Bringing it up to date

It's been 17 days since my last post so it's definitely time to bring this blog up to date again. When I last posted on 8th February, we'd had some snow but more was to arrive in the following days - probably the best snow we've had for years - it was soft, fluffy and pretty dry - very nice to look at and even walk through - much better than the ice that had remained stubbornly on the ground since late December. I'm glad we bought crampons this year which allowed us to get out for occasional walks on the ice. The snow was much easier to cope with, however and it was pretty to look at, especially as the sun shone a lot of the time:

It got very cold the week of that snow - we awoke to a temperature of -12C and it was even colder the further up the Dee Valley you went, with Braemar again getting the record. Despite all this, we managed to get along to get our vaccinations - Astra Zenica as it turned out. Jo was fine but I did suffer a bit of a reaction - I didn't sleep well that night and for the following 48 hours I was feeling a little flu-like - tiredness, headaches etc - but it soon passed. Surprisingly, 46 year old Gary has now also been jabbed/jagged - not sure why he was chosen at this stage, but he was never going to refuse it, was he? The weather has much improved since those days of snow - almost spring-like this week, allowing us to get out for more regular walks and for me to get back outside on the bike again - with Colin on my (analogue) hybrid and with Keith on the e-bike:

Of course, I've been using my new bike trainer occasionally as well. The software I'm using just now is called Rouvy and they had a route through the Applegate Valley in Oregon, past a number of the wineries we've been to - good fun. Our golf course is open again at last - I think it was closed with snow and ice for 55 days or so - the longest continuous period I can remember. Ironically, unlike England and many other countries, golf is still permitted in Scotland. I've not been tempted out yet, but maybe soon if the weather holds up. We've now passed our Shakespeare jigsaw to Dawn - that should keep her busy for a while. Our follow-up was the album covers jigsaw - it turned out to be a very easy one to complete, but it did provide the benefit of a piece of art for the wall in our downstairs office/studio/exercise room. We used ClipArt to frame and hang it. The big challenge after that was identifying all the artistes and albums - all 214 of them. I enlisted the help of our Headbanging group and we got there in the end, thankfully. An old school photo I hadn't seen for years appeared on Facebook recently:

That was 1964 - the year I turned 15. Can you spot me? Otherwise, to maintain our sanity, although we have regular routines, I have also been looking for occasional distractions. We've already done a few wine tastings and some beer ones too, then last weekend, we went online to Granite Noir - an annual crimewriters' festival that takes place in Aberdeen but this year it had to be virtual. Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, Jo Nesbo and Camilla Läckberg were ones we attended, but we missed the David Baldacci one we'd intended to watch. We've got a Wine and Cheese evening next Friday, but 2 days before that it's Cade and Audrey's wedding which Lucy is going to put on live Messenger so that we can watch proceedings as they happen. I've also been putting my toe in the water with a vinyl club, who send me a new heavyweight pressing of an iconic album each month. In view of the ongoing restrictions, I've had to cancel a few reservations we had which were imminent - St. Andrews next week, Mull at the end of March and afternoon tea at Craigellachie. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to re-book them later on in the year. We had a nice Indian meal delivered to us on Valentine's Day, but what are we going to be able to do for Jo's 70th next month? Facebook reminded me this morning of the world tour we did for my 70th two years ago - a photo of us on Robben Island with Table Mountain in the background:

Tomorrow (Friday) I'm hosting our music group's second Headbang this year, then on Saturday, the podcast of a new show I'm trialling for future broadcast on River Dee Radio will be available on Mixcloud. It's a reminiscence show, covering events of this week in previous years - film, TV, theatre, music, sport, literature, current affairs - a snapshot of all of these in a 30 minute show. It's tentatively titled That Was The Week That Was - a homage to the satirical TV show of that name from the early '60's. Last week it was 1971 and this week it's 1963. It's a show that could also be of use in care homes etc for dementia patients. I think that's me up to date now.