Tuesday 14th June

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Half way through June and approaching the longest day and the weather's up and down like a yo-yo - one day lovely and another a bit dreich. I have to say, however, that I seem to have been fairly lucky so far - the weather hasn't really interfered with anything I've tried to do - yet!

We had a lovely outing at Blairgowrie on Friday, despite forecasts of potential heavy showers. I started to come down with a bit of head cold, however, and, typically, my voice gave out - this seems to happen at least once a year. I awoke on Saturday not feeling the brightest and decided to give golf a miss. It was the right call, as not only did we have Luca with us that day anyway, but Carole came over for lunch and the afternoon - plus it p****d down virtually all day.

We watched Soul Men at night - Samuel L. Jackson in a kind of soul version of the Blues Brothers - it was OK - there was enough humour and music in it to keep us interested - and awake.

On Sunday, the weather was lovely again as we completed the 11 mile stretch along the Deeside Way from Aboyne to Ballater - check out the details on my Hill-walking site - http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/.

Yesterday, I managed a round of golf at Inchmarlo, courtesy of Nigel Meany who was on a brief visit over here from Dubai. He's job hunting just now and was at an interview in Norway on Friday and popped over here for a few days.

So that's what I've been up to - what about Jo? She seldom blogs nowadays and when she does, it's with the same photos that I've recently published on my blog! Jo was swimming again yesterday, but complained to me last night that she had to curtail her exercise, having "only" done 34 lengths, instead of the scheduled 40. What with swimming twice a week plus regular walking, I reckon Jo's fitter now than she ever was - and it's keeping her a free member of Weight Watchers as she's still well within her target that she set when she first agreed to chum her pal Ann along.

It's only 4 weeks now until we take our short break at the Carrick at Loch Lomond -  http://www.cameronhouse.co.uk/cameron-house/lodges/the-carrick.html. It's a full week we've got booked but we can only stay Friday to Monday as I have to return to work. We hope to catch up with Barry/Dawn/Mary some time that weekend - and we also hope that somebody will be able to use the extra days from Monday until the Friday check-out - Barry and Helen might be interested, but will wait to see what the weather's like.


After we get back from Loch Lomond, it's just over a week until we head off to USA. It seems they've been having unsettled weather this year as well, but I'm sure it'll be fine by then - and their definition of "unsettled" is a little different from our island climate!