Saturday morning

As promised, here's Jo and her new hair colouring - she had it up last night, so you can't quite see it all - but you can get the idea.

I survived the 5-a-side match at the Beach last night, although I do feel pretty stiff today. It was good to see the usual crew in the Legion last night and have a chat and a few beers - Colin, Dave, Ian Sharp and John McWhinnie were all there, and Ian McRae managed to make a brief appearance.

I'm heading off to Torphins soon for the medal. Gary is coming through with Luca some time, to allow Carole time and space to prepare for the arrival of her sister and family, here for a few days.

The weather's been fine this week, but not sure what the weekend will bring - we might get lucky this morning, but there's a definite chance of rain tomorrow when we're at Forfar for the Open.

Rest of first week back at work

Been pretty busy catching up again, but I've managed to get some golf in too! Only had one visit to Bannatyne's however - and I've got an assessment booked next Wednesday - expecting bad results!

Enjoyed the sunshine and playing in shorts in our Quaich on Wednesday evening. Won my tie at Torphins on Thursday, so that's me through to the semis now. Jo was out with the girls for dinner at St Tropez - she had her hair coloured in the morning - looks very nice - photo to follow, hopefully.

Met Gary for lunch today (Friday) - Jo was with Carole looking at another house in Pitmedden, although they seem pretty keen on one in Tarves.

Off to play 5-a-sides now - don't know how I'll cope, but looking forward to beer in the Legion later!

More Tuesday

Good news - our bags were finally delivered mid-morning today - only 3 days late!

Had our meeting with the local councillors, BDI and Rod Stone, Aberdeenshire Council official, this morning. Nice noises made, but it seems as if the most immediate and realistic option the squash club have got is with Jamie Burnett's long-awaited Hill of Banchory development, which looks like it will get the go-ahead from ACC next month. Funding will then be the issue.

When we arrived at Heathrow a little bleary eyed on Saturday, Jo took the above two photos of me with my new sets of glasses on - that's the distance ones on the left, and the reading ones on the right.

Back to work

Back to work and I did a full day from 8 till 5, not moving from my desk.

Several phone calls to BA, the last of which told me the first of our bags had arrived at Aberdeen and the second was due later on.

Managed a game of squash at Crathes after work - good to get some exercise and nice to see the lads again.

It's now Tuesday 10:30 am and it appears as if our file is closed with BA, but we still haven't had a call to say our bags are on their way.

Home again

The journey home wasn't too bad, although we were delayed an hour and a half at Medford - something that always seems to happen when flying in to SFO. It did mean that we didn't have the spare time we thought we might have to have a quick snack/late lunch at SFO, so we were ravenous by the time they served the first meal on the flight to London - not ravenous enough, mind you, to forgo a couple of G & T's and London Prides before the meal!

The flight was good and Jo liked the seats by the window. Neither of us slept - we just watched movies all night. Jo was delighted to see Shrek 3, which she hadn't yet had the chance to go and see at the cinema.

We arrived at Heathrow slightly early and made our way through flight connections to BA's holding lounge at Gate 5 for Scottish flights. We had a few hours to kill and we've made a mental note not to go through flight connections if this happens again - it's better just to go out in to the main terminal building - at least there are a number of shops and restaurants to choose from there - the choice is quite limited near Gate 5. Of course we could have gone out again but that would have meant coming back through security again and having done it once through flight connections, we were not of a mind to do this.

Our arrival being early meant we had the galling sight of watching the earlier flight to Aberdeen take off as we waited - we had decided not to ask if they could put us on this, as we (somewhat laughingly as it now turns out) thought that our bags would be checked on to the later flight anyway.

Of course, when we got to Aberdeen, no bags! I'm now writing this on Sunday evening and still no sign of them - I've just phoned and was told they were due to be put on the 4:45 from Heathrow this afternoon - but the girl was a little vague about it. We'll wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Anyway, Ross was on time to pick us up and take us home to Banchory. His car's jacked up in the driveway waiting to have the brakes fitted for its MoT on Tuesday - he thought that Derek Glass was coming back over this morning to do it, but no sign of him.

No food in the house on Saturday either so Jo and I, plus Ross walked along to the Douglas for a bar supper and then home to bed well before 8:00 pm! I thought I would sleep all night, but, no - 1:00 am in the morning and ding! - lights on in my brain and I couldn't get back to sleep. I finally rose about 6:30 - I was just starting to get sleepy again by then, but had a 9:00 am tee time in the Torphins Open.

I had picked up my electric Powacaddy on Saturday from our golf pro - it had been there for the last few weeks for a bit of routine maintenance. The pro went to great lengths to explain every little bit of work he had done on it, but when I actually put it to use this morning, it let me down big time.

Right from the start, it seemed a little odd, but by the time I got to the 7th, it made an enormous noise and refused to budge. I had to push it from there - and that's no easy task when the bag is enormous and jam-packed full and I'm knackered from lack of sleep. I ditched it at the clubhouse and managed to borrow an old pull caddy for the second nine. Didn't seem to affect my golf as I shot a respectable net 65.

Anyway, I'll try the early night routine again tonight and hope I get a bit more sleep prior to returning to work tomorrow.