Etc

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Well, it was 4:30 am before I woke this morning - it's progressing by half an hour each day - but I had to stay awake until 11:30 pm to be able to do this. It's a slow process re-adjusting the body clock - after almost a month of an 8 hour time difference, you get very used to West Coast USA time. You would think therefore that I should now be fast asleep, as it's just after midnight at Lucy's, but it seems to have the opposite effect to what you expect. And I've got a cold.

Played golf last night at Banchory - first time walking 18 holes since mid July - but I don't feel too sore today. Going to try squash doubles after work today - need the exercise badly. Gary and Luca are coming to Fraserburgh at lunchtime today - Luca's only at school mornings this week and Gary's taking the afternoons off to look after him. Apparently, Luca's got a fish obsession just now so he wants to see round one of our factories!

Ross has got a new part-time job at one of the local coffee shops - Tease - it'll supplement his income from his business, which has been slow recently, and he's going to get some training to be a Barista apparently!


To finish for today, here's the video of Jo operating the automatic roof - you'll note the cameraman this time didn't leave any fingers, scarves or purses showing!:

Top down, top up

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Back at my desk this morning - first time in long trousers and a tie for almost a month. We managed to stay awake until 9 pm last night, but I was awake again at 3:30 am this morning - jet-lag and the time difference do funny things to you. I've been in the office for several hours already - but don't think I'll still be here at 5 pm tonight!

The day has started on a very sad note - not only did we hear about the deaths of famous songwriters Jerry Leiber (Hound Dog etc) and Nick Ashford (half of Ashford & Simpson), but, much more close to home, my pal Syd's wife Barbara died yesterday. She'd been in hospital in a coma after they discovered an inoperable brain tumour a few weeks ago. They'd been married for over 50 years.

Moving on, here's one of the "missing" videos of the convertible:

End of hols

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

I'm sitting here at LAX in the BA lounge, waiting for our return flight to the UK. Very nice here - and, of course, everything's free.

We went back to the Rusty Pelican last night for dinner - we had gone there almost 18 months ago for Jo's birthday - and it was very nice. I did remember to take an end-of-term team photo outside our apartment last night before we went out:

Dinner on Saturday was a whole lot better experience than Friday night, when we'd walked all round Corona del Mar looking for a restaurant that would take the 6 of us - the best we could get was a 75 minute wait - it was all a bit much for poor wee Braeden, who fell asleep and had to be carried back to the car by his Dad.

Braeden has been a little bit under the weather all week - nothing bad, just not his usual boisterous self. Cade, on the other hand, has been on a high - especially when he's out in the waves, as we were again yesterday at Huntington Beach - aka Surf City USA.

This morning, the Lesinas were up and gone by 3:45 am. We tried to have a lie in, but didn't really succeed. We had a leisurely morning, packing, then taking a slow drive up to LAX on the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped for coffee at Joe's Crab Shack at a marina at the south end of Long Beach. There I demonstrated the roof coming up on our convertible:

As you'll notice, it was filmed by Jo - note accidental artistic addition.

Whoops - flight has now been called - upload speed slow in lounge - will have to do later - sorry!