Stewart crest

I was looking through our holiday photographs and came across the above shot of our t-shirts hanging out to dry. It reminded me that it was about time I did some research in to the latin motto on the front, which translates as "Courage grows strong at a wound". Wikipedia describes the symbol as "A pelican Argent, winged Or, in her nest feeding her young, Proper." Here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crest_badges_used_by_Scottish_clan_members

What do we all make of that then?

Getting near the weekend

The week seems to be dragging a bit, but at least it's Thursday now - Fraserburgh today and then back to Aberdeen tomorrow, for those of you still interested enough to read my blog postings - seems like you've all given up on updating your own blogs regularly.

Midweek golf started (for me anyway) last night - although I forgot to remind Jo about it beforehand. I watched the Apprentice when I got home - getting hooked already to the new series - surely James can't last?

I've tentatively planned to go to Deeside Brewery (it's their official opening to the public this Saturday) a week on Tuesday (21st) to brew my birthday ale - I'm now thinking about naming it Scolty Ale, which was going to be the name of the very first ale we were going to produce in our own brewery when I first came up with the idea about a decade or so ago - what do you think?

There's a mini beer festival on at the Aberdeen Arms, Tarland this weekend - would quite like to pop in some time, but I'm not quite sure about logistics etc.

No news about a new job for Ross yet - he'll need to get cracking soon. Thankfully, he's debt free at least.

Jo's little car accident is still not resolved - I contacted her insurance company as soon as I realised it hadn't been reported - but they haven't responded yet. I've chased them again today, but I've noticed we don't actually have a cover note from them - although we did pay the premium last December. Mmmm.

Hoping for a game of squash tonight and then back to Bannatyne's tomorrow - I went there on Monday and was horrified to see that my weight is still shooting up. I knew I was heavy but I can't quite understand why it's rising so high and so fast - although I guess the two recent holidays didn't help much!

Is there anybody out there? Let's be hearing from you!

Back to reality

It was back to work yesterday after a weekend of recovering from the holiday. We went to Perth on Saturday afternoon to see the Jags in their big match - they got a 1-1 draw, which wasn't a complete disaster but wasn't really what they needed either.

It was nice to play golf again on Sunday morning, but I was pretty rusty - hope it gets better soon. And then yesterday it was hard to get my enthusiasm going at work, what with all the difficulties we are going through just now. Today was Fraserburgh which is really pretty depressing - we've got the Union to face again next week, but at least the actual number of redundancies is dwindling - a chunk have left already and we've managed to find jobs in Nor-Sea for more than 20 of those who are having to leave IFC, so we're down to almost a handful that we'll have to make redundant - and at least some, if not all, of them will be volunteers.

Worse was to follow when I got home tonight, however - Ross has been laid off by Bancon - he's on "garden leave" now. He's talking of doing his RGIT offshore course and looking for work in the oil business.

Trampoline

Cade and Braeden's other favourite pastime was using the trampoline at the villa:

Last few days in Tenerife

The sun shone gloriously on Wednesday morning so we decided that it would be a good time to take the team photo in the t-shirts Kelly and Craig had got made for us:


We went down to Fanabe beach and had some lunch - Ross was complaining that the sun was burning his hair parting so I loaned him my hat:


Craig and Cade were first in the sea and the others looked on:

Hot and thirsty work the beach, so we had to have ice creams afterwards:

In the evening, Jo and I went out for dinner - we had huge G & T's (Bombay Sapphire of course) at Hotel Jardin Tropical, where I had stayed on my recent golf trip, then walked up the hill to El Molino Blanco for dinner:

Thursday was beautiful as well so we headed back to Fanabe beach. It was pretty hot so Jo and I decided to take a stroll along the rocks:

Gary and Ross decided to have a game of table tennis when we got back to the villa:

Scott and Craig fired up a cracking BBQ:

whilst Cade and Braeden reverted to their favourite pastime:

Earlier in the week, Lucy and Cade had fun from pool to hot tub:

Tenerife update

What have we done since we went to Santa Cruz on Saturday? Well, on Sunday, we celebrated Scott's 36th birthday - Lucy and Scott went out for the day and walked between Fanabe and La Caleta and had lunch whilst the rest of us hung around the villa and some of us shopped. Scott got to work on the barbeque in the evening and we brought out his cake:

The hot tub was busy after dinner:

On Monday we went to Los Gigantes and went out to see the dolphins (too late for the whales). This was me on the way back:

On Tuesday, Scott, Craig, Ross and I went to play the little par 3 course at Los Palos whilst the others went to the Jungle Park:

Today (Wednesday) has started well and we could be on our way to either the beach or a water park.

Tenerife 1

The journey over was easy enough - although Gary was still deeply stressed at take-off and landing - particularly when we bounced a couple of times on the tarmac at Tenerife. Here he is in one of the more relaxed moments in flight:


Kelly and Craig met us at the airport and we picked up our hire cars and drove to the villa, which is magnificent. The keg of draft Beck's by the pool was soon getting big licks.

Dinner was really a late lunch on Friday - pizzas and wine. Saturday was a little drizzly and so we decided it might be a good idea to take the drive up north to the capital Santa Cruz. We eventually found a car park, which turned out to be the football stadium's main parking. We then strolled down the hill towards the Ramblas pedestrianised shopping district. This was us at the top of the hill in front of the town hall:

We had lunch at a pavement cafe and then walked further down the street towards the port. Here's a nice one of Gary, Carole and Luca:

Dinner was barbeque, courtesy of Scott - excellent it was too. We had thought that our TV had Setanta but that proved to be false and so a swift decision was made to drive down to Las Americas and find a bar that had the Scotland match on - although why we bothered, I'm still not sure.

