Birthdays in absentia

We tried to Skype Lucy last night on her birthday - we were all there - Kelly, Ross, Gary, Carole, Luca, Liz, Jo and I - but she wasn't online! Nonetheless, we still cut the cake and sang happy birthday:

Don't we all prefer Gary with hair?

The Inverurie gang all went home - after the Champions League final was over - and Jo, Kelly and I settled down to watch the Apprentice - wrong choice, Sir Alan! However, goodbyes had to be said first of all - huggles and kissies all round:

Tonight, I'm playing at Inchmarlo for Torphins and tomorrow night I'm playing football in Aberdeen - it's Ken Black's 50th and we're all going for a curry afterwards.

My brew

I did eventually make it down for the latter stages of the beer being brewed for my 60th birthday yesterday - but I had to come hot-foot from seeing our visitors off at the airport at 3 pm (their plane wasn't until 6:30 pm!) and, of course, I wasn't really dressed for brewing.

I'm glad I made it along, however and at least observed some of the process in action. Of course, Rob did most of the work, aided and abetted by his father in law, Sandy. The ingredients and recipe were from my suggestions and Rob's interpretation of what I was looking for - a straw coloured, hoppy IPA - similar to some of the American brews I like. Here's the mixture of hops:


It was a lovely afternoon so I was able to sit outside when I received a phone call from our lawyers:



Rob has made up some posters which he is going to erect in the brewery shortly. Here's one about the process:

At the end, I finally got to do something - add the yeast!:

I'll be going back in 7-10 days to help with the bottling. Some will go in cask and Rob has indicated that he would like to launch it as one of his new brands, and he's chosen the name Nechtan, which fits in with his historical theme - check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nechtan_II_of_the_Picts

Anyway, Kelly arrived last night, sans Craig, at about 11 pm, so I'm going home to have lunch with her today. Craig is flying up tomorrow night after making their new home a bit more habitable. Carole, Liz and Luca arrive about 3 pm and Gary will come along after work.

Lastly, happy birthday to Lucy today - talk to you later.

Scolty Ale

Boo-hoo. I had to cancel my planned brewing day again today due to work - people coming up from Manchester (who had cancelled 4 times before, but this time, they're actually coming - sod's law). Because it was a fairly late cancellation, Rob asked if it would be OK to go ahead and brew it anyway and I could maybe catch the tail end of the process later on, and I could also go along next week for the bottling. I couldn't really say no to him.

Kelly and Craig arrive tonight and we're going to have lunch with them, Carole, Carole's Mum and Luca tomorrow.

Back to work on holiday Monday

Another national holiday - but not for us here. It's been a fairly busy weekend. We went on the (free) bus to Macbethfest on Friday night - it was good fun. I didn't take many photos but there's a couple on the football blog.

Golf on Saturday and Sunday mornings and then Sunday afternoon was just crammed full of TV sport. Ross and Gary had gone to Pittodrie - I couldn't get there in time for the 1 pm start as I was playing golf - so I was channel hopping whilst the final matches in the SPL were played, and the Monaco Grand Prix was on. Good outcome for the Dons, but bit of a shock with Calderwood and his team going. The best part of the match was Aberdeen's bizarre 1st goal - check the football blog to see the video clip.

Then it was the golf from Wentworth - I played there last year - followed by the relegation battle in the Premiership - and then, lo and behold, I found Andy Murray's first match in the French Open on Eurosport.

It was such a nice day and I'd spent the afternoon goggle eyed, so, after tea, I suggested to Jo that we go and have a few holes of golf. Normally we would just walk across the road and nip on at the 3rd, but the course was unexpectedly busy last night and we had to walk round to the clubhouse and start from the 1st tee.

I know I'm not the most patient or the best teacher - but then again, Jo is hardly the ideal pupil either - there's a definite obstinacy there to accept any form of tuition or instruction - know anyone else in our family like this? Most of the evening was spent trying to get her to line up properly - she has a definite tendency to aim right - almost at 45 degrees at times, and my constant pleas to go further left were met with querrulous looks - in fact, the source of the "angry eyebrows" of years ago became apparent to me. Anyway after a few tetchy moments, Jo did pretty well and hit some really nice shots - that was until she got to the 11th hole. I kid you not, Hitler spent less time in the bunker than Jo did. I thought she was digging her way down to Oz to meet Kelly and Craig. She must have moved mountains of sand and earth and it took her almost as long to rake the bunker after she finally got out on or about the 14th or 15th attempt.

We both deserved the quick beer we had at the end. We met Les Gray and Ian Sharp in the clubhouse and had a brief chat with them before walking across the golf course to home.

I do have some video footage of Jo in action last night, but it was probably her worst (apart from the bunker) shots of the evening, so I'll spare her blushes on this occasion - that is, unless she gives me some abuse in her blog! Here she was on the 5th hole:


We had to wait at the 12th hole and sat on the bench overlooking the river and took this photo from a distance on the timer: