Luca day 1

Up bright and breezy was the boy wonder. Any chance of me sneaking downstairs for breakfast was soon bombed out as the cry of "Granda" came out of the back room, followed by the be-jammied boy himself. Of course, it was really Grannie he wanted. I tried hard and probably managed to buy Jo an extra 30 minutes in bed, but that was about it.

Kelly FaceTimed but Miller was getting tired and, anyway, I had still to do my exercises and get off to work, so we cut short the call and promised to try again tomorrow morning at 7 am.

Jo had a busy day. She got a short break when I arrived home, but the novelty of Granda soon wore off. I had him on my exercise bike:

Hide and Seek was next, and then Luca turned to drawing again:

Pretty good, eh? Giant Sea Monsters he called it. Pity it's upside down.

Changing tack, I saw this article about global weather patterns - Adelaide gets a mention:

End of weekend report

To bring my blog up to date, Thursday was Fraserburgh during the day and then Jo and I went for an early Valentine's meal at the Tor-na-Coille. Venison - lovely. Friday was the usual swimming session at Westhill for Jo in the afternoon, followed by a visit to Costco to pick up the cooked chicken for tea. I had a few beers at the Legion with my pals - it was a slow, slippy walk home as we had our first proper snow of the winter. It hasn't come to anything, but it looked like it might for a while.

On Saturday, Jo and I had lunch at Tease - sausage sandwiches - and then I jumped on the bus in to Aberdeen to go to the CAMRA meeting that reviews the members' votes for our local entries to the Good Beer Guide 2015. We also vote for Pub of the Year and the Moorings (http://www.themooringsbar.co.uk/) came out top this time. Coincidentally, Gary and Carole were there last night on a night out together.

So, not having done any exercise since Wednesday - other than my morning routine for my knee - I just had to do something today, and, fortunately, it was a beautiful sunny day. After Jo headed off to church, I got the bike out and headed east along the Deeside Way. Full details of my run on the new cycling blog (http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/) but I had a bit of a Senior Moment. Before I left the house, I checked to see if Jo had left her keys behind or not and I couldn't find them, so therefore I felt it was safe to lock the door (something we never used to do, but times are changing).

After a couple of hours' cycling, I finally stopped at Buchanan's (http://www.buchananfood.com/barn.html). No sooner had I sat down to my tea and scone, than I received a text from Jo to say she was locked out of the house! It took me the best part of an hour to wolf down my scone and cycle back. Jo was waiting on the porch - not best amused. We looked for her keys when we got in the house and, would you believe it, I had taken them with me, thinking they were mine. My own keys were in my jacket pocket. Doh!

Just as stupid was the fact that, in my haste to get back home to let Jo in to the house, I had left my cycling helmet at Buchanan's. Never mind, at least that settled where we were going for tea. We had promised Ross a bar supper somewhere, so that's where we went - with Luca, who is now with us for "3 sleeps" as it's school mid-term.

Here's Luca playing across the table with Ross on his phone:

Ross was in good form:

Luca posed with my cycling helmet:

So that's it - now back to work tomorrow. Which reminds me, Gary brought this article in last week's Daily Record to my attention. There's a fairly notorious new film out called Nymphomaniac and it's got a big budget and is attracting loads of publicity, with Charlotte Gainsbourg (daughter of the equally notorious Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin) in the lead role. One of the supporting actresses is none other than model Sophie Clark, daughter of Francis Clark and Fiona Kennedy:

The bit that got me, however, was the reference to Francis "Fishy" Clark - a name I've never heard him called, although his father was occasionally called by this name in his heyday.

Blogging gone mad!

Yes - I've opened another one - http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/. That makes a nice round 10 in all.

Carole, Liz, Luca & Gary all came round on Sunday. Luca wanted to draw as usual so he "borrowed" a sheet of paper out of our printer. I told him that would be 10 pence please. "But I don't have any money, Granda". "That's all right", I said, "I'll take an IOU", so, a few minutes later, with a monster thrown in for good measure, I received this:

After dinner/lunch, Carole went for her usual snooze - she had been with the horses in the morning, then gone for a 5 km run with Gary, poor girl, so it was no surprise at all when she dozed off. Gary and Luca kicked a ball in the street:

So that left Liz and Jo. What did they do? Talked of course:

Sorry - forgot to put the flash on. The Lego was Luca's, I think.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in our Aberdeen office, but I did manage a good session at Bannatyne's on Monday - half an hour on the bike, followed by some weights, mostly the legs. I've got to the stage where my right leg is virtually as strong as my left leg. With my little chicken legs, that doesn't say much however.

