Skype

Good to see Inverurie has entered the world of Skype. Gary phoned us at 10:15 pm last night - he was surprised he couldn't get through to us - we were in bed reading our books by then - no computers on.

Now just Kelly and Craig to sort out - Kelly was going to send me a photo of their webcam so I could check if it's the same as mine - if so, it's not Vista that's causing them problems.

A new day, a new world - to Cade

Well done, Cade - your Mom said you got all the correct answers to the places where our photos were taken - but you didn't actually name them - maybe it's because you knew the answers but you didn't want your Mom to find out? - she would never have guessed on her own!

We can let her know now though, can't we? The Great Wall of China was first - maybe your Mom would have gotten that one, huh? The second one was taken in a desert - but which one? Not Arizona - no camels there - and not Dubai either - although it was very close - it was Abu Dhabi - they are both part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - look it up on the map. We had just been riding big 4-wheelers across the huge sand dunes - they take the air out of the tyres before you go on the dunes to give more control.

The 3rd photo with Jo in it was taken at Giza, just outside Cairo in Egypt, in front of the Sphinx and one of the pyramids. Now here's another question for you (all of you!) - which is older? The Great Wall of China or the pyramids of Egypt?

Today's photo quiz - which city was this taken in?:

Here's another clue:

and another one - but can you guess where the photo was taken from?:

Tuesday

Today's picture from round the world features Jo - taken in January, 2001 - where do you think this one was taken, Cade?

We had our meeting last night to decide where to go for our golf next October - and, for a change, it went very smoothly - we all voted to go to Almeria in Spain (http://www.desertspringsrentals.com/).

Today it's work and tonight I'm out for dinner with our computer software suppliers.

Kelly/Craig

I should have clarified - they don't travel up until Boxing Day (evening) and return on Monday evening.

Good news week

The good news is that Flybe did allow Jo and I to transfer our free flight vouchers to Kelly and Craig, so they'll be up for a few days after all - they arrive on Boxing Day and go back on Monday 29th.

Back at work and it doesn't feel too bad - I think I needed to get out of the house - cabin fever!

Did Cade guess correctly that I was at the Great Wall of China in yesterday's blog? Where do you think I might have been in this one from the year 2000?:

3rd post Sunday

Oh - and what's Carole's middle name? Just noticed the posting was by CCC.

Sunday 2nd post

I walked along to the shops and picked up my Sunday Times and, when I got home, I went to take my usual seat and suddenly thought to myself - why is it so uncomfortable? From the very first time we bought this settee, the place that I sit very quickly seemed to depress. I know it's fairly well used, but it shouldn't have collapsed so quickly. I'm disappointed in it - perhaps we should have complained at the start? I decided to take a picture, but it doesn't really demonstrate the point, does it?

Anyway, in the course of taking the photo, I broke off the tiniest corner of my camera's battery latch. It still takes photos but I couldn't download them to my PC as I kept getting a warning that the battery compartment was open, so I had to search for the fragment and try to sellotape it back in to place. It works, but it's only a short-term fix because any time I have to charge the battery, I have to remove it from the camera and this will mean un-sellotaping and re-sellotaping each time - that's sure to infuriate me.

Perhaps the script was already written - I've never quite taken to this camera the way I always enjoyed my previous Fujis - maybe a new one is now on the horizon!

Don't you just hate it when products you buy aren't quite what you wanted or expected?

Has Cade guessed yet where I was in the photo on my previous blog? Come to think of it, Cade hasn't posted anything to the blog recently - but, then again, nor has Lucy - and Scott has still to make his debut too.

Sunday at home again

Well done Carole - your first posting! Keep it up. To move photos simply click on them and drag. If you need to centre them, the icons in the text box above do that.

I awoke before 5 am this morning - I think it was the sound of Ross in the kitchen. When we got up, all of last night's meatloaf had gone - and Jo only had a corner nibble.

I rolled over and it was after 9 before we both got up. Jo's off to church now and I'm sitting here doing this and contemplating whether to walk along to the shops to get my Sunday Times, or do it the lazy way. I do miss our regular paper deliveries.

No golf obviously - the course was closed yesterday anyway but it seems much nicer today. Mind you, I probably wouldn't have been tempted anyway. I'll give myself one more day before taking any exercise. My body is getting dangerously addicted to lethargy. I had been playing quite a lot of squash and football again and had found it difficult to squeeze in sessions at Bannatyne's - they say this is a stereotypical pattern for new gym joiners - hugely enthusiastic at the start and then tailing away. I must try to break that mould. Pity Banchory doesn't have a proper leisure centre - the Tor-na-Coille would be an ideal location.

Tuesday is D-day for CALA's planning application. It looks like being thrown out, but you can never be sure, and I'm sure that won't be the end of it anyway. Roxanne (Jekyll and Hyde) Sloane-Maris features in this week's Piper donating crockery to the Scouts. Hardly a coincidence I think - she must believe in her own mind that this mini charm offensive will persuade everyone that she's really a nice, kind, caring person with the aims of the community at heart - and not the pantomime villain she's been cast as.

Still stalling for time - must get showered and dressed and out. The first Test from India is the background just now, and there's golf from South Africa and Dubai to follow plus lots of footy. I aways enjoy watching golf played on courses I know well, like the Emirates Majlis. It's interesting to see how much the major construction projects have come on since we were there last February. They say 40% of the world's cranes are based there just now

The next few blogs will feature me in different world locations. Today - well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

This was taken in November 1999.

The tree - sneak preview

Before Her Majesty has even seen it, revealed in all its glory and nakedness is the Stewart 2008 Christmas Tree:


A "Premium Scottish Highland Nordmann Fir" for those interested. Over to the decorating staff now.

Wet Saturday

Feels like Cornwall here today - warm and wet (didn't I warn you, Kelly/Craig?). I'm up, showered, shaved and dressed - I've even been down to the village for a stroll with Jo - we "posted" our Banchory Xmas cards at the West church and picked up stamps for the rest - job well done.

My quarterly crate of bottle conditioned beers arrived from CAMRA today - 20 of them, but Colin's going to take half off my hands. No Cornish ones this time, but an interesting selection nonetheless:

Do you think this will persuade Craig and Kelly to come up here over the holidays? Jo received her free Flybe flight voucher today so that's both of us got one now. I've given Kelly the choice of us using them to fly down there or, if we can, let them use them and fly up here.

I'm certainly not ready for squash yet - Keith phoned to ask me - so I've agreed to meet him at the Douglas to watch a bit of the Spurs - Man U match at 5:30 this evening instead. Jo's going to a Carol concert tonight.

I noticed that Jo's bought sandpaper and varnish - the bench that was out the back is now in the utility room - you can hardly get in there now. She's obviously planning to spruce the bench up - strange considering I did offer to get Davie the painter from our work back to do it, but there you go. By coincidence, I heard a snippet of Danny Baker and Zoe Ball's radio show this morning and they were featuring great unfinished domestic jobs - could this be a contender?

The Xmas tree has now been at the front door, still in its wrapping, since Tuesday. Maybe Jo was waiting for me to get better to put it up?

If I'd been better, I would have gone to Pittodrie today, but it's as well I wasn't tempted as the damp wouldn't have done me any good. Gary couldn't make it, and Ross was trying to get Thomas to go with him, but couldn't get hold of him yesterday. I'll have to make do with a trip to Dundee next Saturday to see the Jags - the first time this season.

Ross is now off work for 3 whole weeks - a combination of holidays due plus statutory days off and office shut-downs for the holiday. Strangely, he observed normal hours last night - in bed by 9:00 pm and up by 9:00 am this morning!

No change

Still in my jammies and fed up. Trying to keep my mind busy - difficult when you can't concentrate. TV's on but it's mostly background.

I finished Stuart Maconie's Cider with Roadies book that Colin gave me - but this was before I became ill. It was good fun - some interesting musical anecdotes. I think I preferred it to the one I bought for Kelly when we went to hear him at Pitlochry in January. Talking of which, we're thinking of going back there again to take in some of their Winter Words Festival - possibly to listen to Brian Blessed.

I started to try and read the Pink Floyd autobiography that Harry gave me many months ago - I managed a chapter and a bit, but couldn't concentrate any more - which is why I'm now signing off again.

Still alive!

I'm still here - in my jammies and feeling sorry for myself - although not quite as bad as yesterday. I'm not going back to work tomorrow however - I'll leave it until Monday when hopefully, I'll be a bit fitter.

Can't be bothered to write much more - although there's the final episode of Little Dorrit to look forward to tonight. Who'd have imagined a Murder Mystery/Suspense written by Dickens!

Xmas

Jo heard on the box today that it's Cyber Sunday today when everyone goes Xmas shopping on the web. That got me to thinking about what I want and frankly I have no idea other than the usual sweater/shirt/book/CD/DVD choices.

I can't even think of any specific CD's or DVD's that I've been hankering after. Not even browsing the usual end of year "best of 2008" lists that appear in all the papers and music mags can inspire me. Today the Sunday Times published its lists - they had their top 20 rock/pop, headed like a few others by Fleet Foxes - they haven't really inspired me yet, but I suppose I should listen to them a bit more before I write them off.

The Sunday Times also suggested a couple of music books that might be of interest to me - Philip Norman's John Lennon - The Life, and The Olivetti Chronicles by John Peel.

I half toyed with the idea of getting the BOSE DAB add-on to the sound system in the house - but then I thought to myself, how much more radio do I/would I listen to? You can already get all the DAB channels through Sky, albeit not whilst anybody else is watching TV - and there's probably still enough FM channels to keep me happy for now. Maybe one to wait for retirement.

On a separate matter, I've always wanted to go to a gig at the Royal Albert Hall. I tried in vain to get tickets for the Cream reunion concerts last year, but I noticed that Eric Clapton is playing his usual season of gigs there late May next year. I might consider that, although I do find him as a solo act a little on the bland side nowadays - and his autobiography didn't exactly endear himself to me. If it had been in the middle of the footy season I could have tied it in with a trip to the Emirates or one of the other London stadia. Needs more thought.

Sunday morning

Disappointing start to the day - the golf pro wasn't answering the phone but I thought I would go along anyway as I assumed we would be playing - albeit on a frozen and full winter course. Of course, it meant getting all togged up - thermals, extra sweaters etc - and I went over to the course only to find the Course Closed signs up.

Ah well, back to the house with the Sunday Times to get ready for a day in front of the box - the Nedbank Challenge from Sun City, then Hibs v Celtic followed by Everton - Villa. Hard times.

We had a takeaway Chinese meal last night - crispy duck was great but one of the main meals we shared was pork. This morning we woke up to the news that all Irish pork in the UK has had to be withdrawn from the UK due to a toxin they have discovered - oh dear.