I drove down to Edinburgh first thing on Thursday morning to pick up Ross and all his gear. He'd packed up everything in bags, cases and boxes. All we had to do was carry it down four half flights of stairs - 38 steps in all - and try to load it all in to the back of my car - not as easy as it sounds. It's a very old tenement building and the steps are all severely worn and sloping downwards - especially tricky when the two of you are are trying to safely manipulate a giant, heavy plasma TV screen and you can't even see your feet.
We managed to get all the essential stuff in and the two of us were back in Banchory by 3 pm after a lunch stop at the Horn. There remains a few of Ross' items in the flat, some of which he's trying to sell, so it's likely we'll be going back again later this week.
Earlier in the month, Jo and I were down in Edinburgh with our friends the Kilgours and the Masons, paying our annual visit to the Festival of Wine, which is run by Anne Mason's brother, Tom Cannavan. We travelled by train on Friday morning, had lunch at Tom Kitchin's gastropub, the Scran and Scallie in Stockbridge, then dinner at Anne's favourite Chinese restaurant, the Loon Fung in Canonmills. On Saturday morning, we went to the National Museum of Scotland to attend Rip It Up - The Story of Scottish Pop, which was good fun. Then it was the afternoon at the Festival of Wine, followed by a slightly disappointing - and expensive - dinner at the Cafe Royal:
Meanwhile, the saga of our hut/summerhouse goes on. We've had another set of doors delivered, wrapped in polythene, so there should be no question of them being swollen and mis-shapen this time. The fitters arrive again - for the 4th time - on Tuesday - fingers crossed.
It was our local branch of CAMRA's AGM yesterday and guess what? I was re-elected as Membership Secretary, a job I'm likely to have for life, given the low numbers of active participants locally. We have 400 members in our branch but we've got the widest spread geographically - all the way up to Orkney and Shetland. Our branch numbers have dropped every year since I've been on the committee, mostly occasioned by the slump in the oil industry over the last few years - a situation that contrasts dramatically with the national picture, where membership now stands at over 190,000 and CAMRA remains the largest and most successful consumer campaigning group ever - much larger even than any of the political parties in the UK, with the sole exception of the Labour Party, which, in recent years, totally changed its membership rules and fees to (artificially) swell its numbers.
I paid what I hope is my last visit to the local Dermatology Clinic on Friday. The two growths on the bridge of my nose have now almost completely gone - just a couple of minor spots remain and these were both treated again with frozen nitrogen, so hopefully that's that.
Incidentally, Jo's still waiting for her cataract operation - that's over 6 months now since she saw the consultant - and she's already on the "cancellations" list and will travel anywhere in Scotland to get it done. One apology letter after the initial national target of 12 weeks was exceeded and that's all.
I'll finish with another moan - this time about BA. Our big holiday in a few months' time for my 70th birthday involves a round the world ticket with BA and Qantas, their partners. We're flying Business Class again but BA have recently changed their policy re seat booking - even Business Class flights have to pay extra now to pre-book seats. There has been plenty of adverse comment recently on social media about this. Imagine having to pay a huge premium to upgrade and then finding out that you're not even sitting next to your partner - and that's what happens when you just leave it until check-in opens 24 hours before the flight. The cost of booking a seat is now £80-£100 per person per flight - outrageous. Thank goodness their codeshare partners, Qantas, haven't adopted this policy.
