Officially winter

The meteorologists say that 1st December is the official start of winter, but it doesn't feel like it - it's got pretty mild these last few days after some freezing weather last week.

Dawn came to stay for a couple of nights - I picked her up at Aberdeen bus station on Sunday afternoon. Jo had made mince and tatties for dinner and we veg'd out in front of the TV for the evening - Strictly, X-Factor and I'm a Celebrity - none of them shows we would normally watch, but Dawn's a fan so we sat through them, criticising in a GoogleBox kind of way.

Dawn was working at Camphill on Monday afternoon so I drove her there, taking my bike with me so that I could go for a cycle while she worked. In the evening, we went to Banchory Lodge for dinner - and very nice it was too.

Tuesday was a beautiful crisp, clear day so we decided to go for a walk prior to brunch. Dawn's bus home wasn't until 13:45 so we had plenty of time. I parked the car up at the castle at Crathes and took this photo before we walked down to the Milton for brunch:

After we'd eaten, Dawn and Jo browsed the small shops at Milton of Crathes - first Rustique:

Then we crossed over to the Wee Boorachie:

Now we had to walk back up to the castle to get the car. We took one of the alternative trails and I took a wrong turn, which set us back a few minutes, but soon we were back on track:

Although it had got a little milder, there were still remnants of ice round the static ponds:

Having seen Dawn off, Jo and I then headed to Inverurie, where Luca proudly showed us his winner's medal from the weekend judo tournament:

Apparently there were also two Olympic judo athletes present - one a paralympian - and they signed Luca's belts:

Luca's school project is Europe and he's chosen Moldova as the country for his project. This is his drawing of King Stephen the Great from the 15th century:

Wednesday started with a bang - as I came out of our shower, the whole glass door fell off its hinges. I grabbed at it, tweaking my shoulder in the process, but couldn't stop it crashing down across our en suite, smashing the porcelain on the lid of the cistern - debris everywhere:

In the afternoon, when Jo went swimming, I cycled up to Feughside to deliver some more CAMRA quarterly newsletters. On return, I stopped at Bridge of Feugh to photograph the residual ice there:

We had our first ever night cycle last night - and it went pretty well, sticking to off-road sections of course. This meant I missed the first transmission of our latest show on River Dee Radio - a St. Andrews Day special - Scotland's Greatest Album - http://tunein.com/radio/River-Dee-Radio-s274232/. It'll be on rotation now every evening from 7 pm to 8 pm until the next show is made - we've scheduled to start this next Monday.