Kangaroo Island (1)

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

On Sunday morning, we drove both cars down to David and Lorene's in Port Elliott, where we transferred stuff from Kelly's car to David's and then headed for the ferry at Cape Jervis for our hour long sail to Kangaroo Island. It wasn't a huge ferry but its manoeuvrability in the tiny port was amazing - it had to turn a complete 180° to get the car ramp facing the right way:

There was a bit of swell on the crossing, but nothing much - just enough to keep Jo quiet for a while, though:

Notice how focussed Jo is, whilst everyone else is chatting away?

The landing at Penneshaw - although a small port, it's not as tight as Cape Jervis:

We made a slight detour to an Arts Centre that Lorene wanted to see. At its entrance was a stone octopus:

KI is quite a big island and we had to make our way all the way from Penneshaw in the far north east down to Seal Bay (near Vivonne Bay) in the south:

We checked in to our cabins near Seal Bay - there were only 6 of them, and we had booked 2. They were basic, but functional, and would be fine for our short break. They had a nice decking overlooking the bush, facing mostly east:

For our first night, we dined at the resort centre. It was fairly basic, but it did the trick. Kelly and Chris took a shine to one of the old benches:

Whilst the rest of us sat at another table:

So that was day 1 - arrival. More to follow.

Between Boxing Day and KI

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Thursday 27th was a quiet day. Kelly and I walked to the park that surrounds the city centre, then  Kelly went off to meet one of her pals, whilst I sat in the park and read - at least until the workers who were erecting stands and fences for New Year finally got to me and I wandered off. It was nice for a while though.

On Friday, we all headed for town in different ways and different times. Kelly, Ross and Chris walked in, whilst Jo and I sauntered down the Parade and then jumped on a bus. Would they take our Senior Bus Passes? Sorry - got to be Aussie ones.

We strolled around the city centre and bumped in to Chris and Ross a couple of times, finally all meeting up in the Exeter Hotel for a beer - a place we had visited before - a bit grungey - not at all up-market, but fine by us. We decided to try somewhere else for our next beer and lunch, but the 2 places we chose were shut until 4 pm! Never mind, we found a nice little Greek restaurant and had a nice time.

When we were at Rundle Mall, there was a petition to save a historic old fountain which they are now planning to demolish for some reason. Here's what might be one of the final sightings of this:

In the evening, we just ate in Kelly and Chris' back court. Ross was making Cuba Libre's:

On Saturday, Kelly stayed at home and chilled out, whilst Chris drove Ross, Jo and I to the Barossa for some more sampling and viewing.

Our first stop was at the famous Jacob's Creek. We didn't really want to taste any of their wines, but thought we would look in to their new visitor centre anyway:

Next stop was an altogether less industrial winery, recommended by Chris - Rockford, located in farm/steading type buildings - look at their front web page - http://www.rockfordwines.com.au/

What a beautiful place - and they had a sideline in preserves as well, so we did a fair bit of shopping here.

From wine to beer - we arrived at Barrosa Valley Brewing (http://www.bvbeer.com.au/Display/) in lovely Tanunda. Great place, super beers and sampler trays too - what's not to like?

We left there to head for the other Barossa brewery in Greenock. We'd been there before but it was shut - and it was again this time, so there's no way we're giving them a 3rd chance. We then hotfooted it back to Tanunda, but also stopped off at another of Chris' winery recommendations  - Torbreck (http://www.torbreck.com/) - super place and quality again.

Back at the brewery, we had hoped to fill our Growler (we'd bought one at Lobethal Bierhaus on Sunday) but they didn't have the licence to do this, so we just settled for another quick beer:

So that was Saturday - the following day we were heading off to Kangaroo Island for 4 nights, including New Year.

Christmas & Boxing Day

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The heat of Sunday acclimatised us quickly so that when we drove down the Fleurieu Peninsula on Xmas Eve, the drop in temperature and the sea breezes made it feel almost chilly at times. We had rented a house at McCracken Country Club and it was a monster:

Chris' Mum & Dad and Uncle Colin came over to meet us and we all popped over to the clubhouse for supper.

