Mid August update

The months have rolled on since my last blog post. We returned late June from the heat in Oregon to the tail end of the good weather in Scotland. Since then, it's been a pretty poor summer here - July was particularly overcast and wet occasionally. None of this disturbed anything we were likely to do post holiday and, so far, none of my (limited) golf has been cancelled, but it would have been nice to have had a bit more sunshine and heat.

Barry, Helen, Dawn and Jordon recently came up to stay for a couple of days. Barry and I cycled from Aboyne to Tarland to look at the new Tarland trails system, which has caused some controversy since it opened, with several accidents, necessitating the local Braemar Mountain Rescue Team and occasionally Air Ambulance, to be called out. We were careful, only trying the lowest trails, but even that was a bit much for me. Barry fared a bit better. Here we are at the start:

 We all went for a walk round the Crathes estate the following morning:

Barry and Helen went home on Saturday but Dawn and Jordon stayed another night and we all went to Banchory Lodge's Sitooterie for dinner that evening:

Of course, we just missed the birth of our first great grand-daughter, lovely Kendall Brae. Audrey has been posting lots of photos on Facebook - here's one of them:

Incidentally, Lucy is having a surprise visit from her BFF Lorna this week. It was all kept under wraps until she arrived in Medford a few days ago - well done to Scott for managing to keep it all a secret. Lucy and Lorna both celebrated their 50th birthdays this year but they hadn't seen each other for a decade.

Miller had his 10th birthday a week past Saturday. Here's the cake and Miller blowing out the candles, watched carefully by Asher:

Gary and Luca are now in their new house - and Luca has a new bike:

We all went over there for lunch when Barry, Dawn etc were here. Luca got his Highers results last week - he did OK in English and is appealing his Maths grade. He goes back to school for 6th year next week.

Dawn was hospitalised for a few days just over a week ago. She collapsed on the train heading in to Glasgow and was unconscious for a few hours. She had a number of tests in hospital but they came to the conclusion that she had Syncope (fainting). She's now trying to take things easy - she's not allowed to drive for a while.

Jo has been monitoring her blood pressure for a while and yesterday she was at the Doctor's. A review of the results was pretty encouraging and it's likely that she will be coming off some of her medication which seemed to be causing the problem. An ECG is lined up for tomorrow just to confirm.

My turn now - I have an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon at the end of the month. My left knee (the non-metal one) has been causing me problems whenever I exercise - initially it was mostly when playing golf that I suffered but now it's affecting my walking too. I can go for a couple of miles with only discomfort but after that it gets really painful. Last year's X-ray and the physiotherapy I've been doing didn't produce any positive results so I need to have this investigated further. The wait on the NHS is about 18-24 months so I'm now going private - for the consultation only at this stage.

Jo and I are heading off to the Edinburgh Fringe on Sunday. We're meeting up with Ross for dinner then. We only have 4 shows/events lined up (one was cancelled) so it's not going to be a hectic break.

We've now booked our flights to Australia next year - using Air Miles, which we normally use for our American trips, so next year these will be paid with hard cash. We've enjoyed going to USA earlier the last couple of years. May/June avoids the west coast fires and smoke - and the excessive heat (it's 43 C there today) that you get in July/August, but a slight downside is that it comes fairly soon after our long Australian trip. We are currently thinking about perhaps trying September/October next year. We'd like to do some kind of road trip then as well.

Our Costa del Sol break comes up in October this year but I've made a provisional booking to go there in April next year, which would accommodate a trip to USA in the autumn.

To close, Lauren, who now lives and works in London, recently met a small Glaswegian singer, who's ages with me:

(Lulu).