April blog

Hello - it's been over a month since my last post so here goes with trying to remember what happened when.

Starting with a medical update - my new knee still hasn't completely settled down and it's coming up to 9 months now since the operation - very disappointing. My other knee took only 3-4 months but this one is lingering. I'm still attending physio exercises twice weekly and doing daily exercises in-house - ones from local physios and also from the physio I visited in Adelaide, for which I've got a neat app on which I record the exercises I've done. Slight signs of improvement, but, annoyingly, I've alrady missed the first month of the golf season.

My other issue has been the tooth implant that broke in half last year. I'd had the assessments, quotes and scans but just under 2 weeks ago it was time for the long operation to try to remove the piece that was stuck in my gum. It had been there for 14 years so skin and bone had grown around it. I had been asked to book a 3 hour appointment so I knew it wasn't going to be much fun.

A dozen injections helped ease the immediate pain but there was, of course, an aftermath to consider. The work was beyond the skills of my usual dentist and he had referred me to a specialist in Aberdeen, who happens to sponsor Aberdeen Football Club. He cut my gums and peeled them back to get access to the area and he managed to get a screw in to the old post and reverse it out after a lot of pulling and pushing. A new hole had to be made for the new implant post and he then had to bone graft the old area.

After a couple of hours on my back with my mouth open, I was given antibiotics and pain killers and sent on my way. I have to go back there this Thursday to have all the stitches removed. After that, once the gums have fully healed, in a few months' time I'll have a full toothy smile again!

The aftermath involved a lot of swelling and bruising but it seems to have settled down now. This was me 2 days after the op, trying, in vain, to smile:

That was just the start of the bruising coming out - it eventually extended from my eye to my neck.

I wasn't the only Stewart under the knife - Barry had an eye operation to scrape the membrane at the back of the retina:

Barry's pretty much recovered now.

Jo and I have had our annual cardiac reviews (which are far less thorough than they used to be) and all seems OK, apart from Jo having to go back and have her bloods done again next week as her sodium level seemed a bit off.

Jo, Ross and I had a nice evening meal at the Tor-na-Coille on her birthday. It had been a beautiful day so, when Jo was out for coffee with her pal Anne, I decided to go for a walk and test my knee a bit with a (very) slow hike up Scolty Hill:

Two days later, we drove out to Kemnay to have dinner with Gary and Luca at Bennachie Lodge Hotel (https://www.bennachielodge.co.uk) - and very nice it was too.

On the last Saturday of March, our local branch of CAMRA held its AGM at the Legion - and took the opportunity to present the local Club of the Year plaque - again!:

I spotted a Facebook post from the Montessori school in the Adelaide Hills. They were having a Twilight Market and all the pupils were cooking the food for the family visitors. Here's Miller serving and making pizza:

And, even though it was a rear view, I spotted Kelly and Chris, deep in conversation with the local Fire Officer:

And what about Asher? Here he is at home with his artistic presentation of a watermelon drink:

Back in Scotland, the bad weather in the North East early in the year caused postponements of lots of outdoor activities (apart from ski-ing) - including Luca's football matches with Kintore United Amateurs. As a result, they've since been playing catch-up with 2 games most weeks. Here's Luca (in yellow on the left) in a recent match against Theologians:

We drove down to Glasgow a couple of weeks ago as I had arranged 2 separate meet-ups with old pals. The first was one of my regular catch-ups with old school pals from Victoria Drive. At the previous meeting last year, Jo had travelled with me to Glasgow city centre where I got off and she drove on to Elderslie to meet up with Mary. She had a bit of a nightmare then and vowed never to repeat it, so this time, she suggested dropping me off at one of the subway stations on Paisley Road West as she knew her way from there.

I did as I was told and got on the "Clockwork Orange" at Cessnock and made the short journey back from there to the city centre:

Nothing could possibly go wrong for Jo now - I had parked the car on Paisley Road, facing the right direction, switched on the sat nav and handed over the car keys. No more to be said.

Our school reunion went well - only 5 of us this time as we had recently lost one of our number, so we made a toast to our old friend Donnie:

After spending the night at Brian and Mary's, we headed off to Cameron House, Loch Lomond, to meet up with another old friend who I hadn't seen for over 50 years, but, first, we made a pit stop at Barry and Helen's to see how his recovery from his eye op was going.

Roddy MacLeod had done his C.A. education at the same time as me and we used to meet up regularly socially. We were on holiday together with 2 other pals down in Torbay in 1969 at the time of the moon landings, although we all struggled to stay awake after midnight in our little caravan. Roddy (and his wife Carole) were at our wedding in 1972, as were a number of my pals:

That's Roddy with the beard, kneeling beside me bottom right. I'd dug out some old photos to reminisce with him - including this one. Now I'm embarrased to admit that, although I know everyone else, I can't remember one of the group above - top row, 3rd from left. Sadly, Roddy was no help here either.

The following week we were on our travels again - this time to Pitlochry for Dawn's much-belated 70th birthday celebrations. We stayed at the grand old Atholl Palace Hotel (AthollPalace.com):

The five of us walked up to the nearby Moulin Hotel/Inn (https://www.moulinhotel.co.uk/) for lunch, had dinner at our hotel and visited various shops, coffee houses and the Pitlochry Festival Theatre (where Alan Cumming is now Artistic Director) over the 2 days. I remembered just in time to take a team photo before we left:

Meanwhile, what's happening in Oregon? You'll never believe it - they've all taken up fishing! Here's Lucy with her first ever catch all by herself:

The Easter bunny had been:

As you can see, Audrey is now well on her way. We're looking forward to seeing great grand-daughter number two in September.

We've finally committed to having a wood burner in the front room to replace the old gas fire. Installation will take place week commencing 18th May. It's going to be a major change to the appearance of the front room as the existing fire surrounds and mantlepiece will have to go.

This has been a long blog diary catch-up - I'll try to make future ones shorter. I'll close with a photo from our latest monthly golfers' beer night at Ian Dring's man shed: