Saturday update

It's Saturday night and we've been alternating between Strictly and the Darts - neither of which we ever watch - that's how awful TV is tonight.

Kelly, Chris and little Miller have gone back to the chalet, hopefully to catch up with some much needed sleep. Jo, Lucy & Cade have popped down to Tesco to pick up some groceries, and Scott and Braeden are lying down fast asleep opposite me on the settee. Gary was here for tea but has gone home now.

So they all got here OK yesterday morning. We've since allowed them to take things easy and try and catch up with our time zone. Scott, Chris, Gary and I popped down to the Stag for an hour to watch the first half of the Aberdeen match tonight, but, apart from that, and a few trips to Tease for everyone to say hi to Ross, all that has happened was that I was at the optician this morning for my annual eye test to check for glaucoma - Mum had it and it can be hereditary, so I have to have it checked out every year. I had some error results on my left eye today so they had to do extra tests, which involved putting two lots of drops in my eyes - one with a yellow dye and anaesthetic and the other to dilate my pupils. I have to go back again in next 6 months and do it all again - I'm told this is precautionary as all the other tests worked out OK.

Anyway, here's what you've been waiting for - some photos:

Just arrived in the chalet - and Miller's the centre of attention already

It had been a long journey

Joe 90

Medical update

We went back to see my surgeon this morning for the first time since the operation, which will be 7 weeks ago tomorrow. He seemed very pleased with my progress and assured me I was well ahead of the norm - that was very satisfying.

I asked to see the X-rays of what my knee now looked like and he showed me them on his PC:

This was taken the day I left hospital. He didn't take any X-rays today but said he would do so on my next visit, which is scheduled for 1st May - exactly 6 months after the op.

We then popped in to my office to pick up the salmon before heading to Westhill to do shops in M & S and Costco. Apart from salmon deliveries that's about it for today.

Tomorrow is the big day when everyone arrives. Kelly, Chris & Miller will probably be on their 3rd flight - the big one - by now, and I imagine the Lesinas might be meeting up with cousin Mark on their long layover in Seattle before catching the big bird to Amsterdam this evening.

Exciting times!

Busy Wednesday

It's been all go today. We awoke sharp at 6:30 and I went through my usual morning routine, all in good time for Jo to head to the hairdresser's at 9 am. While she was away, the Penicuik builder came round, unannounced, to finish off the external work under the window sills after the new ones were installed last week.

I had been invited to join Dan and Archie for coffee at the Douglas at 11 am, but I knew there was a delivery arriving between 11:30 am and 1:00 pm, and I still had errands to do. I dashed to the shops, did my errands and tried to get back in time for the delivery, but just missed it - sod's law, he was a few minutes early. No matter, he had left it with our neighbour, Trish, so I picked up the console that Jo had ordered and carried it home. It's not the same one as was on the blog last week, and Jo's now decided it goes in the kitchen, not the stairway, but here it is anyway:

Jo had been delayed getting home, having sidetracked to Orvis, so I ended up having to miss coffee with Dan and Archie, but I got another invitation a little later to meet up with Colin, Ian Sharp and Malcolm Lodge in Tease after their usual Wednesday cycle. In fact, I had lunch there, as I knew Jo was heading out for afternoon drinkies and mince pies at one of her pals.

It took some persuasion for Jo to allow me to drive her to her friend Jill's little matinee party, but we got there safely and I then went round to the tip and emptied my car with junk from our garage. No sooner was I home than Raemoir Garden Centre's van arrived with the tree that Jo had ordered at lunchtime.

Next was a phone message from TNT - they wanted to come round and pick up the massive drum kit that has been littering our house for 2-3 years now - since one of Ross' pals' pals, a Hungarian, left them here one year when we were away. The only problem is packaging - TNT have had to go back to their contact in Hungary to find out what their plans are here. We really thought this time we were going to get rid of this drum kit - and before Christmas too - but this late snag may delay things further.

So I picked up Jo from her afternoon do and we went straight to Morrison's to stock up on some goods for the chalet that Lucy and Kelly and families will be staying in from Friday. We FaceTimed Kelly this morning for any last minute requests. As I write this, they'll be getting up and heading to Adelaide Airport soon.

That's the story of my busy day.

Sleep returns!

A semblance of normality the last couple of nights. I slept for 3 hours without interruption on Sunday night and then 4 hours last night. After an hour or so of twitching around, I managed to get back to sleep for an hour or two after this as well, so, really, I can't complain this week - yet.

No electronic stimulation, lavender sprinkled liberally around, a chapter or two of my book and, last night, a new trick - smearing castor oil on my eyelids. All of these may be old wives' tales, or sound advice - who knows? - but it shows I'm ready to try any tips I receive.

The latest piece of advice came from Frances Simpson, and turned out to be a fairly expensive experiment. I went to the chemist/pharmacy to ask if they had any castor oil and was initially told no, but they could order it for me. The assistant then remembered that somebody else had ordered a bottle a few weeks ago but had never picked it up - I soon found out why - it was £18 for a 500ml bottle!

I definitely feel my progress has moved on another notch this week - I feel more able now. Yesterday, I was down the village and popped in to see Ross in Tease - he had borrowed the car on Sunday to go to Costco to buy goods for the coffee shop. Ross had parked it next door in the museum car park, so I asked him to give me the keys and I would take it home - it's only a short drive. I managed fine, and when I got home, I decided to start filling the car with some of the junk in the garage that had to go to the tip.

I'm able to do several minutes on the static bike now and usually I can get it going straight away - that's something I wasn't able to do a few days ago. I managed 8 minutes today - a paltry amount, I know, but a huge improvement on the pathetic weakling who could barely manage a few revolutions before.

Today we were at the physio again and she seemed pretty pleased with my progress and told me just to keep going with what I was doing - and also told me I could ditch the last walking stick, except for when I was planning a very long walk, when she thought it might still be a good idea for me to take it with me as moral support, if nothing else. That's a bit of a breakthrough as well.

She measured my angle of bend again and was a little surprised to find it was still only 90 degrees, but the measurement is done when I'm lying down on the bed and I have to slide my leg up. I find this the hardest way to do it and I know I get more than 90 degrees when I do some of the other exercises, particularly those under stress.

My next appointment with the physio is not until the end of January now, which will be 12 weeks after the operation and she reckons that's the very worst part over then. She hoped too that the fluid/swelling on my knee may have gone down a bit by then, which should also help me get a bit more bend hopefully.

It's Tuesday and Jo's away to pick up Luca from school, as usual. Carole's coming over tonight for tea and will take him home. I've been putting a few pictures etc up downstairs. I had planned to just use tacks/screws/drill as necessary but Jo had bought a little tool which is meant to be a simple, clean way of fixing them to walls:

Simple enough to use, but will it last, particularly with the larger, heavier items? Time will tell. Meanwhile, here's some of today's work in the study/exercise room downstairs:

So Andy Murray easily won the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year on Sunday - I should think so too. I felt I had to make sure there were no last minute anti-Scots votes which might deprive him of his just desserts and, for the first time ever, I went online to vote for him. In the end, it was a landslide.

With Xmas coming up a lot of TV and radio series are coming to an end. On Saturday, it was the last episode of Borgen, the Danish series about politics. I enjoyed it, but I know the principal character (Birgitte Nyborg) annoyed Jo a bit - she's a bit of an idealist and sometimes a bit too good to be true - Birgitte that is, not Jo.

It was also the penultimate episode of Homeland on Sunday - the finale is this coming weekend, and we were left with a real cliffhanger.

It's now early Wednesday morning in Adelaide and Kelly, Chris and little Miller will soon be getting ready for their long journey - they leave there first thing on Thursday morning their time. Scott, Lucy and the boys have a bit more time before they're on their way from Oregon, but both families are scheduled to arrive within roughly half an hour of each other at Dyce on Friday morning.

It will probably be Ross and Jo that will take the cars and pick them up. I'll probably head to their chalet at Inchmarlo and wait there for them, while making sure everything's in order for them.

Countdown - 5 days to go!

Less than a week now until the visitors from Outer Space - sorry, Australia and America - arrive. It's going to be a busy week. Jo's got a lunch tomorrow, then we've got my physio and Luca on Tuesday, salmon to collect on Wednesday and the surgeon to see on Thursday, amongst other things, like more trips to the tip, pictures to put up - and a letterbox too - we forgot about that when we got the new front door!

That's the week ahead, but what has this weekend brought? On Friday night, I had my first night out at the pub since early/mid October, then on Saturday, I paid my first visit to Pittodrie this season. Aberdeen won 2-0 and it wasn't too bad a game considering the windy conditions - it must have been very difficult for the players. Even more so for one poor unfortunate elderly spectator who, with the aid of some friends, managed up the steps in the Richard Donald Stand and then, thinking he was safe being back on the level, promptly put his two walking sticks down on the wet surface and they immediately skidded forward and he took a headlong tumble. I sympathised - and took this as a warning as I gingerly made my own way out of the ground.

I just had time to shower and change and then we headed next door to the Tor-na-Coille Hotel for our annual Xmas dinner with the squash/golf crowd - and very good it was too.

When we got home after the dinner, we prepared carefully in an attempt to avoid yet another sleepless night for me. We'd had lots of advice - much of it from Jo's sister Mary. Lavender oil was liberally sprinkled everywhere, all electrical stimulation and LED lights from TV's, phones etc were doused and I took all my meds, including Nytol again. I read a couple of chapters of my book and then settled down for the night. An hour and a half later and I was up and awake again. I probably spent a restless 30 - 60 minutes after that, but then I must have fallen asleep. I awoke at 6 am, but stayed in bed until Jo got up at 7 am, by which time my leg was crying out for some pain killers. I actually felt quite sleepy at this time, but I knew I had to sit up to take the pills.

Today, I've done my exercises twice, including a couple of reasonable spells on the exercise bike, and I've walked to the shops and back, but the rest of the day has been a typically lazy Sunday watching sport on TV and reading the papers.

So that's my weekend. My other blogs contain most of the photos of this weekend, but here's the selfie I took of Jo and I last night: