Christmas and Boxing Day

It's our anniversary today - the 37th. We're going to the movies this afternoon - perhaps after a trip to the Crows Nest landfill to dump the cardboard boxes now filling the back of Jo's car. Now, there's romance for you!

This morning I was treated to breakfast in bed - what a nice surprise. I had got up earlier but had gone back to bed and was still there at 9 am when Jo awoke. We had watched the Frost Nixon movie last night (with Ross) after Gary, Carole and Luca had left - and after the obligatory Xmas Corrie - that was close for Kevin and Mollie, wasn't it? The movie was pretty good I thought - particularly the actor who played Nixon. We also watched the Catherine Tate Christmas Carol special - with loads of guests - David Tennant is everywhere just now - and it closed with Madness doing Baggy Trousers.

Anyway, working backwards, Christmas lunch was great - only got this one rather grainy photo, however:

Definitely need a new camera! Carole did the trifle - and it was great:

Jo's pavlova is just behind it. The turkey was great - massive it was, too - many days of eating left:

Earlier on, Gary and I had taken Luca across the road to the 3rd hole of the golf course for his first experience of sledging. I've got a few videos to show you, but can't remember how to insert them in the new blog editor - have they done away with this feature, or am I just having a bit of a Senior Moment? Anyway, here's some photos to be going on with - firstly Gary and Luca boarding for the first run:

The start of the run is fairly gentle, but, as it gets down nearer the bridge over the burn, it gets steeper - and the snow conditions were perfect for sledging, so it was important to control the speed of the sledge - and not just for Luca's sake!

Gary and I each managed to take Luca down twice - on the last run, he said to me "faster, faster, Grandad" - so I did - and he bawled again. Back up the hill - "want to go see Grannie now" - but not before we tried to teach him about snowball fighting. He wasn't keen at first - he had no gloves on - but he asked for my gloves and this encouraged him to try to pick the snow up:

He tried to throw one at his Dad:

Merry Christmas

Yes, it's a white one - very pretty.

Football yesterday was fun - and mince and tatties for tea afterwards was great. This morning, I got up a little slowly and reluctantly, had breakfast, showered and got changed to keep Jo company at church. We walked along together and then it was revealed to me that Jo was on communion duties today - standing in for Anne - oh. "Well, you can always go along to the shops and get your paper instead" quoth her Majesty - so off I trotted like a good little boy. Of course, there are no papers on Christmas Day, but I bought a Piper and went for a short walk, checking out the pitch that we are due to be playing at on Monday -  no chance unless there's a fairly dramatic change in the weather - we'll have to play indoors again, I think.

When Jo returned she gave me my presents - a new shaver (presently charging), toffee and a chocolate orange, and two sleeveless sweaters - a yellow one (to go with my new jacket, according to Jo) and a dark blue one, which is actually a cardigan:

I've booked us tickets to go and see Nowhere Boy tomorrow at the new cinema at Union Square.

Clocks

Here they are then - all up now:

Xmas Eve

I had agreed to pick up Colin this morning and take him to work and on to this afternoon's football in Aberdeen. I sailed up Mount St and apparently waltzed straight past him, standing at the corner of Rmasay Road! I waited at his house and then decided to phone - no answer - although it must have woken the rest of his family. A breathless Colin then came racing up to my car - he'll need to get in training that lad.

We got one of the 3 clocks up last night. Why not the other two? If only - if only there were some screws and rawlplugs left in the house. What do these people that I live with do with everything?

This is Lucy's one at the foot of the stairs. Kelly's one goes to the top and UK time in the middle.

On to the vernal equinox

We're now past the Winter Solstice - the days are now officially lengthening again - although it hardly seems like it with this wintry weather all around. Only 3 months now until the Vernal Equinox!

The Solstice was also my Dad's birthday - he would have been 89. Never quite made it to his 90th year.

Which do you prefer - last year's tree (left) or this year's (right):

This morning's travel was fun again. This time, the snow had fallen on Deeside and the roads around Banchory were pretty tricky. I was supposed to be in Fraserburgh and had got up earlier than usual to make sure I could get there. After slithering up Mount St and Ramsay Road, I decided it would be unwise to take the cross country route and so I headed straight in on the North Deeside road to Aberdeen. I was delighted to see that, unlike yesterday, the roads in the city were clear. I was doubly delighted when I discovered that a lot of commuters had obviously started their holidays early or were heeding the advice of the police not to travel unless their journey was absolutely essential. I breezed through the city and from there northwards the snow diminished until I arrived in the Broch, which didn't have a drop of snow!

We got our turkey today so we're slowly getting there. Jo's been really busy in the kitchen - she made lasagne for tea - lovely - and some mince pies too - really nice.

Still the Christmas cards to put up - and, of course, the clocks! Watch this space.

I'm dreaming of a ......

It's certainly looking that way -the snow is now fairly well established and the temperature is not forecast to increase significantly enough to clear it all before Friday. In fact, I've already made a pre-emptive strike and re-organised our traditional annual outdoor match at DATA on Thursday to the large indoor pitch at Strikers at Bridge of Don - very handy for me as it's just a couple of hundred yards down the road from our factory.

Yesterday we had a board meeting at the offices of our external investors (Aberdeen Asset Management). Francis had organised a lunch afterwards for the great and good at the offices of Adam & Co, RBS' private banking division, just along the road from AAM.

Jo drove me in to the meeting as I didn't want to have a car there as I was told it was going to be quite a boozy lunch. Francis had bid for it in an auction - just £250 it had cost him - and he and Michael would be there, as would our external non-executive director, Kevin Milne, and his boss, Martin Gilbert, Chief Executive of AAM, who had just had his annual bonus approved by the shareholders at the company's AGM - a mere £1.4m.!

The great and the good included the Earl of Haddo, and Mark, a cousin of the Queen, who is married in to Lady Saltoun's family (Fraserburgh), plus Sarah Mackie, one of the farming and ice cream family and a rising star in Tesco. In all there were 10 of us. It was only afterwards that Francis was told the prize he had bought in the auction was lunch for 6, not 10!

Starters were kidney and sausages, followed by beef steak. Very nice it was too - and the company was OK actually - I didn't feel too overwhelmed.

This morning, I sailed in from Banchory to the outskirts of Aberdeen - the Deeside roads were absolutely fine - completely black - but when I hit Bucksburn that's where the trouble started. It seemed Aberdeen city had had the worst of the overnight snow and every road was completely white - it appeared that no gritters had been out. It took me an hour to get from Bucksburn to Bridge of Don - no more than 3-4 miles.

The snow came down and, by lunchtime, I decided I had to get out. It was exactly the same in reverse - slow drag out of the city but then all clear out to Banchory. Jo was out with Anne so I made myself some lunch, did some work and half watched a movie on TV - The Rocker if you must know - ageing heavy metal drummer gets a second chance of fame - you can easily figure the script from there - light hearted and predictable - another Hollywood formulaic movie. I just noticed that Frost/Nixon is on tonight, so I've recorded that for future viewing - hopefully that'll be a bit better.

Anyway, as Gary says, I digress. We had arranged to play squash this evening, but better planning of our transport was required this time - Malcolm took his big 4 wheel Audi and it worked a treat. Incidentally, Richard got his Jag back from Findrack on Sunday, but only after the sterling support of 2 friends and neighbours plus towing from his big Land Cruiser.

Hoping the weather behaves tonight - I have to go to the Broch in the morning, then get back to Aberdeen to pick up our turkey.

Back to my headline - what good Christmas songs are there? Some of them sounded good at the time, and some even for a few years afterwards, but eventually over-familiarity breeds contempt. Even Fairy Tale of New York grates a bit now. Jo was bemoaning the lack of seasonal songs this year - I referred her to Bob Dylan's Christmas album, but she didn't seem overly impressed. Any suggestions?

Snow arrives

The roads have got a bit slippy with the arrival of some sleet and snow. We all managed along to our Christmas night out at the Milton of Friday however. The squash blog has all the photos but here's one of Jo trying on her party hat for size:

When we got home, I took a photo of me in my new brown jacket:

I decided to give Pittodrie a miss yesterday afternoon and go and play squash instead. We had been discussing the incident last year when Jo dropped me off at Findrack and got lost and stuck in the snow, and conditions were similar this time - and we definitely had some fun and games trying to get up to the squash court. Keith had agreed to pick me up in his Audi TT with 4 wheel drive. We got up to the estate and started to climb the long uphill driveway. We got about half way up when we saw a big Jag spread sideways across the narrow drive - it was Richard - he was stuck and couldn't go any further.

Keith stopped his car but we then started sliding backwards - there was nothing we could do - down and down we went. After about 100 yards we thankfully came to a stop before we hit the entrance pillars. Keith parked his car on the level and we headed up the hill to try and help Richard, but there wasn't much we could do. In the end we were happy to get it off the drive and parked in the ditch - it would have been madness to try and take it back down the hill anyway as the only thing that would have stopped it would have been a tree or the entrance pillars.

Next problem was Dave - he had taken his little light Micra and had made it to the top of the hill OK, but now he was worried about getting it back down safely. Gingerly, he got it down to the level. Good - now we could go and play squash. It was a walk straight uphill, about one third of a mile, in the dark and on an icy driveway. By the time we all got there, we felt like we had played one game already!

After squash we had to work out logisitics for getting us all back home. Dave was heading straight for Potarch, so Keith said, don't worry, we can get 3 in my little TT. Down the path we walked - tricky in the dark and on the ice. Only one of us fell - guess who? I stumbled and landed awkwardly bending my knee back the wrong way - much as I had done 40 years ago at football training - I feared the worst for a moment, but got up OK and soldiered on towards the cars.

Next job was getting in the back of a car whose seats are designed for infants only. One of back seats was already folded down to take our squash gear so there was just one tiny space for me to get in to. It was a struggle - my big walking boots got stuck in the floor well - but eventually I was sort of prised in, with my neck bent double under the low slung roof. Richard then tried to get in the front passenger seat, but it appeared that the door was frozen solid and we couldn't open it. There was no option then but to abandon plan and transfer Richard and I to Dave's Micra - he agreed to detour and drop us off in Banchory. Easier said than done - they had to get me out of the back of the TT first of all! What a job that was - eventually I was half hauled out and we made our way down to Banchory - on the main road, the long way - the Glassel Road was too slippy. When we got to Banchory, we discovered that the front passenger door of Keith's car wasn't frozen after all - apparently, I had accidentally pressed the door lock swtich with my body as I struggled to get in!

When I finally got home, Luca was just being put to bed so we said goodnight and hoped we wouldn't hear from him again until about 7 am. Fat chance - at 5am he was wide awake, so Jo went in beside him. She managed to keep him there for another hour before they both went downstairs at 6 am. Jo reckoned it was her punishment for not putting him down yesterday afternoon and packing him off to bed last night without him having had his usual routine afternoon nap. She had hoped it might work to our benefit, but I guess not.

This morning (Sunday), it's just Luca and I - Jo's off to church. We walked to the shops to get my paper and some chocolate for Luca. He put a pile of coins in his pocket and off we trotted. I decided we would take a slight detour and walk across the golf course. It was a beautiful, snow-bound morning. Luca loved walking through the snow and making his own line of footprints. I took my gloves off and asked him to pose for a photo - no chance - but I eventually got this snap:

Rover - go fetch my glove - so he did:

We got to the paper shop and Luca selected his chocolate - a finger of Fudge - went up to the counter and pulled out a coin - 10p - a bit more please - so the next coin was 5p - that's perfect, and off we trotted back home. He didn't want to open it until we were back in the house - it was good.

