Waiting for summer

The weather still hasn't picked up in Scotland - it's been another pretty dreich week and the outlook for next week isn't much better. Our strategy of combining our Australian and US holidays into one, missing the high heat of their summers, worked up to that point, but, so far, staying in Scotland all summer long doesn't appear to be working as well as we'd hoped. I've been warned by Jo, however, that we can't go on holiday again until we've lost the weight we put on when we were away. Could be a long wait.

Despite this, one short break I did book this week was our annual trip to the Edinburgh Fringe. It's only 2 nights and we've cut it back to just 5 shows this time:

Another holiday thing I stumbled across - we get Air Miles (Avios) through our Amex cards and once we've spent enough, we get a "Companion Voucher", which means Jo goes free. We've been using this for a number of years but I have been blindsided a bit this year, probably due to our big round the world trip, and I've suddenly realised one of these vouchers is due to expire on 29th October, 2019. It would be a great shame not to use it, but how could we possibly fit anything in at this late stage?

So this week I attended the Cardio Clinic at our local medical centre. As I indicated previously, cutbacks have reduced the effectiveness of this service and the gap between appointments has stretched out from annual to 18 months. The cholesterol check is now every 3 years - as it happens, I'll be due one next year. The bloods they take are to check on kidney function - to see whether they are being affected by the statins we take - and glucose levels. Unless I get a phone call in the next week, that'll be me until the end of next year then.

The bowel cancer screening results both came back negative for Jo and I. They have made the sampling a lot easier now with the new kits - I'll spare you the details.

Barry and Helen had their 25th wedding anniversary last weekend and they took a trip up the west coast to Mull and Inverary, amongst others. Barry sent me their "match report" and it seemed to be a pretty damp break for them, with the added problem of the infamous west coast midges. Here's a few of their photos:

Got a CAMRA branch meeting in Braemar this Saturday, then, on Monday, I head north for 3 consecutive days' golfing at Tain, Brora and Golspie - don't know how I'll get on with that. I have played 3 times this week - Sunday, Monday and Wednesday - but at least there was a rest day on Tuesday. The following Sunday - Father's Day, 16th June - I'm joining up with 2 golfing buddies for what we call a Decades Challenge match. Harry Salter will be 60 soon, I was 70 in March and Syd Freeman was 80 a few weeks ago. It looks like there will be 24 of us golfing and a few more for a buffet meal afterwards. It would be nice if the weather was kind to us.

Enough for now - going to finish off preparations for tonight's live show on River Dee Radio - hope you're all listening at 20:00 hours BST!