Saturday snow

The first snow of the season has arrived. We had a few flurries last night and woke up to a light coating on the ground this morning, which you can just see in this photo - the latest in my series from our bedroom out to the trees in front of our house:

I've got a bit of a head cold. Today might have been a day for us to start distributing the North Sea Ales to the local pubs and do the annual surveys as well but I just couldn't be bothered. A short stroll to the shops then a spot of lunch in the Douglas and now I'm settling down to the usual Saturday afternoon football-fest. I've cancelled golf tomorrow as well.

The new large round mirror in the hall downstairs has been lowered a couple of times since its initial siting, but I suspect Jo's still not happy about how it looks - watch this space.

Ross and Lizzy popped in to the Douglas last night when I was there, so we've arranged for them to come over for some supper next Thursday.

Manchester United won at lunchtime today and are now, temporarily at least, top of the table, so that's a good start for one of my 3 teams. It would be nice to have a hat-trick with wins for Thistle this afternoon and Aberdeen tomorrow. That might cheer me up and stop me from feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Thursday blog

It's Carole's birthday today - happy birthday, girl! Here she is, doing what she loves:

Well, I've got my car back finally. The BMW computer didn't detect any faults either, but the mechanics noticed a bit of wear on the drive shaft and the ABS sensors had to be replaced - and moved slightly. A bit more expensive than I would have liked but a lot cheaper than totally replacing the drive shaft. Now the decision I have to make is do I keep the car and just run it in to the ground, or should I replace it now? It's 6 years old and has done 105,000 miles - but a 2 litre BMW diesel should go on for a long time yet.

I've been thinking about my bike as well. The one I bought second hand recently is a step up from my old 40 + year old bike - better brakes, more gears, front suspension - but it's got fat, really heavy duty tyres and the type of cycling we do is partly off-road but also on tarmac on quiet country roads and lanes. I'm wondering whether a hybrid with narrower tyres might be more suitable for some of the rides - perhaps I'll pick up a second hand one somewhere - ideally one a fraction larger than the one I have.

Yesterday the weather forecasters got it wrong and the threatened rain never appeared. Having spent the previous 3 or 4 days in the house, I was getting a bit stir crazy so I took the opportunity to go for a solo cycle, with a little diversion down by the Dee:

I finished Ross' book - "The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared" - better than the film. Talking of Ross, he's bought himself a little car to get back and forward to work during the winter. Hope he doesn't abandon the bike altogether.

Got the CAMRA quarterly newsletters to distribute - that'll get me out of the house if the weather makes cycling more difficult - as they're forecasting.

Series we're watching now - London Spy and The Last Panthers - and we've now started with House of Cards as well. Also recording the latest series of Homeland, but Jo's lost interest in that now - and also the second series of Legacy, which has been lying in our Sky Planner for months now - along with several series of The Sopranos and Mad Men. Need to get them watched soon. This is the time of year for watching TV.

I have also completed what may be the penultimate episode of my Chronicles - it would be good to finish it before Christmas - it's taken me four and a half years already (http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.co.uk/)

Tuesday's tales

Monday was a bit of a dead day. We drove over to Inverurie to look after Luca for a couple of days - it's mid-term at school. Gary asked if we wouldn't mind waiting in for the BT engineer who was coming along to upgrade the internet/phone line. No problem we thought, but, typically, he wasn't there until after 5 pm so we never got home until nearly 7 pm last night, having sat around the house waiting.

Luca slept here overnight and Gary will pick him up this evening. When Jo went to Tesco this morning, I took the opportunity to walk Luca along to the barber for a haircut - as requested by Gary.

Luca loves climbing up the former "Bonnie Banchory" railway embankment hill and that was where he dashed off to:

 From there it was round to the golf club:

Finally the barber's - and a pre-haircut photo:

and here's the "after":

 Nice and neat and tidy - but 10 minutes later, after wearing his bobble hat:

 The other thing I did today was go to Taylor's and pick up the mirror we had ordered. It's pretty big and it took a fair bit of measurement and discussion about where to place it on the hall wall on the ground floor. Eventually we settled on a mid-point above the radiator - but at what height? Mid-point between the radiator and the ceiling I was told, but, of course, you have to allow for the string-stretch factor - I think I erred a bit too much on the high side:

Don't worry, Jo - it'll settle at a lower level eventually!

Tomorrow morning first thing, it's off to John Clark BMW. Fingers crossed - 3rd time lucky?

Having completed two more episodes of my Chronicles (http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.co.uk/) in the last couple of weeks, I can now see the end in sight, and I'm now already halfway through yet another episode - one that I think will probably be the penultimate one.

Dull Sunday

(If viewing on e-mail, try http://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/ instead)

Yesterday's sunshine turned to a dreich, drizzly Sunday so I decided to cancel golf and just lay in bed for a little longer. This also gave us the opportunity to FaceTime with Kelly. Miller was very excitable and talkative - his vocabulary has increased a fair bit since we last spoke to him. Kelly sent this photo of him on Chris' shoulders at Saturday's Christmas Pageant:

Tomorrow morning we head to Inverurie - we're looking after Luca for a couple of days during half term, and also house sitting whilst their broadband gets upgraded tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday's local CAMRA AGM predictably re-elected all office bearers - including me.

I'm featured in this weekend's Deeside Piper:

Compare and contrast with the original of this photo:

Jo thinks the Piper's printer has run out of ink!

Oh - and I've completed another chapter of my Chronicles - http://renshawschronicles.blogspot.co.uk/