Waiting, waiting

I've been told not to be so impatient - by, of all people, Jo. Every day this week I've opened our mailbox looking for a letter from our NHS telling me when and where to go for my first Covid-19 vaccine, but nothing so far. We were told all the over 70's letters would be out this week and my old school friend in Edinburgh got his on Monday and another old school friend in Glasgow got his on Tuesday. We always seem to be the last in line. I'm not really anxious about it - I'm sure it'll come soon, although we never did get our flu jab letters this winter - the new centralised system in Livingston screwed up, but thankfully our local GP practice recognised this and sorted it out eventually. Of more immediate frustration today was that my exercise plans went awry. It's been cold since the turn of the year and the ice won't leave the ground. I was hoping for a short cycle today but we had to cancel again - too slippy. I've only been out once this year - and that was only for a short - and slightly precarious - ride. Never mind, let's resort to plan B then. I had ordered a Wahoo Kickr Snap, just like Barry's got, and it arrived today:

I set it all up easily enough and put my mountain bike on and tried it out - all OK. Then I thought I'd try and fit my hybrid to see which one was better to train on. That's when it all went wrong. You have to take out the skewer rod on the back wheel of your bike and put in the Wahoo skewer, but when I got near to tightening it, the rod snapped! I've contacted Wahoo support and hope that they can send a replacement fairly quickly. A much more successful day yesterday - we got our jigsaw finished!:

Tricky one, but very satisfying once it's done. I've now ordered another one. Have you noticed that they - like all other lockdown distractions - have gone up in price? Monday was Burns night, but we didn't have a haggis in the house - the Tesco delivery came on Tuesday. Undaunted, Jo made Scotch Broth, Cranachan and shortbread - lovely. We sat in to Janey Godley's (virtual) Burns Night on You Tube and toasted the bard with a dram:

What was it?:

The chocolate orange and the shortbread took a hit as well, as did the latest brew from my new home brew Pinter:

Last week we had the misfortune to have two power cuts, the latter of which was planned. There was a big blowout in the sub-station at Burnett Park east - just a couple of hundred yards away - and we lost power from 4 pm until after 11 pm, so it was candlelit sandwiches, crisps and a bottle of wine for our tea. SSEN eventually brought along a large truck generator to get power back temporarily, but then they had to switch back to main power on Friday - and that's when we lost power again - once more at tea-time, so it was another sandwich meal for us. It was all very localised - only 55 houses were affected:

As I said at the start,temperatures have been low this year and it's been icy, but we've had very little snow and most days it's been bright, sunny and still. The only morning recently that we've woken up to fresh snowfall was last Wednesday - and even then, it wasn't much:

Ironically, Scotland - unlike England - has allowed us to carry on playing golf. If only - our course has been under constant ice all year:

Too icy even for the families that normally use the downslope at the 3rd hole (opposite us) for ski-ing, snowboarding and sledging. An ambulance had to be called last week when some idiot tried to walk over the above scene and fell and broke their leg. Jo and I have been getting out for walks a couple of times per week and it's got much easier since our over-shoe crampons arrived. When I go for my Sunday paper, Jo's doing a church service online so I often take a bit of a detour to get some exercise. Did you know we had a castle in the centre of Banchory?:

(Just above the Derbar Indian restaurant). To close, a couple of photos of some of the younger members of our extended family. First, Miller and Asher on the new "egg" chair:

Then another one of Avery, chasing bubbles at her playgroup:

That's all for now, folks.