than Grants Pass. I've been monitoring the relative daily temperatures over the last month and I reckon Southern Oregon - the Applegate Valley - is easily 8 or 9 degrees F (5 C) warmer than this part of Northern Oregon at this time of year. That's not to say that it's cold here - far from it - it's 80 F (27 C) this weekend. The coast, however, is 20 F (7 C) cooler just now.

Anyway, Thursday it was for our coastal trip - first stop Lincoln City, which had a slightly run-down, end of season look about it, but we found a nice bakery, book shop and record store - and a lovely, huge beach:

Heading south towards Newport we made a couple of pit stops to take in the views at Rocky Creek and the Devil's Punchbowl (https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=156). Here I am at the former and a beach view from the latter:

 

Newport, a town we last visited 10 years ago, also has huge beaches - I posted a few photos on Facebook. When we decided to loop back home we came across a problem with some extensive roadworks which Apple Maps didn't seem to know about - thankfully, Google Maps was more clued up and we made it back to NE Salem via an alternative route.

Scott and Lucy were both off on Friday and they took us to Independence for a spot of lunch in the local brewpub, quaintly called Gilgamesh. The menu explained where the name came from:

 Here we all are:

After lunch we took a stroll round the local park, leading down to the Willamette river. We had just missed the local Fresh Hop Festival which celebrates the harvest.

Yesterday (Saturday), Jo and I took a short drive to Willamette Mission State Park (https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=99). We took a walk round one of the trails which, at one point, allowed us access in to one of the hop fields (which are numerous round here). As mentioned above we had just missed the harvest so all the tall bines were gone, leaving just their support frames:

We did find a random hop on the ground:

Here we are a bit later at the water's edge:

After leaving the park we drove over to Keizer Station mall and had a late lunch at Hops 'n' Drops:

Scott was on the barbecue again that evening - huge steaks - and they were delicious.

Today (Sunday) is a go-slow day for us - book reading, blogging, crocheting.

End September in Salem

It's Sunday 27th September and it's Scott's and Lucy's last day of freedom - the holiday's over for them as they both start their new jobs with Salem Health tomorrow.

So what have we all been up to these last couple of weeks? Scott and I have had another couple of rounds of golf - both just 9 holes but at a course that was exceptionally green and played very long. Most courses here are dry and brown with the ball running miles but Evergreen Golf (https://www.evergreenoregon.com/) is what it says - extremely well watered and maintained.

We've been over to Cade's and Audrey's place - the first time we've seen it. Hallowe'en is still over a month away but everywhere seems to be going crazy for it already - many houses are decorated and the stores are all full of paraphernalia and pumpkins - and Cade and Audrey are starting to get in to the spirit too judging by the entrance to their house:

Kendall is the boss of course - her toys and her room:

Meanwhile, Scott was looking after Kennedy:

We've been on a couple of preliminary house-hunting trips with Scott and Lucy too. On the second of them we returned to the pub we had discovered had real ale - Santiam Brewing (https://www.santiambrewing.com/):

We went to the final day of Oktoberfest at Mt. Angel - what a huge event it was. It was a bit quieter when Jo and I took a trip downtown to visit Deepwood House:

We took a walk round the trails in the extensive garden:

We followed that up with a visit to one of the houses of the 2 (female) landscape gardeners who designed this and hundreds of other prestigious gardens throughout the state and beyond:

Yesterday (Saturday), Scott was driving back to Grants Pass to cut the lawn and also attend nephew Lincoln's 16th birthday. Lucy took Jo and me to The Oregon Garden (https://oregongarden.org/) - a huge expanse:

That's me up to date again. 

September whizzing by

As usual, a brief health report. Knee still not 100% but we soldier on. Dental surgery in Aberdeen finally complete. Two appointments arranged with local dentist when we return from USA to fit the cap to the implant.

Jo's knee much better now but we did recently attend the breast clinic at ARI. They were very thorough - 2 mammograms, a scan and a biopsy - and we've now received the results - all clear. They will follow up with a further ultrasound scan in 3 months but it seems fairly certain now that it was all related to the heavy fall Jo took when she cut her knee.

Our car was a little unhealthy too - for a while we were getting all sorts of false error messages - seemed like a software fault. It took ages to get an appointment at John Clark Volvo and that was only for the initial diagnosis. We had to wait a further 2 weeks before the work was done to fix it - but even then, as I was about to drive away, another (unrelated) fault appeared. It'll get fixed when the car goes in for its annual service next month,

Lots of golf before we flew to USA - and our group's annual walking break was in Orkney this year, returning with just one day to spare before our transatlantic flights.

Our front room fireplace is finally complete with the beam above the wood burner now installed:

(The picture above has since been replaced with the mirror that was there before). All we need now is some logs - they've been ordered and should be there before we get back.

The ceiling of our porch needed a bit of TLC so Ross painted it - and I gave the old external bench a bit of a spruce up too:

Our travel to USA went smoothly enough but it was a full 24 hours before we were sitting in Grants Pass having beers and yet another meal! That was Sunday - Monday and Tuesday were packing days and then on Wednesday we were on the move to the Lesinas' new home town - Salem, the capital of Oregon, a couple of hundred miles north up the I-5.

We travelled in convoy - Scott drove the large U-Haul truck, packed with all the furniture etc; Jo and I followed in Scott's truck with Lucy a little behind in her Jeep. Scott and Lucy are heading back to Grants Pass tomorrow (Tuesday) to pick up the remaining stuff that there was no room for, and also a final tidy-up for any potential house viewers.

The temporary rental in Salem is a modern 4-bedroom house in a new estate - plenty of room for the 5 of us, although the external area is smaller than GP.

Scott and Lucy start their new jobs at the end of the month so there's time for them to get properly settled here - and spend more time with their family. We've visited the local brewpub; Scott and I had a game of golf; and Lucy, Jo and I had a quick visit to downtown Salem:

The temperature dropped over the weekend and there was the occasional very slight spit of rain. Today (Monday) is a bit brighter and the mercury is heading upwards again this week.

Today we visited a local farm that had loads of attractions - sadly most of them closed until the weekend, but we hung around for a while anyway:

We then moved to a nice little town called Silverton where Kendall spent time in the playpark, then we had a walk around the town followed by lunch at one of the breweries.

August already

So the World Cup is over but the political wranglings go on. Never mind, the Scottish football season has now started so all's well - well, nearly all. Let me explain:

Knees - it's now a year since my op and the pain and stiffness have still not fully gone. There has been some improvement but it's so slow compared with the previous knee replacement - although that was 13 years ago when I was just a relative youngster of 64!

More recently, it's Jo's knee that has been the bigger issue but she seems to be slowly getting over it now.

Generally, July's weather has been pretty good. The continuing severe heatwaves being experienced in the southern part of Britain haven't really migrated north - thank goodness - but we have had plenty of sunshine and mid-low 20's temperatures - and virtually no rain. Until last Wednesday - when it did rain - our golf course was brown and white like a links course.

There's been a huge fire in the Cairngorms National Park the last few weeks and, last Friday, the wind suddenly changed direction and Banchory and as far east as Aberdeen briefly experienced the taste, smell and smoke in the air.

Meanwhile my dental surgeries continue. On 2nd July, my gums were cut and peeled back again as they had regressed since the previous surgery. I got the stitches out 2 weeks later. I'm under the knife again in 2 weeks when he opens access to my new implant post. Those stitches come out 2 weeks later and soon after we're on our way to USA. It's going to be nearly Xmas before all the implant work is finished.

This is Honey - the latest of Gary's foster greyhounds:

Luca is down in England visiting relatives - he drove there all alone.

I've coped not too bad with golf recently - with the help of the occasional buggy. In fact, I won our Wednesday Quaich 3 weeks in a row - it helps to have a high handicap! Here I am on one of those occasions, receiving the prize ball from Jim Fowler:

Another golf photo - this time from our Summer Tour, based in Seahouses,  Northumberland, with the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle in the background:

Me, Ken Black & Harry Salter

I had forgotten that the yellow shirt was the colour of pollen and I was covered in small flies attracted to it!

Jo, Ross and I went to see the Odyssey last week. Fantasy, albeit historical, is not really my thing and I wondered whether I could sit through a 3 hour film but I have to say it seemed to pass fairly quickly. We ate in Thaikun (https://www.thaikhun.co.uk/thai-restaurant/aberdeen) in Union Square afterwards.

Last week was pretty busy - we went to the Crail Festival with Anne and Leslie Mason, primarily to see Anne's brother Tom playing with his band. We took a walk around Crail harbour after lunch at the Balgove Steak Barn in St. Andrews:

Me, Jo, Anne & Leslie

Note the golf cap - Dutcher Creek, in the style of a hunting hat. Scott left it behind last summer

No sooner were we back from that, than I was off down to Glasgow for the 2nd of my old school reunions this year. Nice lunch in the Drum and Monkey:

Robert Rowan (2nd left) was in nearly all my classes at school and Alex Noddings (3rd left) lived just round the corner from our home in Foxbar Drive - Dawn was pals with his sister Mary. Most of the others were a year ahead of me at school and I've only got to know them fairly recently.

Our local branch of CAMRA has commissioned Braemar Brewing to brew a one-of special edition ale for our branch's 50th anniversary later this year. We're hoping for a tasting of a trial brew soon - before we go to USA with any luck.

I'll close with 3 photos of the younger generations:

Cade, Kendall & newly out of the US Army, Braeden

Dawn's grand-daughter Avery in rainbow colours

Asher and his best pal Milo

Bad night all round

This morning's sad sight after an overnight visit to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary A & E:

The sequence of events was - bear with me, it's a longish story:

    (1) Open Reach were doing further work at the entrance to Arbor Court earlier this week - hopefully installing full fibre connections. It meant digging up part of the road and installing temporary traffic lights on the main road. As a result, the entrance to Arbor Court was considerably narrowed - just wide enough for a car, but no more.

    (2) Our bins get collected on Wednesday mornings but the lorry couldn't get through the narrow gap. So, on Thursday we all took our bins back from the bottom of our driveways as we figured they wouldn't get emptied now until next week.

    (3) Meanwhile, I'm doing a bit of painting in our front room, where the wood burner was installed. So I've got the big protective sheet on the floor and round the wood burner to prevent any drips landing on it.

    (4) So, Friday night, prior to the critical Scotland - Morocco World Cup match, we're sitting in our back room watching TV when, about 9 pm, our doorbell rings. We look at each other - who could that be? Jo didn't move but I got up and went down to answer the door. It was Katherine, our friendly neighbour at number two. She had phoned the Council to explain the situation re. the entrance to our road and how the bin lorry couldn't get in on Wednesday but now it was all clear again - could they come back? Surprisingly the Council said yes, so Katherine was going round all the neighbours and telling them to put their bins back.

    (5) After I wheeled the bins down to the end of the drive again, I looked up and there was Jo on our balcony. She hadn't wanted to go down and answer the door but she was nosy - and impatient - and wanted to find out what was happening.

    (6) All good so far, but, a few minutes later, Jo wasn't back in her usual seat in the back room but, as I passed the doors to the front room, I thought I could hear a faint groaning sound so I went in to investigate and there was Jo lying flat out on the floor, having tripped herself up on the large protective dust sheet. She was obviously in some pain - I helped her to her feet and noticed a stain on the knee area of her jeans. I took her upstairs to take the jeans off and have a closer look. There was a deep gash on her knee and I suggested it needed stitches. Jo said no - it was alright - it wasn't gushing blood at this stage.

    (7) So, a little reluctantly, with Ross' help, I put various elastoplasts on to hopefully secure the wound and put an elastic stocking on top as extra security. Hopefully that would keep it sound until the morning when we could re-examine and decide whether to head to A & E then or not.

    (8) Jo sat up in bed watching TV and Ross and I went back downstairs to start watching the match (which kicked off at 11 pm our time). Just before half time, Jo had a change of heart - her knee was now oozing blood and it had stained the duvet cover, so Ross offered to take Jo to A & E.

    (9) They must have arrived at ARI about midnight - sat in the waiting room until about 1 am then were eventually seen by a nurse who confirmed that the wound needed stitches - but the bad news was that they were short staffed and the waiting time would be a further 6 hours!

    (10) I was keeping in touch with Jo via WhatsApp and, given the news, we felt I, at least, should try and get a bit of sleep, so at 2 am I headed to bed.

    (11) It was 7 am this morning when Jo and Ross returned - both heading straight to bed.

What a night - and, to boot, Scotland narrowly lost!

On more pleasant subjects, here's a couple of recent photos from Salem, OR:

Kennedy looks a bit surprised

Kendall and Lola having balloon fun

The Hanson clan have been gathering in Toronto for the last couple of weeks for Brian's brother David's son Scott's wedding. Brian, Mary, Julie, Tom, Sam and Leo are now all back in Scotland but it looks like they had a great time there. We love this photo of them all on the staircase:

The happy couple at the top, with proud Mum Sherie next to Mary and Sherie's amazing Dad, Fred, between the two of them. Not hard to spot Brian's brother David either.

To close, Jo and I took a trip to Aberdeen on Thursday to hunt for accessories for our new wood burner. We had coffee at Greyhope Bay in a former container that has been turned in to a delightful coffee shop with super views over Aberdeen Harbour to watch the dolphins cavorting. They even provide binoculars - not that you need them as there were so many putting on a display that you couldn't miss them.