On Christmas morning, we headed over to the Steele's house in Port Elliott for our first Aussie Christmas. David and Lorene had prepared cold seafood starters - shell-on prawns and crayfish caught by David. Colin - Lorene's brother - had stayed overnight and we were joined a bit later on by Chris' brother, Matt, his ex-wife Amanda and their daughter Abigail.

Lorene had worked so hard to get everything ready - even the tree was home made:

The wreath was home-made too:

as was the Gingerbread house:

but not the trout in pastry, which Chris had bought:

Some traditions, however, span continents - the trifle was classic - and alcoholic:

After all that and the buffet meal, most of us felt a little bit of exercise wouldn't go amiss and so we headed for the cliff and beach walk - here's some of the scenes:

So that was it - a lovely day.

Boxing Day was time to pack up and leave our rented house and head back to Adelaide, but not before Kelly and Chris took the opportunity to take us to lunch for our Ruby Wedding Anniversary at the beautiful Star of Greece restaurant, sited on a clifftop overlooking the beach.

We had a couple of pit stops on the way - firstly for coffee in the pretty little town of Willunga, where the only place open on this holiday was a rustic little organic coffee shop:

We also re-visited the Coriole winery in McLaren Vale and sat in our favourite corner again:

Chris had bought a special edition bottle - Australia's National Wine Poet, Andy Kissane had a different poem on the back of each bottle:

After lunch, we went for a stroll on the beach and paddled in the water. The sea rescue/shark helicopter had been hovering around but eventually thought it was safe enough to come in and land and do some PR with the kids:

This morning (Thursday), Chris, his brother Matt and Jo and Ross all headed off to the cinema to see the Hobbitt. Kelly and I weren't interested and so she walked me down to the park where I read my book for a while as she headed off for a hike with her pal.

Christmas Eve

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I'm now sitting outside Kelly and Chris' pad as the temperature has finally dropped as what they laughingly call a cold front has moved in over Adelaide. Yesterday's 42 C temperature meant we hibernated/slept the afternoon away. Today we're driving down to Port Elliott to stay in rooms at McCracken Country Club (http://www.mccrackengolfclub.com/).

Forecast is to be a lot cooler today - maybe even as low as the low 20's down by where we're headed, with Christmas Day in the mid to high 20's - that's perfect.

Kelly and Chris have gone to their gym and Ross is now making smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for our breakfast - attempting to match Chris' fine fritatta yesterday.

The journey was not too bad, all things considered - although I wouldn't want to have to do it cattle class. The 12 hour flight from London to Kuala Lumpur was in the huge A 380 - how those monsters get off the ground, I'll never know. The space in our cabin was fantastic and the food and service were like a 5 star hotel. We had a 3 hour stopover in KL before boarding the slightly smaller A 330 for the 7 hours on to Adelaide.

Our only travel problem was in the UK. First of all, our flight to London was delayed, but we still had plenty of time to catch our connection. The main problem was getting from T5 to T4 - nightmare. Not at all well signposted and the advice we got from the local staff was contradictory and confusing. Tube or bus - which is best? It transpired that the Heathrow Express wasn't running, so bus had to be the option - but the local staff didn't seem to know anything about it. We made it in the end, but we were sweating for a while, not knowing how long check-in and security would take. Of course, flying Business Class means shorter queues all round, including Fast Track through security, so we had no real need to worry.

Staying awake all day Saturday was a problem, however. We lasted until about 7pm, I think, although I had played the nodding donkey routine for quite a while before this. We had a brief walk up to see the waterfalls on the trail up Mount Lofty in the afternoon, which kept us awake for a while. Here we are at the viewing platform at the top of the first waterfall:

On Sunday morning we drove up to the Adelaide Hills to Lobethal where we had booked lunch at the lovely Bierhaus. We made a short stop en route and visited Melba's Chocolate Factory - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0vpYaOxhZI

The Bierhaus was great, although we arrived a little early - before they were officially open at noon. We had allowed some time to go round the Lobethal market, but it was so small and quiet it took us no time at all.

The toilets in the Bierhaus are lined with jokes, like these ones:

The place soon filled up - just as well we had pre-booked.

So that's me up to date now. Have a great Christmas everyone - and watch this space.

