Well, our sick family have all flown home now - how sad - the house is a lot quieter now! The Lesinas flew west on Thursday morning and Kelly headed in the opposite direction later on.
Here's a few of the pre-departure photos - firstly Braeden, looking a little reflective and wearing his new Scotland hat that he got at Castle Fraser, Kemnay on Sunday:
I dropped Lucy, Scott and the boys at Aberdeen airport and took a quick photo as they disappeared to the terminal building. Braeden and Cade noticed me, but Lucy was intent on getting to check-in, whilst Scott was out of shot, lugging the rest of the cases:
I met Jo and Kelly inside the terminal building and we said our farewells and off she dashed - I just managed to get this slightly out of focus shot as she disappeared through to security:
So, it's back to the old routine now - well, maybe not quite yet - it was the Stonehaven Beer Festival last night and a few of us went over - not Jo this time - she wasn't feeling up to it, and we've got another wedding to attend this afternoon, so she decided it was best to give it a miss this year. (Festival photos on my ale blog -http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/).
I also went back to see my knee surgeon on Thursday - just a routine follow-up visit. My knees are progressing pretty well - even my troublesome right knee is a little better now, but Mr. Bidwell confirmed that a new knee is definitely on the radar - it's just a question of time. He thought that I could probably get away with a partial replacement, rather than a full one - most of the damage is on the inside of the knee. He told me to just carry on as normal just now and see how I get on with the knee as is - best to put off the op for as long as possible.
That was the first of 4 planned visits to the medics in 2 days. On Friday, I went to see my GP to get the results of my latest blood tests - the previous one had shown an adverse liver function reading after I started on the statins a month ago, but this one was OK, thankfully. I've to get it checked again just before we go to Oz in January.
Just an hour later, I went to see one of the other partners in our local medical practice - this was a follow-up to the freezing treatment he had applied last month to the sun spot on my nose. It's improved a little but it's still there, so he applied another treatment and we'll see how this one goes.
Then, this morning, I was due to go for my flu jab - but I forgot! Whoops - must have been too much beer last night.
So, I better go and pack now - Laura Mason's wedding this afternoon, then off to Spain tomorrow morning. I haven't had a chance to play any golf for 6 weeks, but I did go to the driving range on Wednesday night to see how much it was going to hurt. It wasn't too bad, although I had to take it very easy, not knowing whether my knees would stand up to it and also how much my ribs would hurt as I swung through. Fingers crossed.