Sweetness and light

OK - I'll try hard not to moan too much tonight - just one quick word about our bank - they had made a mistake - they hadn't undercharged us £40K - it was actually £56K!

And yes, we have lost all of our money in the Flyglobespan collpase - almost £4K. Much more important, however is finding another carrier to take over the Aberdeen - Faro flight - let's hope one appears soon.

Had a nice game of squash tonight, followed by Jo's latest soup/porridge concoction - very nice actually. Getting ready for our night out at the Milton tomorrow night now - 27 of us going.

I was offered 3 corporate tickets to go to the Emirates on Saturday to see Arsenal - Hull. I would have loved to have gone, but, it's a bit near Xmas and, anyway, we're babysitting. We've got our tickets to see Arsenal - Everton on 9th January, so I'm not really missing out.

Still haven't got anything for Jo's Xmas - any suggestions? Oh - and I finally got round to buying myself a new jacket the other day - and it's brown - I don't like brown - what do you wear with it?

More moans

Just heard the news about Flyglobespan going in to administration. I've just paid almost £4K for a group of 13 of us to fly to Portugal on a golf trip next October! What's worse, I used my debit card as they charge you less for this than a credit card, for which I would have been covered!

On top of the Flyglobespan news, I've just booked flights with BA to go to London on a footy weekend on 9th January - will they be on strike then?

Yours disgustedly,

Moaning Minnie

Shall I have another bleat today? I think so. Luca had a bad dream and woke us all in the middle of the night. Then, at 4 am, the cooker timer alarm went off and we were all up again - and guess who couldn't get back to sleep after all this?

Anyway, I'm now a few chapters in to my "blast from the past" book, No Mean City. It was written in the 30's about the hard life in the Gorbals and the razor gangs that abounded then. Leaves you with a slightly queasy feeling - although there's no real bad language or too much graphic detail. I learned what a "hairy" was - it's a phrase no longer used - I guess the modern equivalent in Aberdeen would be "minger". I must have had these horrid graphic images of the derivation when I was a teenager, but it transpires that it's a bit of a class thing - i.e. hairy means they weren't wearing/couldn't afford a hat!

B****y banks!

Well - after nearly 9 months of me complaining and their denial, our Bank finally fessed up today - they had overcharged us interest - just a mere £40K, that's all! True to form they then decided that they had to raise additional charges and increase the margins they were taking, so that they would get virtually it all back again!

I had a little rant at them, but I know full well that what goes around comes around, so there's little point in having a complete fall-out - that's what's so frustrating about it all. Of course, they need to increase their charges because they're having to pay the Goverment a huge premium on the money that baled them out a year ago. Meanwhile, relatively small local businesses who have survived (so far) through the Credit Crunch without any Government intervention or aid are being punished for their failures. Where's the morality in all this?

I've started so I may as well get all my rants off my chest now. We're still having fun and games with our number one customer - our Senior Technical Manager's head has rolled and we're now re-organising internally.

OK - who's next? What about Harvey's? Yes, the sponsor of Coronation St - and supplier of the settees in our back room. My seat is getting ever more uncomfortable and I'm seriously thinking of ditching it after not much more than 18 months' use. The photos don't really show the deterioration - on the left is the photo from exactly a year ago, when their rep came out and declared it was just normal "TV seat". On the right is tonight's photo. Maybe this is the reason for my grumpy mood.

On a brighter note, we are looking after Luca overnight - he seems to enjoy coming here to see his Grannie Jo and he's always on good form.

Tomorrow, it's the dentist for me again - but this time, it's a relatively routine visit to the hygienist - wish me well.

Fife trip

We had a nice little trip down to St Andrews on Friday - eventually! I had agreed to meet Jo at Stracathro and phoned her at 1:30 pm advising her to leave now, hoping she might get there about 2:15 pm. Given the previous track record, I didn't rush leaving Bridge of Don, but I was still down there with plenty of time to spare. I waited - and I waited. Eventually, I felt I had to phone - no answer of course. I tried Ross' phone, as I knew there was a possibility that he would be driving his Mum over Cairn o' Mount - no answer from him either. What had happened to them?