Holiday Eve

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

I'm sitting here in the office, just waiting until 3:15 pm, because that'll be exactly 24 hours before we are due to fly from ABZ to LHR and I can then check in online and print off our boarding passes. I've already done the LHR-KUL-ADL ones with Malaysian Airlines - they allow you to do it 48 hours before the flight.

I hope we're all well tomorrow. I've still got my cough - although it's easier than it was a few days ago - and I've now developed a bloodshot eye - where did that come from? Is it just a symptom of the cough and cold I've had for the last 10 days, or is it the first sign of something new coming along? I hope not the latter.

Jo's still treating her sore shoulder as well - another visit to the physio today. It could be an uncomfortable flight for her.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing some Australian daylight - there's not much here at this time of year.

Ross had plans to do his last minute Xmas shopping today. He was planning to take Jo's car and go in to town, then head off to drop off all our surplus food from Sunday at Inverurie. Hope he manages to squeeze it all in - he's still got to pack as well. Come to that, I've still a bit to do as well.

Otherwise, I think we're all set to go. I thought I would take the chance to have a couple of rants before we left so I've added some to my Pet Hates Blog.

I was away on Saturday but the weather wasn't too exceptional inland, but I first heard about "The Perfect Storm" in the media on Sunday and Monday. Apparently, it hit the coastal regions only. It was a rare combination of very high seas and high winds and a number of small communities suffered badly. (Check out http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/east-coast-counts-the-cost-of-storm-1494828)

Our own factory in Fraserburgh just missed it - this photo is taken at the back of our site, with the public walkway along to Scotland's National Lighthouse Museum looking a bit precarious:

Our factory is built on a granite block, so hopefully it'll be OK.

Fake Christmas

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

The heading was Ross' name for our pre-Christmas get-together yesterday when Gary, Carole and Luca came over for a meal and an exchange of presents. We had been out for dinner at Banchory Lodge on Friday night and I had set off early on Saturday morning, heading to Newcastle for the match against the current Premiership champions, Manchester City, whilst Jo stayed at home and prepared for yesterday's banquet.

We didn't buy a proper tree this year - the first time for many years - but we used the little artificial one that normally sits in our back room:

After a few more pre-dinner glasses of wine than planned, whilst waiting for everything to be ready, after the meal Carole had her by now traditional little snooze as Luca watched Jo's i-Pad:

Then we exchanged presents - I got a lovely Bush DAB radio and Ross was also delighted with his gift from Gary and Carole:

I suspect the ukelele may be travelling in Ross' hand baggage on Thursday!

Time now for the team photo:

After a suitable break, it was time for dessert. Jo had baked an enormous chocolate cake and apple pie, to boot:

Note the young gleaming eye in the background, licking his lips at the thought of the chocolate cake!

So, it's back to work today and I'm pleased to say for the first time in a week, I feel a little better. I certainly seem to have got my voice back and I'm definitely not coughing as much as I was a couple of days ago. Hopefully, I'll be fighting fit for Oz.

Countdown - one week to go

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Yes - this time next week, we'll be on our way to Oz. Looking forward to it, especially after this morning's shock drop in temperature. We were told it was going to get warmer as it got nearer the weekend but this was the reading on my car when I got to Kirkton of Skene this morning:

Yes - that's minus 8.5 degrees C - and it's almost 8 am. Definitely the coldest this winter, but still a long way from the record lows we had a couple of years ago.

They're now saying we're going to get some snow tomorrow - hope it doesn't upset my travel plans on Saturday. We're planning to go to see the Newcastle - Man City match and our schedule is fairly tight - an early start, straight after a late(ish) night tomorrow at Banchory Lodge.

We had a lovely dinner with the Kilgours and the Masons last Saturday - Jo's first time entertaining, using our new cooker, hob etc - and it went very well.

Looking ahead, we are scheduled to get to Adelaide early on Saturday morning local time, and we head about an hour south of there on Christmas Eve, down the Fleurieu Peninsula to where Chris' parents live. We have hired a place to stay for a couple of days and we are having our Christmas meal at David & Lorene Steele's place in Port Elliott.

We'll go back to Adelaide after Christmas, past the McLaren Vale wine region (there's a brewery or two there as well - http://www.mvbeer.com/ at the historic Salopian Inn, for example).

For New Year, we're heading to Kangaroo Island for a few days, then we're all going to see one of Cirque du Soleil's shows - OVO (http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/ovo/default.aspx). We've only seen one of their shows before - the Beatles' Love in Vegas a few years ago - it'll be an interesting comparison.

Here's an outline map of the area:

Glenelg (middle top on map) is the beach resort where we stayed before, and Victor Harbor is the scene of the infamous seafaring incident never to be repeated/mentioned. We've also been in the Adelaide Hills before, and up Mount Lofty, and also visited brewpubs in Hahndorf and Lobethal. Looking forward to more of the same and some new experiences this time around.

Incidentally, I've now passed 25,000 readings of this blog - never ceases to amaze.

Greetings from home

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Just like Gary yesterday, here I am blogging from home today. My reason for so doing is a little different from Gary's - I didn't fall down the stairs and injure my knee - at least, not yesterday I didn't. No, mine was largely weather induced.

Jo had stayed overnight at Gary's last night so that she could drive him in to work first thing this morning. He couldn't drive Carole's car because it's not automatic. Anyway, I was a little later leaving this morning and it was a snowy start to the day. I was driving along the top road on the Raemoir to Garlogie section, just before the Hirn turnoff, when I noticed a queue of cars in front of me. I sat patiently in line for a while, not moving at all, then a police car came up the outside line, lights flashing. It was clear there had been an accident and soon we are all told to turn round and head back to Banchory.

OK - second attempt. North Deeside Road this time. I got as far as Kippie Lodge, just short of Milltimber and the traffic stopped again. This time it was sheer volume - everything was backed up. It appeared that Aberdeen city had iced up and there were logjams everywhere. North Sound radio was reporting hour long jams at Haudagain roundabout and cars struggling to get up the hill at the Parkway. That was enough for me. Two hours in the car already and still no nearer the office, so I just turned around and came home and worked from there - or, at least, tried to.

Jo got home not long after me, having spent a couple of hours taking Gary to work. Next, our doorbell rang - it was Irene from next door. She wanted to discuss some of the potential issues on the Council's draft contract to lay new surfaces on Birch Grove and Arbor Court. If you haven't been here recently, you won't have seen the huge potholes in the road - so bad, in fact, that Les Mason - Jo's pal Anne's husband - had recently tripped when carrying his baby grand-daughter. It could have been a really nasty accident, but she was OK in the end. It did, however, prompt Les to take action and circulate all the neighbours to get their approval to the proposed scheme - the roads are not adopted so they're our responsibility, not the Council's, so we have to pay.

Irene is the only one who hasn't signed up yet, and, given her chequered past relationship with all her neighbours, some suspected she might not agree, but actually she does - in principle at least. It took at least an hour and a half to find out what her points of detail were - and some of them were pretty pertinent - but, by the time she was gone, it was lunchtime and I still hadn't done any work.

Anyway, I did get some work done this afternoon, so I'm feeling a bit better now - hence this quick blog.

We've had some aerial problems recently - it only affects digital terrestial TV and we use the satellite virtually all of the time, so it's not been a great problem, but it was a job that Ross had to find time for and today is one of his days off, so up in to the loft he went. Problem only partially resolved - it needs more time - but whilst he was up there, he was at least able to clean the loft skylight, which had built up layers of dust and bugs - it might have been a decade or so - since the fire - that it was last cleared.

My journey to Fraserburgh in the morning might be disrupted again, but I'll give it a go anyway if there's not too much snow. We're planning a curry night out with the Veterans' Football Group in Aberdeen on Friday night - again weather permitting.

That's my lot for now. I'll finish with a slightly artistic photo, "stolen" from Facebook, of Scolty Hill from Banchory today:

St. Andrews Day Greetings

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Happy St. Andrews Day to all - especially those in far-flung parts of the world - don't forget your Scottish roots!

