Winter is here

The first snows of winter arrived yesterday - nothing much on the ground so far, but the temperature has plummeted - overnight it went down to -11C in nearby Aboyne. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, it looks like it's baking in Oz - which reminds me, we still haven't spoken to Kelly this year. Put that on the to do list.

We've been planning and organising our trip which begins one month today - i.e. 4 weeks on Monday. We've booked a few excursions when the boat docks - Jo surprised me by choosing this one on our first stop:

Incidentally, we've been watching the ITV series The Cruise, which features the Majestic Princess - the vessel we'll be on. The series is still running on ITV and the first 3 episodes are available on catch-up, but you can see a glimpse of the first show here - https://youtu.be/_PdUF0Ma-XE

That apart, nothing much else been going on - usual Tuesday visits to Inverurie and a number of fairly shortish cycles for me, taking advantage of the fairly mild and still weather we've been experiencing this winter - but things may be changing now weather-wise.

Next Wednesday is Jo's cataract appointment at ARI. She'll need a few days to recover fully but should be back driving pretty soon after that. Ironically, Jo's now got another chauffeur in the shape of Ross to take her around - he's still looking for work around here. It's not a great time of year for recruitment in the hospitality sector, but we discovered that Duncan's of Banchory, one of the two High St furniture stores, is relocating to larger premises a bit further east in the town, and they're opening some kind of eating facility, including a coffee shop. Fingers crossed.