Tuesday Tales

It's Tuesday morning and Jo's out walking in the rain with Anne. We'll be heading to Inverurie as usual this afternoon to pick up Luca from school and take him back to his home. It's damp and it's forecast to be that way for the next couple of days - hope it brightens up for the weekend and next week - I've got my Boat of Garten golf outing Sunday/Monday, then, on Thursday I'm off to the West Coast for our annual walking trip. I missed last year as I was still recuperating from my knee replacement so I'm looking forward to the trip this time - I think!

We've now booked our trip to London in August. We're going down to see two musicals - Sunny Afternoon (www.sunnyafternoonthemusical.com/) and Beautiful (www.beautifulmusical.co.uk/). Colin and Johanne are coming with us. I've booked the tickets and the flights, but not any accommodation yet. One idea I spotted looks quite interesting - https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/5062078?checkin=12-08-2015&checkout=14-08-2015&guests=4&s=x94q. That would certainly be different.

I also discovered that Johanne's name on her passport is Johanna. At college and school she used to spell it Joan. Seems like she couldn't make her mind up.

Jo went in to Aberdeen to chum Anne on a shopping trip on Saturday. I did a bit more of the wall in the back garden then headed off to the Legion where a few CAMRA colleagues came out to Banchory to help with the presentation of Club of the Year. This photo has already been on Facebook:

Trish Ewen is the Steward at the Legion receiving the plaques, but two of my fellow members (Rigg Robertson and George Howie) appear to be archetypal CAMRA members, whilst Jim Strachan and I look like a different breed, I think? Appearances aren't everything.

Saturday was also the day that Partick Thistle confirmed that they are staying in the SPL for at least another season, after thumping St. Mirren 3-0.

Sunday was a complete write-off. I was due to play a golf tie but thankfully my opponent called to re-schedule it to last night (Monday) - a great decision as it turned out as it was a lovely day - the complete opposite of Sunday's washout. Well at least it gave me a chance to work my way through the Sunday Times.

I pulled out of our usual Monday afternoon cycle group as I was playing golf in the evening, but it was so nice in the morning that I decided to go for an early morning ride instead - up to Torphins and back. Start at Burnett Park and along the old railway line then through the forest tracks to Hill of Brathens. From there, head west towards Glassel, turning off along farm tracks and up to the small community at Mill/Hill of Beltie then down the lovely tree-lined avenue that takes you down to the main Aberdeen - Torphins road:

I crossed the main road and approached Torphins from Craigmyle Road which runs parallel to  and north of the main road. Lots of nice houses there - pretty big too - and some of the new ones not occupied yet.

The problem with cycling more than once a week is washing and drying my cycling gear, which gets pretty well mud-splattered on some of the off-road routes we go on - particularly the farm routes where the large pot holes retain rain water virtually all the time. So I finally decided I needed to buy another hi-viz cycling top (plus another couple of wickable marino wool base layers):

Monday afternoon was preparing the other wall in our back garden for repair - it too is falling down due to the pressure of the earth and plants inside it.

So that's my diary up to date again. Not exactly Pepys, but Jo calls me a "Social Historian"!