Here's Jo outside the coffee shop:

It's Midsummer this weekend in Scotland - Midwinter down in Oz - and there's a heatwave all over Europe including the south of England, but Scotland has mostly missed out on it, although it appears that things are heating up here for the next little while. It's also peak golf season and our group has loads of outings coming up:

    - Midsummer Outing at Edzell on Monday

    - Balmoral the following Monday

    - Summer Tour at Seahouses, Northumberland 5-7 July

    - St. Andrews 7 August

    - Boat of Garten 16/17 August

    - Aboyne 28 August

and then we're off to USA. It's a daunting schedule but having had to miss out on most of it for the last couple of years I'm keen to give it a go - albeit my new knee is still not 100% - this will be a good test for it.

Lots of other stuff happening over the next couple of months too - a trip to Crail for their festival (28 July), another school reunion (30 July), Headbang (24 July) plus CAMRA meetings and, not to forget,  my next dental surgery on 3rd July. Whew.

Flamin' June

Well, it's June now but you'd hardly know it. Barring a couple of short exceptions, May and June, which are normally better weather months in Scotland, have been very disappointing so far - and there's only another 10 days or so until Midsummer.

We've had the light nights of course - there's only a few hours of darkness at this time of year. On the plus side we've finally had some much-needed rain but it's come in fits and starts - some of the showers have been heavy enough to force drain covers up and cause holes in the road surfaces.

There have also been a few freak, localised hailstorms - play was briefly suspended at the Old Course at St. Andrews, which was completely white for an hour or so - and Luca showed us his photos and videos of similar in Oldmeldrum where he works.

On medical matters, my new knee is still not 100% but I have managed to have 4 or 5 games of golf recently, so that's at least a bit of progress. After a long lay-off, I feel like I'm having to re-learn how to play golf - I seem to have no muscle memory at all.

On the dental front I have to undergo more surgery next month before my new implant can be fully installed - and the temporary tooth has now fallen out twice so I'm back to my "toothless" grin.

My previous blog showed the initial work done on our front room fireplace prior to the installation of the wood burner. Here's how it progressed:

We discovered that our chimney(s) were not centred with the wall so there was a bit of on the day decision making before the work could proceed. The exciting part was when the cherrypicker arrived, taking two of the men up on to our roof:

It's now over to us - a bit of paint required and we have to decide whether to get a new fire-safe fireplace or mantlepiece. Additionally, a heat powered fan, external and fireside log holders, logs, kindling, firelighters, shovel, ash caddy etc etc.

The work was completed in 3 days - 2 days less than they'd allowed for. They finished on the Wednesday - just in time as we had a planned all-day power outage the day after.

The following week saw our golfers' monthly beer night at Ian Dring's:

Two days after that we were out for dinner again with Leslie and Anne Mason - for the first time since the Derbar closed last October. It used to be a regular monthly thing - with 3 couples - but, sadly Johanne's Parkinson's is now keeping her housebound so she and Colin can no longer join us. We went to the Saffron Garden for dinner - different from the Derbar, but acceptable.

Our regular walking group went on our first walk this year - a fairly gentle one up to the former hamlet of Auchtavan which used to be a regular place for the former Queen Mother to visit - although I couldn't exactly picture her walking up the hill - the Royal Landrovers would have been busy then. We had beers afterwards at the Invercauld Mews in nearby Braemar:

I was back at Braemar a week later - golfing this time - coolish but thankfully dry. On the return to Banchory, however, the temperature steadily increased to a sunny 20 C, so Jo, Ross and I popped round to the Tor-na-Coille and had a couple of early evening drinks in their garden:

Walking past the Episcopal church a couple of days later, I was impressed by their colourful garden:

Later this year it's the 10th anniversary of River Dee Radio so we had a planning meeting on Monday to discuss a celebratory event. The following night was a CAMRA branch meeting, held at the delightful New Inn in Aberchirder - known locally as "Foggie" (short for Foggieloan). It's a brewpub with a wide range of ales, 5 of them on at all times. Excellent pies and pizza - and it was traditional music night when musicians from all over descend on the inn.

Logistics were tricky however - Aberchirder is very rural - over an hour north of Banchory with no realistic bus or rail services. How would I get there - and back? I finally came up with a plan which involved Ross driving me over to Inverurie where I would get picked up by a fellow CAMRA member who would act as designated driver that evening and would take me back to Inverurie later on.

Jo made a late decision to join Ross and wait for me at Gary's house. They ended up going out for a meal with Gary and Luca, so all good in the end.

Talking of CAMRA, it's our local branch's 50th anniversary later this year and we're getting a local brewery to produce a commemorative brew for the occasion. I'll be co-ordinating this with Dave at Braemar Brewing.

We're very pleased to see that our newest great grand-daughter Kennedy seems to be faring well. She certainly looks very happy in this photo:

To finish, somebody posted one of our class photos on our old school's Facebook page recently. Can you spot me?: