Trip to the South West

I forgot to mention that I've now booked some hotel accommodation for our trip to Exeter late September. We booked flights months ago - it was meant to be a farewell to Kelly and Craig, but they've had to bring forward their departure to Oz, so they won't be there now. I'm glad now that I booked the Exeter flights from Aberdeen, rather than the usual Edinburgh-Newquay flights.

Jo and I will just treat it as little City break - I've booked us in to http://www.citygatehotel.com/, which is apparently right in the heart of the city. Kelly will give us the lowdown on where to go and what to see, and, if we get fed up with the city, we can always jump on a train and go somewhere nice - like Topsham (http://www.topsham.org/). Bill Miller told me we must visit there - he was a regular every year when his Aunty Pam lived down there. He particularly recommended the Bridge Inn - http://www.cheffers.co.uk/bridge.html. Any other suggestions gratefully received.

First week back - great!

Well, our first week back has been great - the weather has been superb, which has meant there has been no great shock to the system. (I've played 5 games of golf in the last week - each one of them in shorts and warm sunshine). I've also not really had any jetlag - I awake sometimes at odd hours, but otherwise it's been fine - maybe it is easier travelling Business Class!

Jo hasn't been near her computer so her blog is now 3 weeks out of date. I think she's waiting for Ross to fix her computer so she can get her photos on and update her blog from there. Talking of Ross, he should be heading back from Italy soon. He didn't quite keep his promise to his Mum to phone when he got to his destination, although he did phone from Dijon in France on Friday - apparently they only had 400 or so miles to go then.

Since my last post, I had a really hectic Thursday - dashing north to Fraserburgh for 3 management meetings in the morning, then heading south to Glasgow for a late afternoon meeting. I had a quick bite at Foveran on the way down - I hadn't been there in years, but Ross got me to stop there the last time we were down in Manchester, and it's pretty good now.

I met up with Barry and Helen in Wetherspoon's Crystal Palace and we had a curry. They were dashing off to a concert (Jack Bruce) and I then went to see Dad. It was about 7:30 pm when I got there and, guess what? - he was tucked up in bed:

He was, as you can see, half awake, but he soon came round and we tried chatting for a while, but this, as usual, proved difficult, so it was on to singing, and then we put some of his CD's on - some Glenn Miller, then Patsy Cline, and, finally, Glen Campbell. He seemed to enjoy this - especially the country music of Patsy Cline - we hummed along and sang where we could pick up the words. The care assistants came in during this to give him his pills - he took one, but then refused - I don't think he liked the girl - she was East European and very pleasant - she tried hard, but I sensed Dad was uncomfortable and eventually she left, saying she would try again later. I left about 9 pm and Dad seemed happy and settled.

On Friday, I drove from Barry's to Gleneagles - it was a wonderful day, and what a marvellous place it is when the weather's like this. On the drive home, Barry phoned me to relay the sad news that George Rogers had just phoned to say that Aunt Helen had died. She was younger than Dad, but had had a number of health problems in recent years, so it was probably no surprise.

So my Dad is the last of that generation of Stewarts to survive. Brother Johnny died a long time ago - perhaps the 1970's? - then came Alex, then Willie a few years ago, and now Helen. When you look at this list of names, and how "normal" they are, how on earth did he end up with the moniker Swanson Renshaw? Answers on a postcard please.

Tomorrow night, I'm out for dinner at the Marcliffe with a couple of visiting Norwegians. I guess I should have told Jo earlier - she's had to freeze the spag bog originally planned for Monday's tea.

Wednesday - half way to the weekend

It's lunchtime Wednesday and I'm heading across town now for a meeting, then on to start browsing new cars - the contract on my Volvo expires next month. Dilemma - same again? - great for all the golf gear - or all change? If I change, I can save myself some tax - but will it suit my lifestyle?



Sun is shining again - and there's a medal at Banchory tonight - great! Tomorrow it's off to the Broch for 3 management meetings in the morning, then I have to head back south for a late afternoon meeting in Glasgow - not the best of logistics, but nothing I can do about it now. I phoned brother Barry last night, looking for a bed tomorrow night - no problem - oh, wait - Barry's going to see Jack Bruce - never mind, I'll have his TV to myself after I've been to visit Dad.

Then on Friday, a rare treat - I've got a long-standing invitation to Gleneagles - not many of these corporate bashes around nowadays, given the global credit crunch etc - forecast looks good as well - bring it on!

Tuesday - 1 down, 4 to go

Jo's been busy with laundry, house cleaning - and the garden - since we came home. We could barely get in to the house on Saturday - the ivy was so overgrown and hanging down over the porch! She's also been at work in the back - this was this morning's view:

Hope you all like the updated archive photos on the blog - some nice memories there.

Ross is heading off to Rome tomorrow! He and his pal Dan, plus Harris and girlfriend, are taking Derek Glass's camper van and driving all the way there and back in less than a week - all to attend Pete's wedding on Saturday! Good luck to them - hope they don't break down!

I played 16 holes at Banchory last night with Keith. Like Sunday, I was again able to don shorts, which makes the re-acclimatisation back to the UK seem bearable. Apart from Saturday morning when we just arrived, the weather's been OK - bright, sunny and reasonably warm - not exactly 110 C, but pleasant - and we can survive without AC here, thankfully. I feel for the Lesinas in Grants Pass - no AC until Thursday at least - whew!

Happy 9th birthday, Cade!

At precisely 20:48 on 3rd August, 2000, baby Cade Stewart Lesina was born in Mercy Medical Hospital, Redding, CA. Happy birthday, Cade - sorry we couldn't stay for the big party this weekend! Here's Cade and his wee brother a couple of weeks ago:

First weekend home

Hey - we're back - and I don't feel too bad. We stayed awake on Saturday - helped by me going to the Legion and finally sampling my birthday ale on cask - then picking up fish suppers on the way home. We were in bed fairly early, but I awoke at 6 on Sunday morning and felt good enough to go and play in the Torphins Open.




Dan Corbett had made the trip up to play at Torphins as well - partly because his daughter was in the process of giving birth (by Caesarian) at ARI on Sunday morning! She had been getting treatment for IBS, when the doctors suddenly decided that, no she didn't have IBS - she was 8 months' pregnant! Dan bought us a little shandy in the Learney to celebrate the birth of his first grandchild:

He subsequently sent me this photo of him and the baby girl (un-named as yet):

Like London buses, he now discovers that one of his other daughters is expecting in January as well! He always thought that he wasn't going to be a grandparent at all - and now, all of a sudden!

Jo went to our new Morrison's and bought some salmon for tea (not wild like we had in Oregon, Scott) and that was Sunday over and done with.

Today the weather is nice and I think I need to get some urgent golf practice in this evening!

Last week in Utah

A few photos from last week. On our first night in Park City, we walked up to the top of Main St and had a meal in the Wasatch brewpub. On the way home, Jo found a new friend:

Friday morning brought a stroll round the town centre, after which we jumped on the ski lift to the top of one of the slopes:

"The hills are alive ..." - the next photo looks like an out-take from the Sound of Music:

On Saturday we drove over the high Uinta mountains and down the other side in to Wyoming. Lots of camp sites on the way. This was our hired car in which we did the journey:

As already reported, we were fortunate enough to come across a street beer festival when we got to the small town of Evanston. Sunday was spent locally in Park City. We jumped on one of the free buses and went up to Silver Lake and did a couple of trail walks.

On Monday morning, we decided to "do" Salt Lake City. This is Utah's State Capitol building:

We also did the Mormon Temple experience - Jo has loads of photos and she will no doubt put them in her blog.

On Tuesday morning, we jumped in the car again and headed south east, through the canyons on a beautiful drive which took us to the city of Provo (Utah's 2nd largest) and on to Utah lake:

On the way back to Park City, we stopped at the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls:

Back at our apartment, we had to start planning for our journey back to Oregon on Thursday, so Jo started to do some washing. No tumble drier in our apartment so we made do:

Our last full day in Utah was an easy one and we strolled around Park City and the pedestrianised Easy St:

We also went to the Olympic Park and posed for photos:

A snap from inside our apartment:

On Wednesday evening, we finally made it to Wahso, the restaurant with the nicest looking balcony on Main St. It's Asian cuisine and the meal was great - Jo was excited about her choice:

Strolling home, we posed at one of the open fires in Easy St. They must be really cosy in the ski-ing season, but were still quite pretty even in the heat of summer:

That was about it. We flew from SLC back to the incredible heat of Oregon, and Lucy met us and took us up to Portland, where we stayed overnight before our return flight home on Friday. We got the opportunity to upgrade to Business Class and snapped it up. It was lovely - although even this doesn't ensure you can immediately switch your sleeping pattern back to European times.

Gary and Luca met us at the airport and took us home - back to 13 C and rain!

On our way to SLC

Our final full day in GP was another lazy one until Scott and Lucy returned from work - it was then party time - presents!!!! It was supposed be a pre-birthday party for Cade, but, of course, Braeden couldn't get left behind. Jo and I bought Cade some of his WWF stuff - here's Scott assembling the grand entrance:

Here's the boys with the new ring we bought for Cade - but Braeden doesn't quite seem to understand the difference - "what's Cade's is ours":

We also bought one of the ride-on pool boats that has a motor and a squirty mechanism - Kelly bought one for Cade a few years ago and it was hugely popular, although eventually it was over-used. Scott and Lucy made sure they bought one for Braeden too so he didn't feel left out - the boys had great fun in them - and everyone got a soaking.

We finished with yet another family photo in front of the house. I must put up a montage of all of them some time so we can observe the changes over the years. See how proudly Bailey is sitting?:

And soon we're off to Medford airport for our flight to Salt Lake City. Lucy will pick us up and take us to Portland next week.

Tiger Lesina

Dang - he did it again! Scott beat me for the 3rd time yesterday - and he broke 100 gross for the first time ever (99 to be exact). With his assumed handicap of 28, Scott scored 37 points (1 better than handicap) and I scored just 28 points (8 worse than my handicap).

We went to the Centennial golf course in Medford yesterday - a new complex that I had played 9 holes on 2 years ago. It has matured beautifully and was in excellent condition. The greens are massive, sloping and very fast in comparison with anything that Scott has played on before. He struggled at first - a nervous "Ladies" off the first tee - but recovered well and was soon crunching his driver off the tee, and he even got the hang of the greens after a 4 putt at the 2nd hole.

What can I say? Nothing really - other than to adjust his handicap a little next time I play him!

After golf we picked up my new glasses and also went to Toys R Us to get some presents for Cade's early birthday party tonight (we're gone by the time of his real birthday). Scott and I went to McGrath's Fish House in Medford for dinner, whilst Lucy, Jo and the boys went Thai in Grants Pass - after picking up a Happy Meal at McDonald's for Braeden, who doesn't like Thai food!

So the rest of the day is going to be lazy - book reading, swim, sun, snooze - plus checking in for our flights to Salt Lake tomorrow - need to pack as well. The Lesinas are heading off in the trailer to Redding for a long weekend, taking in the Water Park there (which Kelly will remember well). Cade's football conditioning starts next week - 5 nights of torture in the baking sun! We never quite got our holiday plans co-ordinated this year - we had initially hoped that they would be joining us in Utah next week, but it wasn't to be. Next year we'll do better, I promise - although there may be the added complication of Oz to consider!

Tuesday

No photos and nothing much to say yet - but Scott is due home from work soon - taking a half day off - and he and I are going to Medford to play golf - and pick up my new glasses - back to varifocals, in case you were wondering. Check them out at Nike.com - model 6032 (shiny chrome).



Monday was quiet - I went to Walmart to get some groceries, but that was all really, until Scott and Lucy got home and Scott barbequed some buffalo steaks for us - they were great - not as fatty as convential beef steaks, but very tasty - in fact you couldn't have told the difference on a blind tasting.

Sunday

I always seem to enjoy watching the Open when I'm here on the West Coast. I get up early, full of anticipation, looking forward to 5 hours of solid golf on TV (albeit interspersed with many adverts). It's (normally) all over by about 10:30 am local time, so there's still the whole day in front of us. This time it was a little longer because of the play-off, but we still had plenty of time to do whatever we wanted - in this case, there were no plans so Scott and I headed off to Dutcher Creek for a round of golf.

To keep things interesting (and slightly competitive) I've been keeping our scores this year on a stableford basis - now I know that's double Dutch to most of you, but what it means is that if I give Scott the maximum handicap of 28 and I play off my real handicap (9), we each score points at each hole depending on our respective handicaps. I did this last Saturday at Myrtle Creek and Scott beat me by one point overall. Yesterday, after 9 holes I was miles ahead, but Scott had a terrific back nine (actually holes 1-9) and beat me again overall. In fact, even forgetting handicap, his gross score of 41 for the last 9 holes was pretty good. We tried to go to the Laughing Clam for a quick beer afterwards, but it was shut so we nipped down to Wild River brewery and Scott showed off his card:

We decided to go out for dinner to Summer Jo's. They weren't quite ready for us when we got there so we had a wander round their garden. The Lesinas posed for Jo for a family photo:

Back at Delsie Drive, I hadn't previously noticed that one of my old Partick Thistle strips had been hung up by Cade on his bedroom wall:

Today I was planning to head to Medford early on to pick up a new set of glasses I ordered last Wednesday, but Scott has just phoned to suggest leaving it until tomorrow as he can get the afternoon off and we can go and play golf down Medford way and pick up the glasses whilst we're down there. I guess we'll just have another lazy day at home today then - that would please the boys anyway.

Friday night in Banchory

As I said in my previous posting, my birthday ale was on in the Douglas - here's the new pump clip:



Of course, my pals were there to sample it on my behalf and sent me the photos - Colin's behind the bar with Steve, the owner of the Douglas, and Gary Grant, John McWhinnie, Ian Sharp and Dave Williamson are the others grinning at the camera:

Scolty Ale/Nechtan

It's now been released to the public - in the Douglas Arms and the Legion in Banchory but also a number of other pubs in the North East - including Archibald Simpson's (Wetherspoon's). I've still to taste my birthday ale in cask form myself, but I got reports from my buddies last night at the Douglas Arms.

The next task is to design a label for the bottled versions. I want to call it Scolty Ale as that was going to be the name of our first ale when we were planning to start a brewery a decade or so ago, so I've been looking for online photos and all I've come up with so far is:

Note the latter one has the golf course in it as well - and it's the 3rd hole, where I had a hole in one and won a Sunday Post putter - whoo-oo!!! - so my sympathies are tending towards it - what do you think?

Saturday update

Didn't quite make triple digits today but, it was still plenty hot. Yesterday we had lunch at the new Tap Rock restuarant, finally re-built 2-3 years after the original building burnt down. It sits on top of the river and is right next to where you get on the Hellgate boats - Kelly and Craig will remember. We sat outside to get a nice view, but it was very hot - the thermometer at the bank next door read 101 F just as we finished lunch - and it would get hotter yet. There's a nice little walkway back to the car park with streams, waterfalls and bears (not real):



Today, as Jo described in her blog, we got everyone up and out pretty early and headed north to the lake, after a quick pit-stop for breakfast. Out in the boat, Jo was finally persuaded to get in to the water, although she found it hard to move around with her life-jacket on:




Cade was initially very reluctant to let his Dad pull him on the Bonsai and wailed a bit (see short video at the end), but later on, he plucked up the courage and had a whale of a time, albeit with his Mum riding shotgun:

Here's his first attempt: