Manic Monday

It's all go today. My car was booked in for service at Arnold Clark in Aberdeen, but I got a phone call a few days ago from Jacquie Howden, who is still working for the Clark family at the age of 73, telling me that Francis' and Michael's mother had died and her cremation was this afternoon at Crathes.

So the day started with an early drive in to Aberdeen to drop off my car before 8 am. I discovered that Arnold Clark had moved their Volvo service centre - fortunately not too far away from their former location. Once checked in, I jumped on my bike - the older manual one, not the e-bike - and cycled back to Banchory along the Deeside Way. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a foul morning and I was pretty wet when I got home. A quick hot bath soon sorted that.

Then it was time to put a tie on - something I only do for funerals etc nowadays - and take Jo's car out to Crathes for the service. It was nice to see a few old faces again, albeit in circumstances far from ideal - it seems funerals are the only times I see my old colleagues.

Got back from the funeral before 3:30 pm - I declined the invitation to go to the post-funeral do at the Marcliffe - and Ross and I headed back in to Aberdeen to pick up my car after its service. Nice to get the car cleaned for you - and I've got the towbar fitted now, so the next step is to get a bike rack.

Going back briefly over the last few weeks since my previous post:

• Saturday was Ross' 36th birthday, would you believe? He was working again and had spent a couple of nights at Lizzie's so nothing special was organised for him, but he certainly wasn't forgotten:

• Luca, too, featured this weekend, receiving an award from his kick-boxing club:

• Had another get-together with some old school chums from Victoria Drive on Thursday - in Stirling, of all places - where Dawn works! I was only there for a few hours, fitting in convenient train times, so didn't have a chance to see Dawn this time.
• It was our Boat of Garten golf trip last weekend, signalling that we are heading rapidly towards the end of the summer golf season.
• Now we're in September, I've started to check out flights for our next trip to USA at this time next year, using our BA Miles and Companion Voucher if we can.
• Jo and I made our annual trip to the Fringe a couple of weeks ago. We kept it much simpler this time - no more rushing around from show to show, trying to cram in as much as possible. We caught the train down and went to just 2 shows on the Sunday and just 3 on Monday. We even had time to take a walk to Holyrood and take a tour of the Scottish Parliament:

From there, we walked round past Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat:

Prior to that, however, we had popped round to where Ross used to work at his stall in the Food & Flea Market - there was no sign of life at all - all the stalls had gone. Apparently they will be back some time, once all the construction work is finished at what they are going to call New Waverley:

All the shows - bar one - that we saw were good. Three of them were musically based, with Frank Skinner being the comedic act we chose. One of the musical acts was performed by a singer called Cleo, who used to front a band called Cleopatra, briefly popular a decade or so ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleo_Higgins). I can't speak of her earlier career as I'd never even heard of her, but in her performance here, she was a real ball of fire:

• The exception was our last event at the Fringe - The Gin Show. It was truly awful - both cringe-worthy and surreal at the same time. A narrator read out some facts about gin, then we were offered a taste - in a tiny plastic sample cup - followed by more facts, then, the really strange bit - a singer came on, with an electronic/tape backing and serenaded us with some irrelevant, show-based tune. This procedure was repeated a further 3 times and that was it. I can't even say we enjoyed the gins.
• On River Dee Radio, it was Jo's turn to feature on fellow DJ Charles Robertson's regular Saturday morning show - Chuck's choice - on his The First Record I Ever Bought spot. Listen to it here - https://www.mixcloud.com/River_Dee_Radio/chucks-choice-24-8-19/?fbclid=IwAR33RDVxcWogIQgInrFYW4vTck62fgizWCXkXWPdXRsZLaTChPYsjwxUBDU - from 9 mins 50 secs onwards.

So that's a very brief synopsis of some of the events of the last few weeks, but what's coming up?:

• Thu/Fri this week - the loft ladder team arrive to extend the flooring and insulation and install a new, easier to use loft ladder
• Thu 19th-Mon 23rd - my annual walking weekend, this time to the Borders. There'll be 12 of us staying in Peebles this year.
• Fri 27th - to Edinburgh Airport overnight prior to flying off to Nice for a week. Four couples - the same as the ones we went to France with 2 years ago.
• Sun 13 - 20 Oct - off to Costa del Sol with Gary, Luca and Ross - the final part of my 70th birthday celebrations.