Lottie

Spare a thought for Jo today - it would have been her Mum's 87th birthday. Here she is in happier times a decade ago at our timeshare in Marbella:

I had a nice time last night at the Lemon Tree - details on my football blog. Going a bit slower today - we both had a late night, so both breakfast and lunch have been hours later than usual. We're getting an Indian take-away tonight and going round to Colin and Johanne's - I've been promising for months to go round and show him how to work his vinyl to digital converter deck, and tonight's the night. I've just been down to Ross' room to dig out my old albums and pick out the ones I want to convert.

Ross' pal, Pete, is over from Italy for the first time for 3 years and he's staying with us tonight. I don't expect we'll see much of them, however, as they're going in to Aberdeen to play cards tonight.

Final scores just coming in - dismal day for the Dons and the Jags.

Sabre rattling works!

Yesterday's blog at least provoked Gary and Lucy to act promptly and update their blogs - pity Jo and Kelly didn't do anything - especially Kelly - we want to see more photos of Oz!

Kelly and Jo were Skypeing when I left to go to work this morning. I just said a grumpy hello to Kelly - why grumpy you ask? - firstly, no hot water for shaving and showering - turned out the pilot light was out. I went down and re-set it, whereupon Jo revealed that yesterday our system "had been making noises" - so why didn't you say something, then?

I was immediately reminded of our conversation last evening when Leslie had phoned to tell us that Anne was out of hospital and I said "that's good - Anne will be able to make it to the girls night out at the T-n-C perhaps then?" No way, said Leslie - Anne will be completely out of action for several weeks. I was a little taken aback at this, as I assumed that her release from hospital with a broken ankle might cause her a bit of discomfort and lack of mobility, but not much more than this. Jo then piped in and confirmed Leslie's diagnosis and elaborated what a poor state Anne was in - so, again, why didn't you say something before then? It's not as if I haven't been around this week - I've been in every night - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (early home then for swine flu jabs) and Wednesday.

It appears that some people can talk a lot and actually say very little.

Anyway, my grumpy start to the day made me think about another potential Xmas present - an electric shaver - not too dear - and just a back up to use for a quick tidy up, that's all. Of course, a sweater, new camera, a jacket, a car coat, new Sky Caddie, new Powacaddy, new irons and, of course, the Ginger Baker book are still all possibles as well!

Today at work we're dealing with the aftermath of a poor external audit of our Aberdeen factory over the last couple of days. We've been treading a fine line with the customer recently and relationships haven't been as good as they were - particularly since they revealed that they'd had a competitive quote. The risk of losing the UK's largest supermarket as a customer would have major repercussions for our business, so we've got urgent issues to deal with over the next few weeks.

Anyway, more immediately and personally, I've got the Lemon Tree to look forward to tonight. Last week's gig was good, but I wasn't really feeling up for it after the tooth extraction, so I'm looking forward to tonight - I'm planning to use my bus pass for the first time and we've got a meal booked at the Jewel in the Crown - roll on!

Solo blogging

It seems like I am all alone in the world again, so I'll keep this short - no point in wasting time if nobody else is out there.

Not much news - we both had our swine flu jabs - and yes, they are a little tender, but nothing really - although Jo said she was a bit restless last night and the night before I was a little wary of sleeping on my left side.

Last night, we veg'd in front of the telly - a small dose of Corrie, followed by a week's worth of Come Dine With Me - how awful are these people? They definitely put them together for dramatic effect, to ensure there are plenty of personality clashes - and there are. I can't think of many worse ways of spending a week in the company of complete strangers, cooking and eating each other's food, and having them crawl round your house, poking around in your cupboards and wardrobes.

I whiled away much of the time by transferring some of Ross' music database on to my PC. I had been looking for my Nick Drake CD, but couldn't find it. I've just booked for us to go to a concert in Glasgow in January which is a tribute to him - and I wanted to refresh my memories.

Tomorrow, it's back to the Lemon Tree for me - Blockheads this time - seen them before and they were very good - hope they are again. Jo's going out to the Tor-na-Coille with the girls.

This new film about the early life of John Lennon is getting a lot of publicity - looks quite good - evocative of the 50's - might go and see it over the holidays.

I'm up to date with my Sounds of the Sixties recordings, so I started a new Audiobook on the road up to Fraserburgh this morning - Purple Hibiscus. It's about a well to do Nigerian family at the time of the coup - the last one I think. It's started OK, so we'll see if it holds my attention.

Today, it's back to Fraserburgh and dealing with the problems of handling multiple outlet retailers - don't get me started!

Plus ca change

Tuesday morning - in to the office - you would have thought that the heating problem we had yesterday would have been sorted by now - but no, it's freezing again! Off to Homebase to buy 8 small heaters.

Fortunately, this afternoon the problem has been fixed at last.

We're off to get our swine flu jabs in an hour or so - I've been told they hurt your arm for a while, so it better be my left arm then.

One potential adventure I've been thinking about for a while is the West Highland Way. Now being a novice when it comes to hillwalking, and having little available holiday time, I didn't fancy taking a week (or 2) off work just to do it, but when we were over at the McWhinnies on Saturday, John was telling us that his younger son, Ian, had just completed a truncated version of the WHW. They went to Fort William and caught the train down from there to Kinlochleven, then walked back. This can be done in 3 days, and, even if we add a day to go up to the top of Ben Nevis and back, it's still just a long weekend - so next September is now being scheduled for this. Need to get some training in for this - and some gear. Watch this space.

Otherwise nothing to report.

Monday morning - freezing

It was cold this morning - frozen sleet on the windscreen had to be cleared before I could head off to work - and, when I got there, the heating was off, so we're all sitting here trying to work with our coats on!

Well, we had our pheasants yesterday - two was more than enough for the 3 of us. They were pretty good - a pleasant change anyway.

The gig at the Lemon Tree on Friday was pretty good, even although I wasn't really feeling much like going after the extraction. On Saturday morning, my taxi arrived at the ridiculous time of 8:50 am to take me to the corporate hospitality at Pittodrie. By 10 am, I was already in the boardroom and on my second glass of champagne! The meal was good and the football was too - well, the result anyway - the Dons beat Rangers 1-0 - made all the sweeter by a bunch of arrogant Huns sitting behind me.

I got home not long after 4 pm - Jo was out - she had gone to visit Anne in hospital - so I had time for a quick nap before we headed off to the McWhinnies in the evening for a spot of supper. By the end of the evening, I'd had more than enough food and drink in one day.

Got a game of golf on Sunday, albeit a couple of sleety showers nearly put us off. The afternoon and early evening had promised a feast of derby football, but I was pretty bored by it and only watched it intermittently. When Jo got back from visiting Anne again, we had to try and get rid of some of the programmes on the Sky planner - we were down to just 16% spare capacity on our HD box.

That's all, folks.