What have we been up to over the last week? Not a lot, to be truthful, but it looks like being another 3-match squash week for me. I played on Monday and Wednesday and am planning to play again this afternoon/evening. Might be a bit sore tomorrow. It's getting seasonally cold now, with freezing temperatures most mornings, which makes squash on a cold court in the back of beyond a bit of a challenge. It would be far easier for us to play racketball when it's cold, but we all enjoy doubles squash and it's more sociable with 4 of us.

With the exception of the whupping my son-in-law gave me in Idaho this year, I haven't played any racketball for at least a couple of years now. Note to self - must try again before July, so that Scott doesn't find it so easy next summer!

Last weekend, we started watching the DVD I got out of the library - Il Divo:

It's in Italian with subtitles and is all about Italian politics and links with the Mafia, focusing on Giulio Andreotti, 3 times Italian Premier. It's very stylishly done, but some prior understanding of the history would have made it more interesting. Jo was bored rigid and gave up, so I ended up watching the second half of the film myself on Tuesday night when she was at Inverurie.

The actor who played the lead character, Tony Servillo, looked very odd in the film, but, on checking out Wikipedia, the real life man looked exactly the same - chillingly enigmatic as it says in the blurb:

Need to take the DVD back to the library tomorrow - my time's up. We also need to get back up to Banchory Car Centre and make up our minds about the new family car. Jo - and Ross - quite fancied a Subaru (Legacy, I think?), but they wanted one a bit newer than the ones Malcolm has in stock just now, and he's had difficulty locating any. They also tried the eco-friendly Prius, Toyota's hybrid:

The silence of the engine when it's in electric mode, not knowing if it's running or not, may have put Jo off a bit, but you never know - she might become an eco-pioneer yet!

We've also finally got the painting started in our kitchen and downstairs WC, which have both been bare since the new kitchen, shower and porcelain set was put in earlier this year. Davie, our work's painter, became ill and has now finally retired at the age of 76, but we've now got his "apprentice" Gordon, a mere 61 year old, on the job.

Oh - and we successfully sold a spare shower we had on e-Bay. We installed a more powerful shower downstairs, but not before we had already ordered a conventional one, so we were left with one extra. The eBay experience was good - we got most of our money back.

Enchanted Castle

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

The North East again escaped the worst of the weather last night and so Jo and I were able to join Gary, Carole and Luca at the Enchanted Castle (http://www.theenchantedcastle.info/) evening at Crathes. It was principally lights and sounds, with a few entertainers - magicians and firethrowers - plus a BBQ (hot dogs and veniburgers). We were all ever so slightly disappointed that there wasn't more of a Christmas Fayre feel about the event - we half expected local food producers with tastings as well. The first 2 floors of the castle were open to visitors, but, apart from a couple of little Christmas trees, there was nothing especially festive going on in there.

Images and music - Fantasia, Harry Porter etc - were projected up on to the castle wall:

The next bit was good - we went in to the walled garden, which was nicely atmospheric with low level coloured lighting and spooky music, and from there on to a walkway through the woods. There was a smoke generator in one of the buildings, adding to the atmosphere and Gary and Luca posed outside it:

Carole wasn't allowed to dodge the camera either:

Luca then went to inspect the magic, sparkly, rotating toadstools:

The strange things round everyone's necks were proof of payment:

A juggler was playing in the middle of the woodland walkway:

We managed to get a shot of all of us in front of one of the famous cultivated hedges:

Luca then tried, after a little coaching, to spin the plates:

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours - but we reckoned it was probably about a fiver's worth, which was half what they charged - unless, of course, you are a concession. The girl at the entrance was a little hesitant when she suggested Jo and I might fall in to this category, but we assured her we weren't at all offended!

More of these photos on my Facebook Timeline.

Jo suggested we stop off on the way home and pop in to the bar of the Douglas for a swift half. This at least gave Ross some glasses to clean on what was another quiet evening for him behind the bar!

Oh - and our new mattress arrived on Tuesday, so that's 2 nights we've slept on it now. It's different - bigger, a bit softer and not so rigid at the edges. So far, so good.

I also managed to get tickets for the Newcastle - Man City match on Saturday 15th December. It's a lunchtime kick-off, so it's quite easy to do the journey there and back in a day, but it's going to be a hectic weekend, as we've got our squash/golf group night out at the Banchory Lodge Hotel on the Friday night, then have our Christmas lunch with Gary, Carole and Luca on the Sunday before we go to Oz.