Today (Sunday) is Scott's 36th birthday, so he and Lucy have gone off for lunch - I'm picking them up in a few hours. The rest of us are just chilling today.

Lucy's photos

I managed to copy photos (but not videos) from Lucy's videocam last night. Here's a couple she took - firstly when Jo cut her cake on Sunday:





Then when they went to see my Dad on Monday:

Technology/communications

Blogs have gone quiet recently - is everyone going off the idea? I know Lucy uses Facebook - is that an alternative, or it an addition, to the blog? I've tried Facebook, Bebo etc but don't quite get them - they don't really suit me. I've even tried Twitter, but couldn't really be bothered with that either.

One new piece of technology I am experimenting with is Spotify - like I-Tunes, but you don't download, you just listen - like a musical library. Not bad so far.

Carless Monday

Scott and Lucy were taking my car down to Glasgow to visit the relatives, so I naturally assumed that I would be taking Jo's car to work - I should have known better. Jo wanted her car - why? - "shopping" she said. OK - that means you have to drive me to work and back? "OK". Well, how tense was the journey? Jo doesn't know the roads and was on edge with all the traffic. We got there in the end, but I think we were both glad when the journey was over.

I brought home a pool car, so she didn't have to pick me up yesterday - but she's going to have to do it today. I think she would have preferred driving to Fraserburgh and picking me up - she asked me if I was working there today - nope - Aberdeen. I got asked the address of where I work this morning and we've agreed she will pick me up at 4:30 pm - fingers crossed.

I played squash doubles last night, but we were late starting because Keith was delayed at work when it was reported that a fire had broken out on the rig he's responsible for. Thankfully, it was quelled quickly so he was able to make up our four, but we were much later than planned.

When I got home, it was Ross' turn to get stressed out by his Mum - guess she was having a bad day? They were at Jo's computer and she was trying to download photos and videos from her new camera. She had installed the software that came with the camera - something that is guaranteed to irritate our in-house IT nerd. He immediately, and huffily, removed it and showed Jo how to read and transfer the files from the camera.

Lesinas days 1 & 2

They all survived well yesterday - Scott and Lucy had an afternoon nap but the boys kept going. They seemed quite at home - Cade remembered the plastic soldiers and soon he had them all over the stairs again. We walked them along to the shops at tea time and Scott and I went in to the Douglas for a quick beer with Colin, Keith and Malcolm - we watched the Wales - Ireland match.

Everyone slept well and got up at a reasonable time this morning. Scott joined me for golf - we played with Syd, and Scott did very well - particularly when you consider that he hadn't played since last summer. Here he is playing his approach to the 14th:

Scott and I had bacon and egg butties at the golf club and then we drove over to Inverurie to join everyone else - Gary was making Mother's Day lunch for the girls.

So tomorrow, I'm in Jo's car and Scott, Lucy and the boys head down to Glasgow in my Volvo.

Lesinas arrive

Half an hour early as well. I just managed to get there in time, with Ross and Jo following on. It was a lovely morning and we had tea out in the back:

Blog update

It's been a very difficult week at work - especially yesterday. We had put the workers at our canning plant on to a 3 day week last month and said we would review the situation about now. Well, we've now done that - Michael has just returned from his round the world tour of major customers and it was gloom and doom all the way. Not only is everybody cutting back, but we're also losing orders to Polish competitors and we're having difficulties in getting customers to agree to increase selling prices to compensate us for the increased price of fish that we've just bought for the year ahead! Triple whammy!

We've now told the workforce in IFC that the 3 day week will have to continue for a while and, in addition, 60 jobs will now have to go. It's been a few years since we've had to do this, and it's never easy - I just hope we can get through this year OK.

It was another lovely evening for the drive home from Fraserburgh last night and this helped to take my mind off things a bit - that and my music (last Saturday's Sounds of the Sixties). I phoned Jo to tell her I would need a large G & T when I got home!

Talking about "SotS", I've tried for 3 years in a row now to get a request in for Colin's birthday - I know he and Johanne listen to it every Saturday - but failed each time. Maybe it was my request that Brian Matthews should play the rather slow and lengthy Dylan song "Visions of Johanna" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i6NOfD48Gk) from the Blonde on Blonde album?

Anyway, Kelly and Craig are now on their way to Tenerife and the Lesinas have started their long journey over here - looking forward to seeing them all in the morning. First of all, Jo and I are going to the Milton for dinner tonight for her birthday - I bought her a new camera, but, typically, she was trying to use it upside down and then couldn't switch it on this morning! Mind you, it was early!

This was last year's flowers - did I do any better this year? Perhaps Jo will let us know?

Midweek

Jo seems OK today and I don't feel too bad. Even Ross was feeling better, although he stayed off work again because he didn't sleep at all last night.

I decided not to go to Pittodrie tonight after all, but just watch it on TV instead. I phoned Keith and we arranged to meet outside the hospital to visit Jas, who had his hip op on Monday, but we both managed to get lost - Keith actually went to the wrong hospital - Foresterhill instead of Woodend!

Jas was fine, although obviously still hirpling with the help of a zimmer frame: