Birthday blog

Well, I had a very nice birthday, with lots of gifts and a lovely family meal last night. First gift to arrive was on Wednesday - presumably from the Down Under family, who had told us there was something on the way:

First gift on my actual birthday was my Jawbone Up (https://jawbone.com/up) bracelet from Jo. Need to build up some data before I bore you all with the various stats. I've already learned, however, how sedentary my job is. The bracelet is set to vibrate if it detects 15 minutes of inactivity. It's been buzzing away all day! I'm supposed to do 10,000 steps each day - I'm lucky to do much more than 1,000 unless I actually go to the gym/go cycling/play golf etc. Oh - and I got two Cadbury's Creme Eggs from Jo as well - and it's not even Easter yet.

When I arrived in Fraserburgh on Thursday morning, Francis Clark handed me a bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet from Michael and him. I suddenly realised that this was indeed a special birthday.

I got home later that afternoon to find another gift waiting for me:

Looks intriguing - but what was inside?:

In the evening, we picked up Ross and headed out to the Echt Tandoori to meet up with Carole, Luca and Gary. Ross handed me my gift:

There's a trend developing here. Are they trying to tell me something?

We were all very impressed with Echt Tandoori - nice place, good food and excellent service - they were all very friendly and went out of their way to make sure that Luca, in particular, was looked after. After the bill was paid, they even offered us all a complimentary drink. One of the staff took this photo of us all:

No starters - just poppadums and spices - and no desserts - well, just one:

Gary and Carole were the exceptions who gave me something a little healthier than alcohol (not that I'm complaining!) - some new cycling gear:

Ross drove Jo and I home and we settled down to watch the last of Series 2 of the Sopranos. Just 3 more series of loveable and deadly Tony and his crew to go now.

Today (Friday) it definitely feels like a semi-retirement. When our long-serving Girl Friday Jacquie arrived at the office, she brought with her a cake, which she'd baked for us - at 5 am this morning!:

(sorry, the sun got at that one a bit)

Tonight, it's the usual gathering at the pub - no doubt with a dram or two to finish the evening. Could be a slow start tomorrow, but I'm going to see Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup in the afternoon.

Incidentally, by the time you read this, you could have become the 100,000th reader of this blog!

Short weekend

The weekend past flew by - mostly because Gary and I went to Dingwall on Saturday to see Thistle play Ross County, which meant virtually a full day for me, by the time I drove to Inverurie in the morning and then dropped Gary off there in the evening. I arrived at Rae Circle just in time to see Carole sorting out all her horsey gear, and Luca finishing his supper, complete with new haircut:

It was a lovely day on Saturday - all that was missing was a decent football game. We met up with old footy pal, Rob Dunnachie, for a beer and a bite before the football. Spotting the sign outside the National Hotel, we thought we'd pop in there:

Regrettably, the Cask Ale sign was a relic of the past - no real ale here.

At the match, Gary took a photo of Rob and I:

No, I'm not showing off my ever-growing stomach - just the Jags shirt I got for Christmas.

Sunday was just as nice and I decided that it was, at long last, time for me make my comeback at golf again. I had felt for some time that I was ready but, for a combination of reasons, had delayed it until now. It felt good to be back and my knee was really good - no pain at all. Of course, it was also the first outing for my "puppets" as well:

Jas looks a little bewildered as to why I've got these 2 strange things on the end of my clubs.