Greetings from murky Aberdeen

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Not many hours of daylight at this time of year and when it's overcast - like now - or raining, it's even worse. Thankfully, so far, we haven't had the heavy floods they've been reporting in west central Scotland - and SW England - but it's still very gloomy.

Just over 4 weeks until we head for Oz - hopefully a lot brighter there. I looked at the programme for the outdoor Moonlight Adelaide cinema (http://www.moonlight.com.au/adelaide/) for when we're there, and there's a couple of things on that might have been quite interesting, but they're on days when we're already booked to do other things. All that remains is sing-a-long Grease - can't see us doing that!

Last week, for the first time for many years, I actually managed to play squash 3 times in one week. OK, it was only doubles, but it was better than doing nowt. Ironically, at the weekend, when the sun was shining gloriously, I did nothing. We had a lazy Saturday morning and we knew Luca was coming over to stay some time in the afternoon. In the end, Jo ended up driving over to Costco to meet Gary and transfer the precious cargo over, whilst I watched the televised football. On Sunday morning, I agreed to forgo golf and look after Luca whilst Jo went to church. As it turned out, Gary came over about 10 am to pick him up, so I was soon on my own again. A nice walk down to the shops to buy the papers, then a quick visit to the clubhouse to read them was all the exercise I managed all weekend.

We've got a lot of series recorded on our Sky box to watch just now. Not that you need to record them nowadays - they're all on the new catch-up facilities which you can just download at any time. The best, though, is series III of The Killing, which started on Saturday night with two episodes - looks intriguing already. We've also been watching House of Lies, about a team of Management Consultants - quite funny, but lots of flesh and pretty crude too.

Oh - and I re-joined the library on Saturday. Amazingly, they still had me on their records after what must be 15-20 years. I thought I'd give it a go anyway, so I took out one CD (PJ Harvey - Let England Shake); one DVD (Il Divo); and one book (Chic Murray biography).

I'm just finishing off a book Gary gave me - Louise Wener's autobiography - Different for Girls: My True-life Adventures in Pop (aka Just For One Day: Adventures in Britpop) - she writes really well, so it's not surprising that she changed career path from pop star to writer. I've got some holiday reading lined up now as well - I bought a Michael Connelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connelly) book that was on offer in WH Smith, and I'd already acquired a 2nd hand Stuart MacBride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_macbride) that I spotted in Homebase the other day (50p!). On a whim, I also bought from Amazon Steak Diana Ross: Diary of a Football Nobody
by David McVay. That lot should keep me going on Kangaroo Island for a while!

Some bugs going around just now. Feeling a bit under the weather - hope it clears soon. Perhaps it's just S.A.D.?

eBay success!

From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/

Forgot to check my e-mails last night, but when I did this morning, I discovered that I was successful in my bid on eBay for a replacement Archos unit. My DVR went phut last week so I haven't been able to download my recent recordings from the Sky + box, but I found one on eBay and the bid expired at 10 pm last night. Great - should arrive soon - hope it's OK.

Went down to Edinburgh by train on Friday with Les and Anne Mason. We had dinner at their favourite Chinese restaurant, Loon Fung - and very good it was too. We stayed, very conveniently, at the George Hotel, just across the road from the Assembly Rooms where this year's Wine Gang Xmas Fair, featuring Anne's brother Tom Cannavan - star of STV's The Hour wine spot - was being held. Good fun it was too. We attended three of their masterclasses - the two Tom himself did on Portugal and Lebanon were very good, but his colleague Jane got in a bit of a muddle with her presentation on the wines of SW France.

Here we are posing in the hallway adjacent to the magnificent, newly refurbished room where the fair was held:

So, golf yesterday morning was followed by a lazy Sunday afternoon with the papers and TV sport, then we caught up with Boardwalk Empire in the evening. Fraserburgh today - got a bit of a crisis looming - machinery breakdowns have caused a huge backlog of orders and we only have a few weeks left until Xmas, so we've had to ask for volunteers to work additional hours, weekends and holidays.

Squash this evening, then back to Aberdeen tomorrow. Nothing else major planned for this week.