Pre-op

So here I sit, about to have the last supper - or so it seems. My bag is packed and the alarm is set for the early morning start. I was quite relaxed about it all until everyone started wishing me all the best for my knee replacement operation tomorrow - it's suddenly made me feel nervous.

I got to thinking about all the "lasts" - I've played my last ever game of squash; my last game of golf this year was last Saturday; my last drive this year was on the way home from Fraserburgh this afternoon.

One way of cheering me up was seeing this photo of Miller:

Sorry it's sideways - but you can still see what a lump of a lad he is - and what a lovely, cheeky smile.

We're up to date with Homeland now - and Corrie. I also managed to view the last episodes of the last series of Mad Men on the plane back from Tenerife on Sunday. So just Tremé and The Sopranos to finish off now. I've got lots of reading to catch up on as well - tons of magazines - Mojo (now 20 years old), Q, Golf World and CAMRA's quarterly Beer magazine to start with, plus the book I started in Tenerife - Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham. Probably first up, however, will be the Thistle fanzine that Gary picked up when at Firhill on Sunday (with Kieran) to see the Celtic match. Bet I barely make a dent in this lot.

Back in the UK

Got back from a terrific week's golf in Tenerife late last night - Jo came to pick us up at the airport and we both headed off early this morning in to Aberdeen for my pre-op medical assessment. It was the usual round of blood pressure, ECG, urine and blood samples etc plus some instruction on the procedures for this Friday's operation. We also got to meet the physiotherapist who talked us through the post operation recovery.

The only real surprise - to me at least - was them screening for MRSA - by nose and groin swabs. It's been 6 months since my last X-rays when I decided to see through another summer before having the knee replaced, so it's possible I may be called back before Friday for updated X-rays.

After that, I had to rush off to Fraserburgh to meet up with some Danish visitors, so it's been a pretty full day. I drove home tonight in a bit of a dwam - I was on autopilot. Hopefully I'll sleep well tonight.

My golf was great last week, incidentally - all the details on the golf blog.