December woes

Season's greetings to all.

December's almost over and it's not been a good month for me. I believe I caught some kind of chest infection and have been housebound virtually all month. Jo was back and forward to the pharmacy/chemist to get advice and medication. She was told if it persists for 3 weeks then I've got to see a doctor - and persist it did.

So I finally got to see a doctor a couple of weeks ago and she was pretty thorough. She prescribed me a 5 day course of antibiotics and said if that didn't clear it, then I had to come back and get a referral for X-rays etc. The antibiotics weren't a magic cure-all but I think they did help, as, while I don't feel 100% yet, I do feel a bit better and have been able to get out and about a bit more again.

The downside is that Jo is now displaying some of the symptoms I had - coughing in particular. She doesn't, however, seem to be as bad as I was and is still, after a few days in bed, able to get on with her daily routine.

To boot, I've had a lot of difficulty with my new knee over the last month. It's stiff and painful - more so than it was after I got the all-clear late in September. Two theories - either I did some damage to my knee when I was going to the gym regularly in November, or it's due to my enforced inactivity this month. I self-referred to the physiotherapy team and managed to get a cancellation at Stonehaven last Monday (22nd). So far, I've been given new exercises to do - and ones not to do. It's only 10 days until we fly off to the southern hemisphere so not much time for anything else.

Our Christmas Day went well - Ross took over in the kitchen and we had a lovely roast beef instead of turkey this year. Regrettably, I didn't take a team photo on the day - I'll try to remember to do so on New Year's Day when Jo's promising steak pie for us.

Luca, as ever, was in charge of handing out the presents after our main course. This is one I got from Gary:

Restricted Code - the band we saw in Aberdeen last month - their new release - on yellow vinyl!

Dawn's big birthday - her 70th - is tomorrow and she's away to Iceland to celebrate - having just returned from her trip to Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong. Her Xmas card to us arrived just in time, with full but unnecessary apologies. It was very pretty:

We'll be catching up with her - and Barry and Helen - this Saturday (3rd) in Pitlochry, where we're staying here - https://www.athollpalace.com/

The shortest day has now passed - it would have been Dad's 105th birthday - but we haven't really had a proper winter yet. There was one brief snow day back in mid-November but that's all so far. Generally, the days have been pretty calm and dry, although the temperature is starting to drop a bit. The Northern Lights have been on display a few times - not that we can see them from our place down in the valley. We would have to go higher - up Scolty perhaps. However, there have been some nice sunsets:

You can just make out the tower at the top of Scolty.

I had to miss out - again - on our monthly beer night earlier this month but I did manage to join the revellers in the Legion for Dave Williamson's birthday on Xmas Eve:

Our football crowd have been getting together on this day for well over 30 years. Drams used to be preceded by a game of football but in more recent years this has had to be downscaled to a walk instead. Regrettably, I wasn't fit enough to join the active part of the celebration this year but I made it for the more important part.

Scott and Lucy took their trailer (caravan) up to Salem to spend Christmas with Cade, Audrey and little Kendall, who always manages a smile:

Kelly FaceTimed this morning. They've now moved in to their rented property in the hills, near where the boys' new schools are - and not very far from where we're staying for a couple of weeks after our stop-overs in Singapore and Darwin. The boys have certainly shot up from when we were there early this year - Miller is now eye to eye with Kelly. We look forward to seeing them all again soon.