More November

November so far has seen a few anniversaries - on the 1st of the month, it was my metal knee's 8th birthday, and then on the 5th of November, it was the 50th anniversary of Jo and I getting engaged. No photos of the actual occasion but here we are round about that time, attending a friend's wedding:

Another "anniversary" coming up tomorrow - it's a week since I shaved off the beard again - and now I look like this:

I expected a few comments, but only one person appears to have noticed so far - and it's definitely not my wife! It was my pal Colin's first comment when he saw me on Thursday before we walked up Scolty, but not Jo - nor Dawn, Barry or Helen on Thursday's Zoom call, nor any of my other football friends as we watched Scotland play at the golf club on Friday. Uncanny. These were the stages I went through last Monday morning before deciding to remove it all:

The weather continues to be amazingly mild - we still haven't even had a frost yet. Normally the grass in the Dee Valley would at least have had some early morning white on it - but nothing so far. The walk up Scolty on Thursday with Colin was another still day that turned out to be milder than forecast. I'd layered up, expecting it to get cooler as we climbed and windy at the top - but it was neither:

It was another lovely morning today (Sunday) so I went out for a short cycle along the Deeside Way and to pick up rolls for lunch and the Sunday paper:

Barry's fine after the surgery on his nose the other week, but Helen is still suffering badly from her broken elbow. It's almost 3 weeks now since she came off her bike. She had the staples and the stitches removed on Thursday but is still in considerable pain. Her hands are swollen and sore too, which is making it difficult for her to do the exercises she needs to do to aid recovery. Jo was telling her about the lymphatic draining lessons she's had from Lucy over the years. We could see the pain in her eyes at Thursday's Zoom:

We had the gas service men out again this week - the pressure had dropped again in our system and the heat wasn't reaching the top floor of our house. They came and drained the system and showed us how to re-pressurise it ourselves should it happen again. We'd been watching umpteen You Tube videos on how to do this but none of them were set up anything like our system. It transpires that there's not just two, but three valves that need to be opened - one of which was hidden from view. Now we know - but let's hope it doesn't happen again. Not that we've needed much heating so far, but we know cold weather is just around the corner.