Middle of Phase One

Halfway through this phase and hints are being dropped about what further restrictions are likely to be eased on Thursday 18th. Beer gardens have been mentioned and also the possibility of meeting another household indoors - but we all have to continue to behave - or else!

Frightening to think that it will be Midsummer next week, after which the days start to get shorter again. Right now, daylight hours are from 4 am to after 10 pm - in excess of 18 hours and still rising. Hopefully we'll also still get some decent weather in July and August to enjoy.

In the first full week of the golf course opening again, I managed to squeeze in 4 games, so I can't really complain, despite the difficulties of the online booking system. Ongoing, however, I'm only looking for 2 games per week on a regular basis, with perhaps an odd week with an extra one thrown in.

We had an odd situation last week one day when I opened our front door to find these two boxes dumped right in front of me:

Nobody rang the bell and, as you can see, the boxes are unmarked - and nor was there any indication inside of where they came from or who they were intended for. Inside were cans of food, bread, toilet rolls etc - perhaps some kind of emergency supply for somebody who was shielding?

We obviously hadn't asked for them and nor did we need them. My main concern was that whoever they were intended for would obviously be missing them, so I set about tracking down the source - contacting Banchory Community Council, Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeenshire Voluntary Services and the local Red Cross shop.

Nobody seemed to know but, after 24 hours of chasing, eventually the Red Cross came and took them away, although I'm not convinced they knew who had delivered them to us nor who they were intended for. In the next 2 days, two other Red Cross volunteers turned up to pick up the boxes - "sorry, they've already gone". The co-ordination of the various local helping hands seems to have gone awry a bit.

Anyway, a couple of photos to finish. Jo and I were out walking yesterday (Monday) and we ended up exploring through the woods at the other end of Banchory. The trail we were on eventually came to an end, but there was a stile to take us over the fence in to a small field which would take us back to the road we were heading for. Only one problem - the residents of the field were big and ugly with huge horns:

Should we risk it? Well, we did - and they never batted an eyelid.

Another view of the back - this time from the ground floor: