Happy St. Andrews Day to all - especially those in far-flung parts of the world - don't forget your Scottish roots!
What have we been up to over the last week? Not a lot, to be truthful, but it looks like being another 3-match squash week for me. I played on Monday and Wednesday and am planning to play again this afternoon/evening. Might be a bit sore tomorrow. It's getting seasonally cold now, with freezing temperatures most mornings, which makes squash on a cold court in the back of beyond a bit of a challenge. It would be far easier for us to play racketball when it's cold, but we all enjoy doubles squash and it's more sociable with 4 of us.
With the exception of the whupping my son-in-law gave me in Idaho this year, I haven't played any racketball for at least a couple of years now. Note to self - must try again before July, so that Scott doesn't find it so easy next summer!
Last weekend, we started watching the DVD I got out of the library - Il Divo:
It's in Italian with subtitles and is all about Italian politics and links with the Mafia, focusing on Giulio Andreotti, 3 times Italian Premier. It's very stylishly done, but some prior understanding of the history would have made it more interesting. Jo was bored rigid and gave up, so I ended up watching the second half of the film myself on Tuesday night when she was at Inverurie.
The actor who played the lead character, Tony Servillo, looked very odd in the film, but, on checking out Wikipedia, the real life man looked exactly the same - chillingly enigmatic as it says in the blurb:
Need to take the DVD back to the library tomorrow - my time's up. We also need to get back up to Banchory Car Centre and make up our minds about the new family car. Jo - and Ross - quite fancied a Subaru (Legacy, I think?), but they wanted one a bit newer than the ones Malcolm has in stock just now, and he's had difficulty locating any. They also tried the eco-friendly Prius, Toyota's hybrid:
The silence of the engine when it's in electric mode, not knowing if it's running or not, may have put Jo off a bit, but you never know - she might become an eco-pioneer yet!
We've also finally got the painting started in our kitchen and downstairs WC, which have both been bare since the new kitchen, shower and porcelain set was put in earlier this year. Davie, our work's painter, became ill and has now finally retired at the age of 76, but we've now got his "apprentice" Gordon, a mere 61 year old, on the job.
Oh - and we successfully sold a spare shower we had on e-Bay. We installed a more powerful shower downstairs, but not before we had already ordered a conventional one, so we were left with one extra. The eBay experience was good - we got most of our money back.