Round about 3:10 pm, the little Almera pulled in to view, with Jo looking slightly stressed in the passenger seat. They had got a little fed up following slow moving traffic over the hill, and Ross had decided to take a left turn at Clatterin' Brig. Where does that take you? To Drumtochty, and, if you take another wrong turn, Auchenblae. It seems that Ross has inherited his mother's legendary (lack of) sense of direction.

After that, the trip down to St Andrews was relatively plain sailing and we got there with time enough to stop off in the town to book a table for dinner at the Doll's House. At the hotel, we had been upgraded to a suite with what would have been a lovely view out to sea, were it not for the fog enveloping Fife. My camera was still in the car, but Jo took several photos of our room and hopefully we'll see them on her blog.

I had booked us in for a massage - what a shock to the system that was! We were both in the same room on adjacent tables this time and I discovered later that we were playing a game of chicken - who would squeal with pain first of all? How could a little slip of a girl inflict so much pain on me? Was it worth it? I think so - although Jo was still complaining about the pain in her shoulders the following day!

There was no shuttle service running to town after 6 pm so we had to order a taxi, and we had a G & T while we waited. Our booking wasn't until 9 pm so we also managed a couple of beers in the Central Bar first of all. Our meal was excellent - I'd go back to the Doll's House again.

On Saturday morning, we weren't quite ready for breakfast, so we nipped down for a quick dip and a read of our books. After breakfast, we noticed the fog was lifting so we set off for Crail and a short walk along the Fife Coastal Trail. This is Crail harbour:

This was the street we walked down to the harbour:

and here's Jo with the sea behind her:

Crail is at the very start of the Firth of Forth and we could see right down to East Lothian and the Bass Rock - although it was still a little misty and the camera wouldn't capture it all. This was the view of the mouth of the harbour from the viewpoint:

We did a loop round the town and came back along Market Gate, where Jo was taking some  photos:

Friday update

Not much to say. Been busy - down in Edinburgh on Wednesday. Went to Govenment Offices and was told that the guy we were due to see was in Peterhead - his Dad was ill. No problem, we said - we're also meeting xxxx - sorry she's off ill today! Bit of a wasted trip really - could have used the day more productively by staying in Aberdeen. We also saw our bankers again - I've been pushing them for months on their charges - I was convinced they were ripping us off, but they kept saying everything was OK on their side. Well, finally we got a confession - still without details - that they had been over-charging us interest!

Finally managed a game of squash doubles last night - after a couple of aborted attempts this week - and had a nice pint of Santa's Swallie in the Learney afterwards. This afternoon, we're heading for our annual - but possibly last - trip down to St Andrews to stay overnight at the Fairmont. We're treating ourselves to a massage as well! Not sure what we're going to do for dinner yet, but Jo's made a special request that we go down to Crail in the morning for a walk along the beach there - as recommended by Anne and her Mum.

Tuesday - less than 2 weeks to the shortest day!

Not much to say really. Played golf on Sunday - had to go to Aboyne as Banchory was closed. Oh - and Jo and I had an Indian take-away at the Kilgours on Saturday night - one of the worst we've ever had from the Derbar, I'm afraid. We both suffered a bit from it.




We were up there to see Colin's new toy - a turntable that digitises your old LP's. Colin hadn't a clue how to work it and I'd been meaning to have a look for some time, and this was the ideal opportunity. It's very simple and we did one of my old faves - Window by Michael Chapman. I left a few more of mine for Colin to do in his spare time - let's see how he gets on! I've got a whole pile of other ones I'd like done as well, but I didn't want to swamp him - and, no Lucy, it doesn't include any of your old Bucks Fizz LP's!




No squash last night - going to try again tonight. Tomorrow it's Edinburgh - the Government and the Bank - wow!