On Tuesday night, when Jo was through with Liz in Inverurie, I hopped on the bus to go to the CAMRA branch meeting at McNasty's in Aberdeen, and then this morning, as you'll see from my new blog, I went cycling with the Wednesday regulars - and I coped OK. I was first to arrive at the Guide Hut, our meeting point:

This afternoon has largely been spent with an energy efficiency salesman. Not sure yet, but we're keen to do something to cut our fuel bills with just the two of us in this 3-storey house now.

I've been sending CAMRA e-mails and letters to new members and leavers this evening, so, finally, now that this blog is finished, I think I'm pretty much up to date. I do have a huge backlog of monthly magazines to read, however - I think I'll need to stop one or two of them.

End of the week post

What's this? Friday already and I haven't posted a blog all week - since Sunday. I'm slipping.

Monday was Aberdeen and Tuesday Fraserburgh & Inverurie. Back to Aberdeen on Wednesday, with an afternoon trip to the gym and, in the evening, Jo and I nipped out to Tarland to do the pub surveys there, then stopped off at the Learney Arms, Torphins on the way home for a spot of supper - and another survey under the belt.

Tonight is our first Headbang of 2014 - out at Gary Grant's in Finzean again. It should be a relatively early night - Gary likes his bed and tends to do his Cinderella when the clock strikes midnight.

I thought we might be going along to Deeside Brewery tomorrow for their Open Day for Times + members, but they have been unresponsive and I wasn't even sure if it was going ahead or not - until a few minutes ago - it's cancelled, so we've got a free day tomorrow.

Carole's Mum is up this weekend and we're hoping they'll all manage to come over here on Sunday for dinner.

The recent wet weather meant a slight build-up of water on the slabs at the back of our house - the drain was struggling to cope. The result now is that we have green slabs:

Wonder if the power hose will cope with this?

To close, I spotted this article in this week's paper - a gift from Scotland to Adelaide:

Sunday night update

I'm sitting here blogging as Jo FaceTimes Lucy - I'm listening and they're talking. It's Superbowl afternoon/evening in USA - but we're not staying up to watch it all. Actually, we've just watched 2 episodes of Series 2 of the Sopranos - Colin gave me the DVD's over a year ago and we've never got round to watching them until now.

I did go to the Belhaven Brewer in the House evening at the Boat Inn, Aboyne on Thursday. There was a bit of a hiccup with the travel arrangements as Keith Gray had said he would like to come so I suggested he get on the bus outside the Douglas and I would get on outside our house. I did my bit - but when I looked around the bus, there was no sign of Keith. It transpired he'd got stuck at work and had texted me to tell me, but I never got his text until I got to Aboyne! Anyway, it all worked out OK in the end as Keith drove down to meet me, meaning I had a lift home.

What is happening with the text service anyway? It seems it's getting more and more unreliable, with longer delays. I used to think it was just the bad signal in our house, but everyone seems to be complaining about it now.

Yesterday was a nice day and we decided to go for a walk. We ended up walking along by the river - past Platties, and along the Deeside Way all the way out to Milton of Crathes, where we stopped for soup, tea/coffee and scones. 6 kms - the furthest I've walked yet. One part of the Deeside Way had a large puddle on it - I waded through, but Jo wasn't keen even with her walking shoes on. She hummed and hah-ed but initially wouldn't take any of the suggestions I made:

Eventually, she had no option but to climb through the fence and go on to the railway line - it's only the tourist Deeside railway line, and it wasn't even running, but Jo was full of guilt about breaking the law.

This was the deciding factor in us catching the bus home after lunch - that and the fact that it started to rain.

We watched the final 2 episodes of the Bridge II last night. Jo thought it was a rubbish ending, but we now know they are planning a 3rd series of the Scandi crime drama, so I guess they were setting that up.

This morning, I didn't feel too good and didn't want to move far away from the WC, so I stayed in bed and just watched wall to wall sport until Jo came home from church and coffee, by which time I was feeling a little better - enough to get dressed and get ready to go out to Woodend Barn again to hear Lesley Riddoch - ex BBC Radio Scotland presenter, who was plugging her new book:

We walked there again - 5 kms - and we walked back too - another 5kms almost, so it's been quite a weekend of walking for me, and, so far, so good, my knee - and my legs - have stood up to it - although I might feel a bit different when I wake up tomorrow morning.

We had tea and cakes at our table at Woodend Barn and Lesley Riddoch was an interesting talker and quite thought-provoking.

We broke our walk home by stopping at the Legion for haddock and chips - plus some beer, of course.

