Friday greyness

It's looking a bit dull outside again, despite another weather forecast that said the North East would be sunny - at least this morning. That's what they said about yesterday as well - I had cycled through to Aberdeen, fully expecting the usual North Sea haar greyness there, but expected to be greeted by the sunshine when we got back to Deeside, but it wasn't to be.

We didn't see the dolphins from Torry Battery and Girdleness Lighthouse - another time perhaps. Jo and I decided to go to the movies yesterday afternoon. We used our free bus passes to get in to Union Square, then paid the discounted Seniors' rate to get in to see Spectre and had a couple of pints of ale afterward in the Justice Mill for just £3 in total, using our CAMRA vouchers. A cheap date.

No discounts at the Ashvale afterwards, but the haddock, chips and mushy peas was excellent.

The James Bond film was the usual spectacle - predictable and ludicrous, but well made. I preferred Skyfall.

This morning, after 4 days of laziness, not shaving, I'm now back to being clean shaven again, but before I took it all off, I wondered what I would look like if I grew a goatee? This photo confirmed to me that it wouldn't suit if I let it grow any more:

My car is still at Caldwell & Dempster. I told them there was no rush, but perhaps I'll give them a call today to see what's happening.

When we left Inverurie on Tuesday, I noticed this on the front door:

says it all really

Tomorrow, I'm planning to go and see Thistle for the first time this season. They're playing at Dundee - apart from Aberdeen, this is as close as they get to us.

A tale of 2 cars

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It's Wednesday morning and the brilliant weather has gone for now - it's a grey start to the day - in more ways than one. Yesterday we drove through to Inverurie as usual to pick up Luca from school. We left Banchory a bit earlier than usual as we had intended to go via Costco, Westhill. It was the first time I'd driven my car any distance since it was "fixed" last week.

Jo's worst fears came true when we got to Garlogie - the traction control warning lights started flashing on and off again, causing a loss of power. "Why didn't we take my car?" says she. We decided to abort the Westhill trip and head back to Banchory to change cars. I disabled traction control and we made it safely back to Banchory in good enough time to drive over to Inverurie in Jo's car.

So this morning, I had decided to take the car back to the garage but I thought it would be a good idea to give it a run first to check it out again, so I drove to Aboyne and back. Sod's law, the car behaved itself - no warning lights, no loss of control and no hot wheels. Mmmm..... What to do?

I know - it's time to put my winter tyres on - get the garage to do that and check out the car at the same time. So now, we're a one car family - the garage is short-staffed this week and they probably won't be able to complete the work today.

Grey days like today make me think about holidays next year. It's just over 10 weeks until we head Down Under again. Earlier this year we visited the Clare Valley area of Southern Australia, so it was nice to notice the origin of the wine we opened last week:

Two years on ....

Greetings from another beautiful day here on "Royal" Deeside. The light is stunning - everything is so clear. Looking forward to this afternoon's cycle.

It was 2 years ago yesterday that I had my knee replacement operation. I don't awake every morning now thinking whether it's going to be a good day or a bad day with my knee - it seldom causes any issues now - although the other knee can still occasionally be troublesome - as it was yesterday at golf.

I've just posted another chapter of my Chronicles - the 42nd. This one takes me up to 2003 so there's only 3 years left now - my diary blog (this one) started in March, 2007, so that's a natural point for the Chronicles to finish. It's taken me four and a half years to get this far.

This diary blog is now approaching a total of 400,000 viewings since the start. Readership has dropped off in more recent times from its peak when there was over 2,500 viewings for each post and almost 1,000 viewings per day. Now it's just 10% of those figures. (Of course, those who read the blog by e-mail rather than on the blog page, don't register in these stats).

We had a long FaceTime chat with Lucy last Tuesday when we were in Inverurie. Luca was initially reluctant to take part but before long he was hogging the call! We haven't had a chance to FaceTime with Kelly recently, but she sent Lucy a photo from this weekend, so we'll finish with that:

Whoops - sideways again!