Normality (almost) returns

Jo spent yesterday in bed, but she's up and about again today - still not eating much, but definitely a good deal better. Hope she gets her full appetite back tomorrow - we've got our Xmas Dinner at the Tor-na-Coille Hotel.

Then we've got Luca staying on Saturday night.

Next Friday/Saturday, we've been invited to stay with Keith and Annette Gray, who have a week's timeshare at Gleneagles:

This week we booked our flights down to France - the first time we've been on holiday in that country since our kids were just kids. We're staying at Richard Simcox's 7 bedroom villa in the Dordogne with 4 other couples - the Cooks, the Grays, the Salters & the Grigors - in June. The villa is in a place called Dussac and there were 3 possible airports we could fly to - Limoges (an hour north), Bordeaux (two hours west) and Bergerac (90 mins south). We chose the latter, partly because of the better flying times. Here's the area:

Some of you may remember our holidays in the Vendee, which is not too far from La Rochelle, which you can see in the top left above. This was in pre-Ross days:

The week after France, we're off to USA - flying in to Denver and staying there 2 nights at:

After that, we head west to the ski resort of Breckenridge for a week:

Then it's over to Oregon, then down to southern California, back up to Oregon, then off home again at the end of July. I think we'll do a bit of travelling in USA this time - Yosemite and Death Valley are still on my wish list, so we'll see if we can squeeze these in some time.

August and September are back in Scotland then we're off to our original timeshare in Marbella in October.

Of course, before all of this, we've got our Australian trip in January/February. It'll be our first time at Kelly and Chris' place in Semaphore, which is not far from the beach:

We've got a week booked at a timeshare at a golf resort just outside Normanville, south of Adelaide:

Hectic schedule, eh? How am I going to fit my golf holidays round that?

I'm really winding down at work now - emptying desks, filing cabinets etc. It feels a bit like moving home. I'm hoping my slow, gradual withdrawal after 31 years with the Clark family and in my 50th year since I left school, will help me adjust easily to life in retirement.