So that's our weekend over - back to work tomorrow.

Midweek marvel

Feeling good about myself today. Went to the physio yesterday morning and she was so pleased with my progress that she said she didn't need to see me again. She said I could always come back any time if I was concerned about anything and she stressed that I still have another 9 months or so of hard work in front of me, but she was confident my knee would continue to improve, just by regular daily use. Quite a change from our first meeting back in November when she was very concerned about my lack of progress and how little I could move my knee then. She even went as far as to suggest then that I shouldn't have been let out of hospital after just 3 days.

So I made a choice this afternoon. I had originally planned to go to the golf club's AGM tonight, but I also wanted to go back to the gym after work, and it might all have been a bit of a rush. So what did I do? Send my last minute apologies to the golf club, that's what, before heading to Bannatyne's. I did 30 minutes on the bike and then, buoyed by the physio's comments yesterday, I tested my leg on some of the weights machines - the first time I had used the machines since last summer. I was careful and reduced the weights from my normal level, and I managed OK, with just a little tremor here and there.

It's just 5 weeks tomorrow until I officially collect my Old Age Pension. I'm one of the last of our generation to be able to collect this at age 65. It's a significant date, but hardly a significant windfall. I feel for those that have to live off what is a very modest amount in these times. The Government web site charmingly words it:

"The most you can currently get is £110.15 per week."

Not that the Government can afford to increase it - but it's a salutary lesson, kiddies, that you have to look out for yourself and plan well ahead if you want to have a comfortable retirement. Will my lifestyle change dramatically in 5 weeks time? Unlikely, but some changes may take place - watch this space.

Tomorrow night there's a Meet the Brewer evening at the Boat Inn, Aboyne. It's a pub I've yet to survey, so, if the weather behaves, that might be a chance to do both. Forecast is for some snow tomorrow - at last - so I'll make a late decision.

Miller video

Discovered this sitting on my camera today - I'd forgotten I'd taken this short video of Miller lying on his back, kicking away:

Knee residue

Twelve weeks on, with the top of my scar (where the wound was closed) still a little swollen and angry looking, this morning a tiny fragment finally came out of the area that we have been treating to coax any residue out of:

Can you see it? A tiny little piece of we know not what. Will my knee now finally settle down? We'll have to wait and see.

End of the week

The last 2 days of the working week have been pretty hectic - I've hardly moved from my desk - mostly doing annual appraisals of our Managers. Eight down, five to go - scheduled for Monday/Tuesday. Then comes the worst part - documenting it all - that's always a pain.

I haven't been to Bannatyne's since Monday. I did half an hour on the bike then, and have had a few shorter sessions on the static bike at home since then. I've managed to move the saddle down another notch, so that's progress, I guess.

At least it's almost the weekend now and our regular Friday night will be at the Burnett tonight, when our friend Nigel Meany will be making one of his infrequent appearances, having flown in from Dubai - on the day of his 55th birthday too.

Tomorrow morning we've got a house call from Everest - apparently just checking that everything was ok with our kitchen installation - although I suspect there'll be some hard sell going on as well. We've got Woodend Barn in the evening to look forward to, preceded by dinner at Buchanan's.

Last night, I featured in a vintage photo in the local Evening Express. This would normally have been one for Renshaw's Chronicles, but I'm already past 1987 when the photo was taken, so it'll have to appear here:

That's me lurking at the back, 6th from the left, eyes almost closed. I vaguely recall the event - the one outstanding thing I remember is talking to joint prize winner Ray Dinsdale (5th from the right). He was the MD of Richards, carpet makers, (in)appropriately, because he was wearing probably the worst "rug" I had ever seen. Your eyes were magnetically drawn to this thing on the top of his head - it was spooky.

That's our (now deceased) Chairman, Dr. Francis Clark, receiving the award, 4th from the left, with my colleagues Bill Hazeldean and Ron Porteous, 2nd and 3rd from the left respectively. I was but 38 when this was taken.

Tuesday/Wednesday

Ross was first to leave Gary's after dinner last night and he took Jo's car back to Banchory, but Jo and I weren't far behind in my car. We watched Corrie, with Hayley's closing scene - Jo was in tears at her death - and then it was part 6 of The Bridge. That was enough TV for us for one night.

The downside of Ross taking Jo's car was that all my leg massage oils etc were still in it, so I missed out yesterday - and today so far. I've spent a lot of time in the car the last few days as well - over to Aviemore on Sunday, back to Aberdeen on Monday, and then up to Fraserburgh on Tuesday and back to Banchory, via Inverurie yesterday. The leg gets a bit stiff sitting in the car.

I did get to Bannatyne's on Monday and spent 30 minutes on the bike, moving the seat steadily further in to stretch my knee. I had a snack there too as my evening meal, with Jo and Ross still in Aviemore and me home alone.

Today some of us received the following picture of Miller in the bath from Kelly:

Wish we were there. Need to plan our next trip out.

Back in Deeside, we're still waiting for a proper winter to arrive - it's still too mild and when we do get precipitation, it's rain. Bound to change soon.

This weekend we've got Newton Faulkner (http://www.newtonfaulkner.com/gb/home/) at Woodend Barn, preceded by dinner at Buchanan's - that's something to look forward to. We're also considering going to the Winter Words Festival (http://www.pitlochry.org/whats_on/winter-words-festival.htm) in Pitlochry next month - as we did in the last few years.

In between, we have the first Headbang of 2014 two weeks on Friday (7th), followed by a tour round Deeside Brewery the following day. I had hoped to be able to do this over Xmas/New Year when everyone was here, but couldn't get it organised at that time.

I think that's about all that's on the go just now.

Weekend etc

Ross and his pals seemed to enjoy their short weekend in Aviemore, and Jo and I drove through on Sunday afternoon to take Ross out to dinner in Aviemore. We walked from Dalfaber - sorry, now called Spey Valley Golf & Country Club - down to the other end of Aviemore and had a nice meal in the warm and friendly Bridge Inn.

After dinner, we stopped outside and admired their external smoking shelter, complete with old piano, Chesterfield suites and logs for the winter too:

Very nice. On our walk back, we popped in to the Winking Owl for a quick half.

Monday morning and I had to go back to work - eventually - but Jo and Ross stayed one more night, and I am meeting up with them later on this afternoon in Inverurie, on my way back from Fraserburgh.

That's about it for now. Must dash.

Tuesday through Thursday

Tuesday was Aberdeen for me, then Bannatyne's - managed to do half an hour on the bike - then I headed off to Inverurie for tea. I saw Jo and Luca of course, but left about 7 pm before Gary and Carole were home.

Wednesday was a busy day in the office and I didn't get home until after 5:30 pm - pretty late for me. We watched episode 4 of the Bridge II, the Danish-Swedish co-production about environmental terrorism - it's looking pretty good so far. Saga, the Swedish female detective with no social skills at all is amusing. Just 15 minutes on the bike at home tonight.

Jo discovered an interesting site about knee ops - http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/total-knee-replacement-surgery-excercises-after - wish I'd seen it before. It contained a different angle on what a knee replacement looks like:

and I finally managed to file my tax return online - just 2 weeks before the deadline for 2012-13.

Today (Thursday) brought my first self drive to Fraserburgh since mid-October. I made sure I stopped halfway and got out and stretched my legs or I would have got pretty stiff.

Ross has just arrived for his tea - he's on holiday for a week and he's going to Aviemore, using one of our timeshares, for a few days from Saturday. We might join him on Sunday night, if his pals have gone by then.

Tonight there's a Seniors meeting at the golf club at 7 pm, so I'll toodle along there then.

Monday

Virtually a full day in the office today. OK - late arrival - 9:45 am, but late departure too - 4:15 pm. It was such a lovely day and I went for a long walk at lunchtime. Even had time for a quick photo at Aberdeen Energy Park:

Just before I left the office this afternoon, Keith Gray got in touch and asked if I fancied a pint, so we met at the Legion.

I forgot to show you the photo from Saturday's bike ride - taken at the cemetery:

Weekend so far

Our first weekend at home alone since they all flew off and what have we done so far? Well, Jo went to see Frozen at the cinema yesterday with Gary and Luca - and 2 of Luca's pals. So what did I do when Jo was away? It was a beautiful, crisp day again and so I thought I would get out on the bike and pick up my paper and also do a few of the local beer surveys at the same time.

Morrison's - Scott Skinner's, the Legion and, lastly, the Burnett Arms for a bacon buttie was my route. The hardest part was cycling up the hill to the Legion - I'd forgotten how unfit I was.

Today (Sunday) I walked over to the golf course and met the guys, and then, this evening we drove out to Alford to do a couple of pub surveys. We intended stopping off at the Learney Arms, Torphins on the way back to have some supper - but it was shut, so we drove down to Banchory and walked along to the Douglas - and it was shut too! It still wasn't even 8 pm. Thank goodness the Burnett was still open and serving food.

Going off at a tangent, I spotted this advert:

Do you think Jo and I should go for this?

I was checking my time share web sites and this was the image on one of them - remember this kiddiewinkles?: