Friday

I waited at home for the builder to show up to do the harling on the wall and replace the coping stones, but he never showed up again, so it'll be another irate phone call to Everest, who completed the drive a couple of months ago, but never finished the last bit off.





I then nipped in to the village for a quick haircut before heading to Jacquie's to dictate the minutes of yesterday's board meeting. She had been baking for a charity do this weekend and I tried some of her marvellous ginger cake.





A quick visit to Bannatyne's, then in to the office - it was Ian McFadden's retirement and we took him out to the Cock and Bull for lunch - very nice. Didn't have much time back in the office before heading to the beer fest again for a couple of hours work behind the bar, then dash home, grab a bite, then head for our bus back in to the festival.





Slight embarrassment at the start – as we left the Burnett in our coach from Peace's, another coach from Lees of Lumphanan pulled up. I had phoned them 3 times the week before and they never called back with a price, so I assumed they weren’t interested, so contacted Peace instead. There were a few irate phone calls from Mrs. Lees who claimed she had left a message on my answerphone, but I never received it, and anyway, I never accepted or acknowledged it, so why did she assume the booking was confirmed? I guess we won’t be able to use them in the future!





The new venue of Pittodrie was generally well received and we had a good attendance on the bus – in fact, too many! I had originally booked a 24 seater, but thought we might get a couple more, so increased it too a 33 seater. In the end, the owner of Peace Coaches brought along a 36 seater, but even this wasn’t enough on the way home – we picked up several stragglers at the festival who wanted to get back to Deeside and had to use the spare disabled seat at the front and one other was found hiding at the toilet at the back! It was a very nice coach but the owner banned us from taking our chips on board – disaster! Mind you, a few were smuggled on.



Going a bit slow this morning - in fact, Jo is still in bed and it's approaching 11:00 am now. I'll head in to the festival again this afternoon for a couple of hours work then back home - we're babysitting Luca tonight - Gary's taking Carole out for her birthday.

Next week, I'm back down in Glasgow again - Colin, Malcolm and I are going to see Squeeze on Thursday night and I will stay with Dawn again - Barry's house is still in turmoil. We need to talk about Dad again - Barry and Dawn say he's looking very good just now, so best to leave his medication as is. Dawn went out and bought him new clothes - and threw out all those terrible old trousers and sweaters he has been wearing. We need to complete Power of Attorney documents soon as decisions will no doubt have to be made in the future for Dad, who is not really capable of making them himself nowadays.

I'll head back to Banchory on Friday as we have the celebration football match for Dan's 65th birthday, followed by a curry.