Yes - it's back again - more of the white stuff overnight, so decision made - no trip to Inverness for us. As compensation, Malcolm got in touch this morning - he's got a spare ticket for Pittodrie this afternoon, so I'm heading off there shortly.
Tomorrow, it's a tennis breakfast/brunch for me - fingers crossed for Andy. Gary and Carole are going to drop off Luca about lunchtime as they're heading off to Ardoe House for another wedding exhibition. We'll then take Luca home when we go over for dinner later on.
That's about it y'all - have a good weekend.
Ian R. Stewart Family Blog
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
Back to blogging
I've been very busy at work this week and not had the time to do any blogging during daylight hours - and generally too busy or tired to do anything in the evenings.
It's always a busy time of year at work just after the Christmas/New Year holidays and, apart from the usual routine, I've been doing all our managers' annual appraisals, so that's kept me out of mischief for a while.
I got a quick game of squash on Tuesday - we couldn't get on at Findrack and Kippie was out of the question as well, so we thought we'd try Aboyne. None of us had played there for more than 20 years. The court used to have a linoleum floor and your feet would get red hot. Thankfully, that's changed and they do have a proper sprung wooden floor now - the only problem is they seem to be either polishing it or varnishing it - it's very slippy and constitutes a bit of a health hazard. Of course, when you try to tell the numpties there about this, you get nowhere - "I don't think they're polishing it" - well, it needs sanding then - "Oh it's not the type of floor you can sand" - the lady was suddenly an expert on squash courts and was telling me how it should be done. I gave up - I thought they might react when I said it was a Health and Safety matter - normally Council workers run for the hills when they hear these magic words, but even this didn't seem to provoke much of a reaction. I guess we'll only use this court again if we're really desperate. It was nice and warm however, which made a pleasant change.
It was quite spooky going back to the Aboyne Community Centre - memories of almost a quarter of a century ago when we would all troop down there for the Saturday morning swimming session, and go upstairs to the cafeteria - it seemed half of Banchory were there.
Mention of Health and Safety reminded me of an incident at work the other day which demonstrated that there's no accounting for the "numpty factor". Michael looked out of his office window and saw one of our employees actually inside the compactor trying to push the boxes down. Just thinking of the consequences makes you go weak at the knees.
Luca was with us overnight on Tuesday and all day Wednesday - and you've heard about the mishap from Gary's blog. It was our golf club AGM on Wednesday and after it, we watched the second half of the Manchester derby - what a great game! We're now trying to proceed with a project to build a squash court at the golf club - Richard Simcox, like most of us, has got fed up waiting for all the other projects - Hill of Banchory, King George V - to make any progress, so he's decided to fund the entire project himself!
His business is obviously making a lot of money just now - but it's still no shoe-in - we still have to persuade the committee, then the members of the golf club at an EGM, that it's a good idea for them. We have some history here - when the squash club was first established just over 30 years ago, the then committee, led by Dick Taylor, proposed to build the courts at the golf club, who had just had a major fire and had to completely re-build their club house - but they said no - talk about short-sighted. The squash club then had 200 members and, being a winter sport, it would have kept the clubhouse busy all winter long. Now, the clubhouse is absolutely dead for 5 months or so of the year - they were even complaining about it at Wednesday's AGM. I just hope there's a bit more vision this time - albeit there's currently only one-tenth of the former numbers currently playing squash - but hopefully more would play if facilities were available.
That's about it - we've all been suffering a bit from a slight bug - just slightly under the weather. Jo's still got a bit of a sore throat, but hopefully she'll be OK for her girls' night out tonight.
We woke up this morning to more snow. The roads were pretty slippy - especially around Garlogie - but it was even worse just north of Aberdeen - the dual carriageway is completely jammed and all our guys who live in Ellon etc are taking over 2 hours to get in today. Tomorrow we had planned to go to Inverness for the footy, but, with more snow forecast for tonight, we're having second thoughts now.
Looks like golf on Sunday will be a no-no as well, which is good as I can now watch the final of the Australian Open with a clear conscience! After that, we head to Gary and Carole's for dinner - hopefully after we've watched Man Utd beat Arsenal on the box!
It's always a busy time of year at work just after the Christmas/New Year holidays and, apart from the usual routine, I've been doing all our managers' annual appraisals, so that's kept me out of mischief for a while.
I got a quick game of squash on Tuesday - we couldn't get on at Findrack and Kippie was out of the question as well, so we thought we'd try Aboyne. None of us had played there for more than 20 years. The court used to have a linoleum floor and your feet would get red hot. Thankfully, that's changed and they do have a proper sprung wooden floor now - the only problem is they seem to be either polishing it or varnishing it - it's very slippy and constitutes a bit of a health hazard. Of course, when you try to tell the numpties there about this, you get nowhere - "I don't think they're polishing it" - well, it needs sanding then - "Oh it's not the type of floor you can sand" - the lady was suddenly an expert on squash courts and was telling me how it should be done. I gave up - I thought they might react when I said it was a Health and Safety matter - normally Council workers run for the hills when they hear these magic words, but even this didn't seem to provoke much of a reaction. I guess we'll only use this court again if we're really desperate. It was nice and warm however, which made a pleasant change.
It was quite spooky going back to the Aboyne Community Centre - memories of almost a quarter of a century ago when we would all troop down there for the Saturday morning swimming session, and go upstairs to the cafeteria - it seemed half of Banchory were there.
Mention of Health and Safety reminded me of an incident at work the other day which demonstrated that there's no accounting for the "numpty factor". Michael looked out of his office window and saw one of our employees actually inside the compactor trying to push the boxes down. Just thinking of the consequences makes you go weak at the knees.
Luca was with us overnight on Tuesday and all day Wednesday - and you've heard about the mishap from Gary's blog. It was our golf club AGM on Wednesday and after it, we watched the second half of the Manchester derby - what a great game! We're now trying to proceed with a project to build a squash court at the golf club - Richard Simcox, like most of us, has got fed up waiting for all the other projects - Hill of Banchory, King George V - to make any progress, so he's decided to fund the entire project himself!
His business is obviously making a lot of money just now - but it's still no shoe-in - we still have to persuade the committee, then the members of the golf club at an EGM, that it's a good idea for them. We have some history here - when the squash club was first established just over 30 years ago, the then committee, led by Dick Taylor, proposed to build the courts at the golf club, who had just had a major fire and had to completely re-build their club house - but they said no - talk about short-sighted. The squash club then had 200 members and, being a winter sport, it would have kept the clubhouse busy all winter long. Now, the clubhouse is absolutely dead for 5 months or so of the year - they were even complaining about it at Wednesday's AGM. I just hope there's a bit more vision this time - albeit there's currently only one-tenth of the former numbers currently playing squash - but hopefully more would play if facilities were available.
That's about it - we've all been suffering a bit from a slight bug - just slightly under the weather. Jo's still got a bit of a sore throat, but hopefully she'll be OK for her girls' night out tonight.
We woke up this morning to more snow. The roads were pretty slippy - especially around Garlogie - but it was even worse just north of Aberdeen - the dual carriageway is completely jammed and all our guys who live in Ellon etc are taking over 2 hours to get in today. Tomorrow we had planned to go to Inverness for the footy, but, with more snow forecast for tonight, we're having second thoughts now.
Looks like golf on Sunday will be a no-no as well, which is good as I can now watch the final of the Australian Open with a clear conscience! After that, we head to Gary and Carole's for dinner - hopefully after we've watched Man Utd beat Arsenal on the box!
Monday, 25 January 2010
Back to work
Monday again - been to Fraserburgh this morning and now in Aberdeen office, preparing for our board meeting in the morning. I had originally planned to come back via Inverurie as we were due to be having Luca for the night, but that was cancelled.
Diary - Friday - busy day at work with lots of monthly management meetings, but then a nice time in the evening at Franco's for Malcolm Lodge's farewell - see football blog. Even managed another very quick trip to the gym - and I finally found a car wash that was open again, so everyone could tell my car was supposed to be black - but it's back to grey already.
We did very little on Saturday - got depressed by hearing the radio with Thistle getting duffed at home. We're supposed to be going to Inverness to see them on Saturday, but we're starting to lose enthusiasm for this annual trip to see our old pal Rob Dunnachie, who now lives in Dingwall.
On Saturday evening, we started watching the Wire - Colin had given me the DVD's of the first series (he's on series 5 now!). It's pretty good - gritty and earthy - Colin had warned us to put on the subtitles - and we're glad we did. By Sunday evening we had watched the first 3 episodes - only another 12 to go in the first series.
I also finished my book - the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - last night. I really enjoyed it and have now ordered the other two books in the series. I finished the two parts of the audiobook I was reading today - Next by Michael Chrichton - but I think I must have overlooked downloading some other parts - it all came to a rather abrupt end.
So, we've got a confirmed date for the wedding - and Lucy's now booked their flights to/from USA. Over to Kelly now.
Diary - Friday - busy day at work with lots of monthly management meetings, but then a nice time in the evening at Franco's for Malcolm Lodge's farewell - see football blog. Even managed another very quick trip to the gym - and I finally found a car wash that was open again, so everyone could tell my car was supposed to be black - but it's back to grey already.
We did very little on Saturday - got depressed by hearing the radio with Thistle getting duffed at home. We're supposed to be going to Inverness to see them on Saturday, but we're starting to lose enthusiasm for this annual trip to see our old pal Rob Dunnachie, who now lives in Dingwall.
On Saturday evening, we started watching the Wire - Colin had given me the DVD's of the first series (he's on series 5 now!). It's pretty good - gritty and earthy - Colin had warned us to put on the subtitles - and we're glad we did. By Sunday evening we had watched the first 3 episodes - only another 12 to go in the first series.
I also finished my book - the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - last night. I really enjoyed it and have now ordered the other two books in the series. I finished the two parts of the audiobook I was reading today - Next by Michael Chrichton - but I think I must have overlooked downloading some other parts - it all came to a rather abrupt end.
So, we've got a confirmed date for the wedding - and Lucy's now booked their flights to/from USA. Over to Kelly now.
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