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?:

Mid-May update

Well, it's May but it doesn't feel like it. Normally one of the best months of the year in Scotland, but, although, it's remained pretty dry, the temperature, with a couple of brief exceptions, has been lower than expected. We're told that it's going to change later on this week - I do hope that's right.

The good news from Oregon is that we have a new great-grand-daughter. Kennedy Ann arrived at the weekend. Lucy was there to help Audrey and Cade but we haven't managed to video call yet - just the following photo so far:

Kendall and Cade both look very happy to greet her.

Medical matters - my new knee is still not fully healed but it has improved a little - I've even taken my first (very) tentative steps back on the golf course. I've also stopped going to my twice weekly physiotherapy exercise sessions - I feel I've gone far enough there now. I'm still doing my daily exercise routines at home and I may now consider re-joining the gym.

One of my pals passed me an interesting article from Private Eye magazine about some potential scam about knee replacement parts in the NHS:

The issue is with one particular knee replacement part that was used in the NHS from 2012. My first knee replacement took place in November, 2013 when I was still working so had private health insurance, with the operation done at Albyn Hospital. Hopefully they weren't using the same prothesis as the NHS - and I've not had any issues with that knee anyway in over 12 years.

My second knee replacement last year was done by NHS at Woodend Hospital, but, as the article says, "Many patients haven't got a clue what prothesis they are carrying".

On the dental side, the stitches in my gum have now been removed but it appears my gum-line has further receded and the dental surgeon may have to cut them again. He will review matters next week and, if he feels it necessary, it'll be another month after that before the next procedure. On the plus side, he has put a temporary bridge/tooth in and I now have a full smile again:

That photo was taken on one of the few warmer days we've had - it was so good I decided to cycle along the Deeside Way to and from Aberdeen for my dental appointment - 61 kms in all.

Jo and I had appointments last week for our spring Covid vaccinations. Jo took the jab but I had cancelled the day before. That's the last two appointments I've cancelled after suffering pretty adverse reactions to the previous half-dozen or so. When it comes to the winter top-up I'll have another decision to make then.

My annual eye test went well however - no change to my prescription although she did say that I now failed the distance test for driving (without glasses) - that's a first for me. I wear my spectacles virtually all the time now anyway.

Well done to Lauren for completing the London Marathon - the largest ever.

We were round at our friends Archie & Eileen Cook's for dinner on Friday - and very nice it was too. I think it's the first dinner party we've been to since Covid when socialising came to an abrupt halt - thankfully fairly short-lived.

Kelly was working over in Perth, WA and they decided to make it a short trip for all 4 of them. They were staying in "Freo" - as the Aussies call it - Fremantle to us - not far from the Little Creatures brewery, where this photo was taken:

Back in 2012, before Miller and Asher were born, we were there. One of the few photos I have of all 4 of us on that trip, was taken at the Monk, now sadly no longer in existence:

Miller seems to be having an interesting time at his new school in the Hills. They recently went to visit a robotics factory:

Miller's the only one in shorts (it's autumn there) - he doesn't like wearing "long pants"

This week we are having the (decommissioned) gas fire in our front room replaced by a wood burner. Sadly, we had to lose our nice fireplace surround and mantlepiece. This is what it now looks like mid-Monday morning:

When the workmen took the fireplace surround out they found an old postcard from Lucy, back in 1997, in the early days of moving to USA:

We've had notice from SSEN that they're going to cut our power off all day on Thursday while they do some essential cable work. We need to be well organised - everything fully charged beforehand, dig out the old primus stove for cups of tea and eat out. 

April blog

Hello - it's been over a month since my last post so here goes with trying to remember what happened when.

Starting with a medical update - my new knee still hasn't completely settled down and it's coming up to 9 months now since the operation - very disappointing. My other knee took only 3-4 months but this one is lingering. I'm still attending physio exercises twice weekly and doing daily exercises in-house - ones from local physios and also from the physio I visited in Adelaide, for which I've got a neat app on which I record the exercises I've done. Slight signs of improvement, but, annoyingly, I've alrady missed the first month of the golf season.

My other issue has been the tooth implant that broke in half last year. I'd had the assessments, quotes and scans but just under 2 weeks ago it was time for the long operation to try to remove the piece that was stuck in my gum. It had been there for 14 years so skin and bone had grown around it. I had been asked to book a 3 hour appointment so I knew it wasn't going to be much fun.

A dozen injections helped ease the immediate pain but there was, of course, an aftermath to consider. The work was beyond the skills of my usual dentist and he had referred me to a specialist in Aberdeen, who happens to sponsor Aberdeen Football Club. He cut my gums and peeled them back to get access to the area and he managed to get a screw in to the old post and reverse it out after a lot of pulling and pushing. A new hole had to be made for the new implant post and he then had to bone graft the old area.

After a couple of hours on my back with my mouth open, I was given antibiotics and pain killers and sent on my way. I have to go back there this Thursday to have all the stitches removed. After that, once the gums have fully healed, in a few months' time I'll have a full toothy smile again!

The aftermath involved a lot of swelling and bruising but it seems to have settled down now. This was me 2 days after the op, trying, in vain, to smile:

That was just the start of the bruising coming out - it eventually extended from my eye to my neck.

I wasn't the only Stewart under the knife - Barry had an eye operation to scrape the membrane at the back of the retina:

Barry's pretty much recovered now.

Jo and I have had our annual cardiac reviews (which are far less thorough than they used to be) and all seems OK, apart from Jo having to go back and have her bloods done again next week as her sodium level seemed a bit off.

Jo, Ross and I had a nice evening meal at the Tor-na-Coille on her birthday. It had been a beautiful day so, when Jo was out for coffee with her pal Anne, I decided to go for a walk and test my knee a bit with a (very) slow hike up Scolty Hill:

Two days later, we drove out to Kemnay to have dinner with Gary and Luca at Bennachie Lodge Hotel (https://www.bennachielodge.co.uk) - and very nice it was too.

On the last Saturday of March, our local branch of CAMRA held its AGM at the Legion - and took the opportunity to present the local Club of the Year plaque - again!:

I spotted a Facebook post from the Montessori school in the Adelaide Hills. They were having a Twilight Market and all the pupils were cooking the food for the family visitors. Here's Miller serving and making pizza:

And, even though it was a rear view, I spotted Kelly and Chris, deep in conversation with the local Fire Officer:

And what about Asher? Here he is at home with his artistic presentation of a watermelon drink:

Back in Scotland, the bad weather in the North East early in the year caused postponements of lots of outdoor activities (apart from ski-ing) - including Luca's football matches with Kintore United Amateurs. As a result, they've since been playing catch-up with 2 games most weeks. Here's Luca (in yellow on the left) in a recent match against Theologians:

We drove down to Glasgow a couple of weeks ago as I had arranged 2 separate meet-ups with old pals. The first was one of my regular catch-ups with old school pals from Victoria Drive. At the previous meeting last year, Jo had travelled with me to Glasgow city centre where I got off and she drove on to Elderslie to meet up with Mary. She had a bit of a nightmare then and vowed never to repeat it, so this time, she suggested dropping me off at one of the subway stations on Paisley Road West as she knew her way from there.

I did as I was told and got on the "Clockwork Orange" at Cessnock and made the short journey back from there to the city centre:

Nothing could possibly go wrong for Jo now - I had parked the car on Paisley Road, facing the right direction, switched on the sat nav and handed over the car keys. No more to be said.

Our school reunion went well - only 5 of us this time as we had recently lost one of our number, so we made a toast to our old friend Donnie:

After spending the night at Brian and Mary's, we headed off to Cameron House, Loch Lomond, to meet up with another old friend who I hadn't seen for over 50 years, but, first, we made a pit stop at Barry and Helen's to see how his recovery from his eye op was going.

Roddy MacLeod had done his C.A. education at the same time as me and we used to meet up regularly socially. We were on holiday together with 2 other pals down in Torbay in 1969 at the time of the moon landings, although we all struggled to stay awake after midnight in our little caravan. Roddy (and his wife Carole) were at our wedding in 1972, as were a number of my pals:

That's Roddy with the beard, kneeling beside me bottom right. I'd dug out some old photos to reminisce with him - including this one. Now I'm embarrased to admit that, although I know everyone else, I can't remember one of the group above - top row, 3rd from left. Sadly, Roddy was no help here either.

The following week we were on our travels again - this time to Pitlochry for Dawn's much-belated 70th birthday celebrations. We stayed at the grand old Atholl Palace Hotel (AthollPalace.com):

The five of us walked up to the nearby Moulin Hotel/Inn (https://www.moulinhotel.co.uk/) for lunch, had dinner at our hotel and visited various shops, coffee houses and the Pitlochry Festival Theatre (where Alan Cumming is now Artistic Director) over the 2 days. I remembered just in time to take a team photo before we left:

Meanwhile, what's happening in Oregon? You'll never believe it - they've all taken up fishing! Here's Lucy with her first ever catch all by herself:

The Easter bunny had been:

As you can see, Audrey is now well on her way. We're looking forward to seeing great grand-daughter number two in September.

We've finally committed to having a wood burner in the front room to replace the old gas fire. Installation will take place week commencing 18th May. It's going to be a major change to the appearance of the front room as the existing fire surrounds and mantlepiece will have to go.

This has been a long blog diary catch-up - I'll try to make future ones shorter. I'll close with a photo from our latest monthly golfers' beer night at Ian Dring's man shed: