Beautiful weekend

I did manage to stroll across to the golf club last night. Dusk was settling and the sky above was stunning - all reds and blues. Unfortunately, I only had my Blackberry with me, so the quality of the photos I was able to take was pretty poor:

Today after golf, Jo had organised an al fresco lunch in the back garden. Here's Craig helping to set up:

Gary, Carole and Luca arrived a little late after some car trouble. Gary thought he needed a beer - and he tried one of my birthday ales - but the jury was out as far as he and Carole were concerned:

No, the beer wasn't that bad - it's just Carole's usual camera shyness:

Kelly and Craig didn't mind having their picture taken:

Luca was saying cheese again but the timing was all wrong:

Jo worked on him, however and eventually they both grinned happily for the camera:

9/11 memories

Check out my Facebook page to see my comments and a photo memory of that horrible time in 2001 - never to be repeated we hope.

On a more pleasant front, here's a short montage of photos of Cade at camp (click to enlarge) - note Scott kneeling in the top one:

Some kind of bug going round - Ross wasn't too good yesterday and I came home from the Broch, had my tea and went straight to bed - at 6:30 pm! Still don't feel great today and I've cancelled my football tonight - although I hope that I can manage a swift beer and some golf in the morning.

Disaster averted

Well, we got past 09/09/09 and I didn't hear tales of planes crashing or superbugs affecting the ICBM system - hopefully that's the last we'll hear of millennium bugs and their like.

I got the wrong photo of Cade's football - he was in white this year! Will correct in due course.

Kirriemuir was lovely yesterday but the same can't be said about the Scotland - Holland result. As a nation we thrive in despondency, and we don't do euphoria very well, so perhaps it's just as well we didn't make it to South Africa next year - I might have been tempted to go!

Nothing much else to report other than the fact that it's sweltering here in my office in Fraserburgh - can't take much more - will have to leave soon!

No room at the Inn

The Cornish contingent arrived in Banchory about tea time and they were followed a little later by Gary, Luca and Sima, so it was pretty much full house last night. The first thing Kelly and Craig wanted to do was shower - followed by catching up with e-mails, blogs, Facebooks etc:

Sima didn't want to be ignored:

Craig checked that his iPod was properly charged again:

We tried in vain to get a snap of Luca actually looking at the camera, but he's obviously got his mother's anti-camera thing going on. He's learned now to say "cheese" but he moves his head down immediately after saying it and you don't get a chance to take a snap:

Eventually Gary enticed him to keep his grin for a bit longer and I just about caught the moment:

Sun's shining today and it's looking good for my Seniors match at Kirriemuir this afternoon - and I'll get back in plenty of time to watch the key Scotland - Holland match - fingers crossed.

Back to work again

First of all, I think this is the photo of Cade in action (in blue) that Lucy tried to refer us to on the official photogarpher's web site, which is a little awkward to use:


Hope I've got the right one!

The downpour on Thursday caused the postponement of our golf at Aboyne on Friday afternoon, so I was sitting in the office late afternoon when I got a late call up for the football instead. I hadn't played for a while so I was more than a little apprehensive, but it was OK - at least until Saturday morning when I tried to play golf - boy, was I sore and stiff!

Our weekend at Boat of Garten went well - and we avoided the rain. Photos on my golf blog. On the way back, we always stop at the Boat Inn for a swift pint bought by the winner (Syd). I was delighted to see that they had 2 Deeside ales on - one of them my birthday brew, Nechtan. Here I am enjoying it:

We had aromatic crispy duck and Ross cut his cake last night. Today, Kelly and Craig are on their way up here - they're making good progress and should be here about tea time tonight - Gary and Luca are coming over as well.