Hogmanay

It's early evening Hogmanay in Scotland, but it's already 2016 in Adelaide - HNY to all our Aussie family and friends. Looking forward to seeing you soon - we leave here two weeks tomorrow.

I'm relaxing with a cup of tea at the moment, having just had a bit of a Freddie Mercury moment. Can you picture the scene - me doing the hoovering in just my underpants? If that thought puts you off your meal, I apologise. I'll be getting fully dressed soon and going to pick up Colin and Johanne. It'll just be the four of us for Hogmanay dinner at ours this year as both Anne and Leslie are ill - shame.

My last post here was on Boxing Day - since then, I've had 3 much-needed cycles - a solo one on Sunday and with a few of our group on Monday and this morning. We went down to the West Coast on Tuesday - there and back in a day. Our first disappointment was on the drive down, pulling in to the Horn, looking forward to a roll and sausage, only to find out it's shut for 2 weeks. We had to invoke Plan B and pop in to the nearby Glendoick Garden Centre for bacon butties. That was the first in a long line of snacking that day.

We went over to Elderslie to see Brian and Mary, who kept us topped up with a constant supply of food all afternoon. A cup of tea with Xmas cake first of all, then soup an hour later, followed by regular refills then, finally, sausage rolls, chips and beans. Julie, Guy and the boys popped over for a little while too.

We eventually said our goodbyes and drove over to Knightswood to see Barry and Helen and drive them in to the city centre for Dawn's surprise 60th birthday party. Of course, Helen gave us tea and cake as well.

Dawn's do was in the Tea Rooms at the Butterfly and Pig in Bath St. - a nice, old fashioned Glasgow tea room. Here's some of the photos of the evening:

Mara enjoyed playing with the balloons as Kieran held her

I wonder what Barry's looking at?

Dawn and her pal, Rona

Lauren lit the cake for her Mum

Cousin Lesley took this one of me, Dawn & Barry

This latter photo brought memories back of probably the last time the three of us posed together:

Barry told us how he hated that kiss-curl! I reminded him that Mum had done the same thing to me a few years earlier:

We left the party at 9:15 pm, having stocked up with sandwiches from the party, as we had to be home for Luca's birthday the following day and we also knew that Storm Frank was on its way and we didn't want to get stranded. As it happened, we were back safely in Banchory by 11:30 pm.

The direct effects of the storm mostly bypassed Banchory, but it hit Upper Deeside a lot harder and the consequent effect of all the water there had to come our way via the River Dee - and it did. The water level got so high that the bridge over the Dee in Banchory had to be closed, as did Potarch and other bridges. It's the first time I ever remember that happening. The online community is full of the images - even the North Deeside road has been washed away down near Crathie.

None of this stopped us from driving over to Inverurie on Wednesday for Luca's 9th birthday:

Luca chose the picnic-style lunch again.

I was going to corporate hospitality at the Aberdeen - Partick Thistle match that evenng so I decided to catch the train in. I walked to the station, bought my ticket, but then missed the train - and the next one was an hour away. I did eventually catch a bus in - with a little bit of help from Jo - and although I had a bit of a hike when I got to Aberdeen, I made it in reasonable time.

I was marginally fragile this morning, but the biggest shock I got was when I stood on the scales - 13 stone 4 lbs! Just a week ago, the reading one morning had been 12 stone 8 lbs. Surely I couldn't have put on 10 pounds in one week? Jo told me it was probably just fluid retention. Mmmm...

Well, I had better go and get dressed then. Have a good one, everyone - talk to you later.