Saturday Luca

Gary brought Luca over this afternoon - and we saw his 2 front teeth with a gap between them large enough to drive a bus!

Luca took delight in knocking over the blocks that Jo set up time and time again - see video.

Headbang

Had a great headbang last night - Dave and Colin were there but Malcolm was in Wyoming ski-ing and Gary was double booked, but we had Jeb Tyrie and Andy Marshall joining us for the first time, so it was still a full house of 5. We got through lots of great old video files in the 4 hours that we were there before taxis at 11:45 (Dave had an early start on Saturday).

It was the first time I had sampled the take-away from the new Coriander and it was pretty good - as were the mini-casks of Macbeth and Brude from the local Hillside Brewery at Lumphanan. Team photo above.

Favourite video is still Johnny Cash's "Hurt" - if you haven't seen it yet - why not?

I see Lucy has got BBC America back again - I had taped last weekend's omnibus edition of Eastenders and was planning to send it to her in DVD this week - I guess I don't need to do this now?

Friday

Pleased to see Kelly's quick response to my suggestion of a competition! Over to you, Lucy!

Got a panic phone call from Dave W last night - he was setting up the equipment for tonight's headbang and his amp blew out! - could he borrow mine? Well, our house has an inbuilt BOSE sound system so all I could do was look for my old NAD amplifier. It was upstairs in Jo's office but I couldn't get any power to it - perhaps just a new fuse plug required. Anyway, Dave is now looking at it - let's keep our fingers crossed for tonight.

Whey, hey - finally finished my audio book of Bleak House this morning - over 35 hours of it! I enjoyed a lot of it but it's really hard to concentrate on all of it, particularly given the Dickensian language and huge cast of characters. I discovered a back-up on one of the digital TV channels, who were re-running a fairly recent TV adaptation of it - a stellar cast, including many of Britain's finest actors and comedians (even Johnny Vegas is in it!) - it's done in almost soap-ish fashion but it's certainly easier to follow than the book. I missed the first few episodes but I'm now watching the rest - hopefully all the way to the finish - it'll help me pick up some of the bits I missed when my attention wandered as I was driving around listening to the audiobook.

Now need to choose my book for this month - I'll be trawling the web site this weekend.

Carole's horse riding again tomorrow so Gary's planning to bring Luca through some time.

Blogs

Let's have a competition - see who makes the most posts to their blogs - I've already got 7 to mine this month, not including the 2 other occasional blogs I run for the golf (http://bsvgolf.blogspot.com/) and football (http://bvetsfootballgroup.blogspot.com/). Lucy and Kelly a long way behind! Must set one up for Jo - she's going to have plenty of time on her hands soon when she retires.

Played football last night - felt like a really old man - stiff and tired - even more so than usual - hope it's better tomorrow.

Up in Fraserburgh today but I'm meeting up with Ken Page at the Legion for a couple of beers after work - he's on one of his brief trips back from the Gulf.

Change of venue for tomorrow night's headbang - Gary was "double-booked" - don't know if this is code for Mel not wanting us in her beautiful new house/castle - but anyway, it's back to Chapel House, Potarch, chez Williamsons once more. Prompt start straight from football because Dave and Jayne have an early start on Saturday morning so it's carriages at 11:45 for us. Take-aways from the new Coriander are being arranged to be picked up on the way through Banchory.

The start of the week

I went down to Glasgow yesterday and met the lawyer re potential Guardianship. Met Dawn afterwards and took Dad out of the Gatehouse and off to Erskine Glasgow. The poor soul was mightily confused - he could not remember Dawn and Barry mentioning this to him before and was initially reluctant. When he got there he wasn't quite as negative but when he got home again, he was asking us where he was staying that night - was it at home or that other place?

I hope he can be persuaded to go there for his own safety and that we don't have to do anything legally. Dawn and Barry will continue to work on him.

Kelly - we're staying at Trevose (http://www.trevose-gc.co.uk/) and also playing at St Enodoc (http://www.st-enodoc.co.uk/) in July. Check out the local areas!

The P & J had another article about the Tor-na-Coille development and it appears that one or two of the public bodies are also now opposing the application for change of use:

The second application for 3 houses in the lower part of the car park has now been submitted and separate "representations"/objections are required for this before 24th March.

Ross

I tried hard but Ross would not pose in his shirt and tie when he came home from work tonight - but I did manage to snap this as he turned away:

Weekend past

A couple of photos from Cape Town first - both taken by Syd. The one on the right was taken at the fish restaurant at Hout Bay. I wanted a glass of red wine - just the house wine would do - and they produced this fish-shaped bottle. I should have known better - the wine was as crass as the bottle!

The photo on the left was taken outside the Groot Constantia winery - and, for the record, I was not at all tipsy!

Ross was feeling better and went back to work on Friday - he has to wear a collar and tie (my old ones) - must get a photo of him! - as soon as he's home, he's out of his work clothes and on with the dressing gown - just like Jo!

I think I finally sorted out our surround sound on Saturday, but there was a no-show again from the Blacksmith on Friday, so we're still in a bit of a state of limbo with the house.

Gary was on a stag do with his mates in Sunderland this weekend, but Carole's mum came up and they drove over to Banchory to have a belated "Mother's Day" lunch at the Milton with Jo. By the time they got through with nattering and noshing, I had gone down to the pub to watch the Scotland-England Calcutta Cup match, so I never even saw Luca!

Played golf in fine conditions at Banchory yesterday - it felt like spring was coming - the competition sheets are up at the golf club so it's not long to go now until the start of the season. It was Jack's 60th birthday yesterday so he bought us all Drambuie's after golf and Frances came down with a cake and candles and we all had a piece. Had a second bite later on after playing squash doubles when Jack came to the Legion and did the honours again!

It's going to be a busy week again - I was planning to go down and stay with Dawn tonight before heading off to Edinburgh for a breakfast meeting, then back to Glasgow to see the lawyer about Dad, before taking him out to Erskine House with Dawn, to see if we can persuade him to move. However, the weather warnings are pretty severe and I may just skip the breakfast meeeting in Edinburgh and leave it until the morning before I drive down.

We've also got our first headbang of 2008 planned for this Friday - at Gary's fancy new pad near Inchmarlo.