In fact, we didn't get any snow at all until overnight Friday and it wasn't all that much even then - but - and it's quite a big but - the temperature immediately plummeted and the snow is now well frozen in and looks unlikely to move for a bit yet.
Not much cycling of course, but the weather was pleasant enough for our walking group to go on a 12 kms hike last Wednesday (see https://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/). Friday was a bit of a frustrating day, however. We had booked a Sky engineer to install their new(ish) Q system. He duly arrived and set about work - replacing our old dish and antennae then removing our old box and all the connections to it. The final bit was to replace our router. We had no idea there were to be so many changes and this last one proved to be fatal. I noticed that the new router only had 2 ports, whereas our old one (also supplied by Sky) had 4 ports - all of them currently in use.
At this point I objected - we couldn't do without our connections for Hive (central heating), our WD data storage and Vodafone signal booster. Could they supply a different router, or an ethernet extension port? The answer was no in both cases, despite appeals to the Area Manager and, subsequently their sales team.
So the engineer had to go back and undo all the work he had done and now we're back to square one with our old Sky system. Ho hum.
We travelled down to Edinburgh on Sunday. I met up with a couple of my old school pals again on Sunday afternoon. We were musing about other ex Victoria Drive pupils who we might get to join us next time and the name of "Ronnie McDonald" was suggested. Apparently he's Chairman and Chief Executive of Hamilton Accies FC. Can this really be the boy a year or two below us who lived in Windyedge and was known to me as "Chubby"?:
I can't make up my mind whether it's him or not. If it is - and it could well be - I may have missed a trick. When I was newly qualified as a C.A., Chubby wanted me to go in to business with him - he had in mind that we should start up an estate agency. We had started up a new football team - Knightswood Amateurs - although I didn't last much longer as I ruptured my medial knee ligaments at training and then, of course, got married and soon moved away from the area. I've made efforts to contact him, but, so far, no success.
Jo and I went out for dinner with Ross in the evening. We chose a Nepalese restaurant:
On Monday morning, Jo and I did some Christmas shopping in John Lewis and then popped in to Apple to try and decide which new iPad to get for Jo's Xmas. That area of Edinburgh is a hell of a mess just now - they're knocking down the old St. James' Centre:
We met Ross for lunch back in Tom Kitchin's Scran & Scallie where we'd been the last time we were in town. Nice meal, but we left absolutely stuffed:
Stockbridge is absolutely full of charity shops - I've never seen so many. Ross spotted a gilet and a ski jacket that would help keep him warm in his outdoor job:
We had a couple of drinks in the evening and Jo had a small pizza - Ross and I were still too full. I took this view of the end of Princes St and the Balmoral Hotel as we walked home:
So that's about it. Tonight (Wednesday) I've got another show on River Dee Radio and Friday is our next Headbang. Not sure about tomorrow - although Jo's got an early morning visit to the Cardio Clinic.
