End of the week post

What's this? Friday already and I haven't posted a blog all week - since Sunday. I'm slipping.

Monday was Aberdeen and Tuesday Fraserburgh & Inverurie. Back to Aberdeen on Wednesday, with an afternoon trip to the gym and, in the evening, Jo and I nipped out to Tarland to do the pub surveys there, then stopped off at the Learney Arms, Torphins on the way home for a spot of supper - and another survey under the belt.

Tonight is our first Headbang of 2014 - out at Gary Grant's in Finzean again. It should be a relatively early night - Gary likes his bed and tends to do his Cinderella when the clock strikes midnight.

I thought we might be going along to Deeside Brewery tomorrow for their Open Day for Times + members, but they have been unresponsive and I wasn't even sure if it was going ahead or not - until a few minutes ago - it's cancelled, so we've got a free day tomorrow.

Carole's Mum is up this weekend and we're hoping they'll all manage to come over here on Sunday for dinner.

The recent wet weather meant a slight build-up of water on the slabs at the back of our house - the drain was struggling to cope. The result now is that we have green slabs:

Wonder if the power hose will cope with this?

To close, I spotted this article in this week's paper - a gift from Scotland to Adelaide:

Sunday night update

I'm sitting here blogging as Jo FaceTimes Lucy - I'm listening and they're talking. It's Superbowl afternoon/evening in USA - but we're not staying up to watch it all. Actually, we've just watched 2 episodes of Series 2 of the Sopranos - Colin gave me the DVD's over a year ago and we've never got round to watching them until now.

I did go to the Belhaven Brewer in the House evening at the Boat Inn, Aboyne on Thursday. There was a bit of a hiccup with the travel arrangements as Keith Gray had said he would like to come so I suggested he get on the bus outside the Douglas and I would get on outside our house. I did my bit - but when I looked around the bus, there was no sign of Keith. It transpired he'd got stuck at work and had texted me to tell me, but I never got his text until I got to Aboyne! Anyway, it all worked out OK in the end as Keith drove down to meet me, meaning I had a lift home.

What is happening with the text service anyway? It seems it's getting more and more unreliable, with longer delays. I used to think it was just the bad signal in our house, but everyone seems to be complaining about it now.

Yesterday was a nice day and we decided to go for a walk. We ended up walking along by the river - past Platties, and along the Deeside Way all the way out to Milton of Crathes, where we stopped for soup, tea/coffee and scones. 6 kms - the furthest I've walked yet. One part of the Deeside Way had a large puddle on it - I waded through, but Jo wasn't keen even with her walking shoes on. She hummed and hah-ed but initially wouldn't take any of the suggestions I made:

Eventually, she had no option but to climb through the fence and go on to the railway line - it's only the tourist Deeside railway line, and it wasn't even running, but Jo was full of guilt about breaking the law.

This was the deciding factor in us catching the bus home after lunch - that and the fact that it started to rain.

We watched the final 2 episodes of the Bridge II last night. Jo thought it was a rubbish ending, but we now know they are planning a 3rd series of the Scandi crime drama, so I guess they were setting that up.

This morning, I didn't feel too good and didn't want to move far away from the WC, so I stayed in bed and just watched wall to wall sport until Jo came home from church and coffee, by which time I was feeling a little better - enough to get dressed and get ready to go out to Woodend Barn again to hear Lesley Riddoch - ex BBC Radio Scotland presenter, who was plugging her new book:

We walked there again - 5 kms - and we walked back too - another 5kms almost, so it's been quite a weekend of walking for me, and, so far, so good, my knee - and my legs - have stood up to it - although I might feel a bit different when I wake up tomorrow morning.

We had tea and cakes at our table at Woodend Barn and Lesley Riddoch was an interesting talker and quite thought-provoking.

We broke our walk home by stopping at the Legion for haddock and chips - plus some beer, of course.

So that's our weekend over - back to work tomorrow.