Holidays 2008

Nothing has come up yet for our preferred locations on the West Coast next year, so it's possible that we may instead take the boys to Florida for the first time.

There's plenty of good accommodation there, including some of the Marriott options. There's Marriott's Grande Vista Resort (https://www.my-vacationclub.com/resort/home.do?resort=gv) and Horizons by Marriott (https://www.my-vacationclub.com/resort/home.do?resort=ho). They both offer typical Marriott quality 2 bedroom, sleeping 6 or 8 accommodation. This usually means a double bedroom and another with two double beds, with one of the rooms possibly being a "lock-off" - plus a lounge with convertible sofa and a kitchen.

There's also a few non-Marriott places available, some of them offering 3 bedroom accommodation, such as Fairfield Star Island Resort (http://www.starislandresortorlando.com/index.asp).

Don't know what's best - tried to phone Interval for advice, hoping they might be able to tell me what type of units were on offer and whether they were ground floor or not, but they can't tell you until you've booked!

Saturday morning

Oh - forgot to say that Ross has an interview next Wednesday at Concept - fingers crossed!

We also finally received the invoice that Stan England has been promsiing for months for the deposit for the stairway at the back of our house - and it includes the cost of the windows that he installed a couple of years ago and never billed us for!

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.

Wednesday/Thursday

No football this week, but at the beer festival every day setting up. Not much to do the last couple of days, but official opening to the public is 4:00 pm tonight and I'm doing a couple of hours behind the bar. Hope the punters turn out at the new venue.

Still been very wet and dark the last couple of days - dodgy drive up to Fraserburgh this morning, with lots of flooded roads. Forecast is for snow on hills, but it's actually sunny as I write this.

Lucy has decided Florida is her preferred destination for next year, so I'll need to crack on now and get some accommodation booked!

Another dark day

Tuesday was almost as dreich as Monday - wet and dark. I went to Fraserburgh to work - bought myself a replacement watch strap, tried to get my hair cut (failed - shut for lunch) and had a bite to eat with Michael at the Lighthouse Museum.

Made it back down to Pittodrie to see how preparations were going for the beer festival - no problems, my services weren't really required, so I hung around and chatted with the guys for a while before heading off home. Grabbed a programme first of all - some strong beers on sale - ca' canny!

No response from Lucy about some of the possibilities for next year's vacation - perhaps she's been too busy?

Gloomy Monday

Carole's birthday, but it was a dark, gloomy day with daylight barely showing. It was also Luca's appointment at the hospital but we haven't heard yet how it went.

Read Lesinas latest blog this morning - well done, Lucy - keep it up!

Jo came home from work ranting and raving about the traffic and threatening yet again to retire soon! She did manage to pick up a new pair of winter boots, however. Mind you, they don't have heels so she's going to have to buy another pair to wear with trousers!

We spent most of this evening watching TV with our respective laptops on our knees - me surfing for possible holiday locations in USA next year. None of our preferred locations on the West Coast have come up yet, although there were quite a few others available in July - plenty of options always available in Florida and Palm Springs - also Nevada (been there this year) and a few more exotic ones - Mexico, Eastern British Columbia, Arkansas, Tucson Arizona, Breckenridge Colorado, South Carolina, Park City Utah, Williamsburg Virginia and an interesting one in the city of Gatlinburg Tennessee, not far from Dollywood!

I guess much depends on how easy it is for Scott, Lucy and the boys to get to any of these places.

Beer festival start-up work starts tomorrow so I'll be working there for a couple of hours each evening this week.

Active weekend

Friday night's football was good but, as I said before, it was tough on the old body - although I was up a few times in the night, unusally for me I managed to go back to bed and sleep a bit - didn't actually get up for good until 9:30 am - almost unheard of!

We had arranged squash doubles at 3:30 after which we intended to go to the golf club to watch the big match, but I couldn't find my racquets and we started and finished later than planned. The club was mobbed and I made a quick body swerve and headed home for a shower and my own TV, joined by limp-along Colin, who still had his space boot on to protect his Achilles.

The match was a heart-breaker with Italy scoring in the 1st minute, which galvanised Scotland and got them back in to the match. Scotland equalised and could, and probably should have gone in front in a pulsating second half, but Italy stole the match in the 2nd minute of extra time to eliminate Scotland from next year's Euro Championships in Austria and Switzerland. Ah well - at least we don't have to try and organise tickets and a trip there next June!

The Kilgours and Stewarts went to the Douglas for a bar supper, which was very nice - much better than previous occasions there.

Sunday was golf in the morning - a little damp, but not too bad - played OK again, but Jas deservedly won the money this week. Back home for lunch and then out for more squash doubles at 4:00 pm, after which Malcolm, Harry and I had a chat about where we might stay in Cape Town next year. Need to make decisions soon, although at least the flights are now booked.

Jo made a lovely braising steak for tea and we had Christmas pud and custard to follow. Very nice, but I've now left the table with Jo and Ross in full flow on politics and religion, prompted by a programme on TV about Palestine etc.