Post holiday recovery

The return from USA was fine - all went well until Father's Day when Luca and Gary came to visit. That evening, Luca started to feel unwell and yes, it was Covid. A day or so later, Jo became unwell and a couple of days after that, so did I. Of course, we think Luca gave it to us and Luca thinks we gave it to him! No matter, Luca recovered quickly but it took us a bit longer. 3 or 4 days of feeling pretty lousy and a slow recovery after that. Almost 7 weeks have passed and I can still feel it occasionally in my chest but there's no doubt we're a whole lot better than that first week or so. Now we await the autumn "booster" programme which will be almost a year since the last "booster" so there's no doubt that the immunity offered by the vaccination has waned substantially - although our recent illness will hopefully have boosted our immunity a bit again.

What else has been happening? Car problems mostly - 6 weeks away and we come back to problems with both the Volvo and the Astra. The latter seemed to be a battery issue which we thought a jump lead start would resolve - but it didn't and our local garage couldn't resolve it either so we had to take it in to the specialist electrical garage in Aberdeen and they managed to fix it eventually - at a pretty high cost. We now think it's time to ditch the second car. The Volvo problem - a broken spring in the suspension - was something the local garage were able to fix, thankfully.

We spent a couple of days in Yorkshire - Masham - and did the Black Sheep brewery tour with some other members of CAMRA's Investment Club - and it was a lovely little local B & B we stayed in. We've also been back to Clydebank for Jo to get assessed for another cataract operation, which will now take place on Friday 26th August. It's an early morning operation but they put us up the night before in the adjacent hospital hotel.

Another post Covid symptom that Jo suffered from was blocked ears but that has since been resolved after a visit to the doctor followed by a trip in to Aberdeen for microsuction ear wax removal, which went well.

I've had to restrict my golf this year to just once a week most of the time due to pain in my left knee, which I assumed was going the same way as my right knee and would eventually need replacement. Eventually I got in touch with our local practice and they are arranging for an X-ray to be done. Additionally, I saw the First Contact Physiotherapist on Monday who assesses and recommends appropriate follow-ups. Her view was that, in addition to the long-term arthritis issue, the pain I'm now experiencing may be tendonitis, so she's given me an exercise regime and Ibuprofen gel to see if that helps.

The weather's been great since we came back - memories of the long hot summer in 1976. Drought conditions abound and there are now hosepipe bans in the south of England - just like there were nearly half a century ago when we lived in Hertfordshire. We remember the Government campaign to "bath with a friend"! If you don't believe me, Google it. Here's a photo of a recent walk we took along the River Dee which is very low just now:

On Monday Jo and I went to to Coull, near Tarland, to visit a recently established home brewery. It was quite interesting  but we never even got offered a taste of anything! It was another hot day , so when we came home, we had to have a beer on the balcony:

Next week, I'm off to Glasgow on Tuesday for another reunion with old school pals, including one visiting from Canada just now. Then on Saturday 13th, Jo and I are joining some of my CAMRA colleagues going to Burnside Brewery (https://www.burnsidebrewery.co.uk/) in Laurencekirk for a whole day's "Be a Brewer" session. On 21st/22nd August we're back at the Edinburgh Fringe again after an absence of 3 years.

I've also booked our flights to Australia (Jan/Feb) and America (May/June) for next year - at enormous expense. We've got the trip to Marbella in October first of all, of course.

That's all for now, folks.