Spring is here?

A glorious start to the week - blue skies and we're promised it will get warmer and stay dry. Pity I didn't quite feel up to it - either something I ate or a little bug. I struggled in to work but decided I had to get out at lunchtime and get some fresh air. I went down to Persley Walled Garden - I hadn't been there for years. It's a little oasis of calm amongst the madness that is the nearby infamous Haudagain roundabout, which, incidentally is about to get a whole lot worse as they are due to close Mugiemoss Road, one of my regular rat runs. It's going to be madness round there as everyone tries to get across the Don from north to south and vice versa.

Here's how the garden was looking today:

It was a little sun trap which I enjoyed for a brief 10 minutes before returning to the office. Not another soul to be seen other than a single gardener.

I went to Pittodrie on Saturday to see Aberdeen sneak through to the Scottish Cup semi-final by narrowly beating Dumbarton. Oh - and we finally got our tickets for the League Cup Final, which is next Sunday. 40,000 tickets have been sold to Aberdeen fans, so it should be a great occasion, although heading back up the road after the match could be a bit problematic.

I had another round of golf yesterday as well, so it's all looking good for my trip to Dubai in just over 2 weeks' time.

The media in the UK are very hot on the topic of sugar just now. There have been endless reports about sugar in certain foods, and there have even been calls for a sugar tax! Some of the media, however, manage to interpret the facts differently - or perhaps they just tell lies - or maybe they're stupid? Yes, Daily Mail - it's you I'm talking about. They published a ridiculous headline about real ale a few weeks ago which stated that a pint contained 9 spoonfuls of sugar. Utter rubbish of course and I wrote to CAMRA HQ about it and they, in turn, took it up with the Daily Mail, who eventually published an apology - in small print of course.

Here's the proof, in a quick ready recknoner:

Have a good week. Bye for now.

Forgot to say thank you to my 100,000th reader. Sorry, can't tell who you are, but there wasn't a prize anyway.

Birthday blog

Well, I had a very nice birthday, with lots of gifts and a lovely family meal last night. First gift to arrive was on Wednesday - presumably from the Down Under family, who had told us there was something on the way:

First gift on my actual birthday was my Jawbone Up (https://jawbone.com/up) bracelet from Jo. Need to build up some data before I bore you all with the various stats. I've already learned, however, how sedentary my job is. The bracelet is set to vibrate if it detects 15 minutes of inactivity. It's been buzzing away all day! I'm supposed to do 10,000 steps each day - I'm lucky to do much more than 1,000 unless I actually go to the gym/go cycling/play golf etc. Oh - and I got two Cadbury's Creme Eggs from Jo as well - and it's not even Easter yet.

When I arrived in Fraserburgh on Thursday morning, Francis Clark handed me a bottle of 18 year old Glenlivet from Michael and him. I suddenly realised that this was indeed a special birthday.

I got home later that afternoon to find another gift waiting for me:

Looks intriguing - but what was inside?:

In the evening, we picked up Ross and headed out to the Echt Tandoori to meet up with Carole, Luca and Gary. Ross handed me my gift:

There's a trend developing here. Are they trying to tell me something?

We were all very impressed with Echt Tandoori - nice place, good food and excellent service - they were all very friendly and went out of their way to make sure that Luca, in particular, was looked after. After the bill was paid, they even offered us all a complimentary drink. One of the staff took this photo of us all:

No starters - just poppadums and spices - and no desserts - well, just one:

Gary and Carole were the exceptions who gave me something a little healthier than alcohol (not that I'm complaining!) - some new cycling gear:

Ross drove Jo and I home and we settled down to watch the last of Series 2 of the Sopranos. Just 3 more series of loveable and deadly Tony and his crew to go now.

Today (Friday) it definitely feels like a semi-retirement. When our long-serving Girl Friday Jacquie arrived at the office, she brought with her a cake, which she'd baked for us - at 5 am this morning!:

(sorry, the sun got at that one a bit)

Tonight, it's the usual gathering at the pub - no doubt with a dram or two to finish the evening. Could be a slow start tomorrow, but I'm going to see Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup in the afternoon.

Incidentally, by the time you read this, you could have become the 100,000th reader of this blog!

Short weekend

The weekend past flew by - mostly because Gary and I went to Dingwall on Saturday to see Thistle play Ross County, which meant virtually a full day for me, by the time I drove to Inverurie in the morning and then dropped Gary off there in the evening. I arrived at Rae Circle just in time to see Carole sorting out all her horsey gear, and Luca finishing his supper, complete with new haircut:

It was a lovely day on Saturday - all that was missing was a decent football game. We met up with old footy pal, Rob Dunnachie, for a beer and a bite before the football. Spotting the sign outside the National Hotel, we thought we'd pop in there:

Regrettably, the Cask Ale sign was a relic of the past - no real ale here.

At the match, Gary took a photo of Rob and I:

No, I'm not showing off my ever-growing stomach - just the Jags shirt I got for Christmas.

Sunday was just as nice and I decided that it was, at long last, time for me make my comeback at golf again. I had felt for some time that I was ready but, for a combination of reasons, had delayed it until now. It felt good to be back and my knee was really good - no pain at all. Of course, it was also the first outing for my "puppets" as well:

Jas looks a little bewildered as to why I've got these 2 strange things on the end of my clubs.

February ending - Spring coming?

Yes, it's been lovely this week - makes you think of Spring - but it's still early enough in the year for a few weather shocks yet. What is really encouraging is the longer days. I came home early today and Jo had neighbour Isobel in for her weekly chat, so I decided to jump on the bike and head west a bit.

I didn't get very far when I thought about going to the driving range at Inchmarlo to hit a few balls. I hadn't played since Tenerife in October and although my knee has been feeling good, I haven't been tempted to try it out - until today. I hit a bucket of balls (50) with no reaction at all - an encouraging sign. It's less than 4 weeks until I go to Dubai for a week's golf, so I need to get some more practice in soon.

I have been frustrated, however, in my attempts to get 2 tickets for Ross and I to go and watch Aberdeen in the League Cup Final (Gary's working that day and can't join us). I'll try again tomorrow, however.

This Saturday, Gary and I are travelling through to Dingwall to see Thistle play Ross County in a crunch match which could go a long way to determining who has to go in to the play-offs for relegation - Ross can't make this one.

The rest of this week has been one of dealing with some redundancies we're unfortunately having to make. Throw in a Board meeting and a meeting with our Bank and it's not really been a barrel of laughs.

The really good news, however, came on Tuesday when Jo got the all-clear at hospital. I took her in for her mammogram and subsequent breast examination, but they were very happy that there was nothing sinister there and they didn't need to do a biopsy. The pain she has been getting and the thickening in the tissue has apparently been brought on by nerve irritation between the ribs.

That same day we heard the good news about Julie's pregnancy. That took me by surprise, I must admit. Grannie Dawn? Doesn't sound right.

I managed one of my irregular visits to Bannatyne's yesterday. Not having done anything other than eat and drink for several days, I was badly in need of it. I know cycling is good for my knee rehabilitation, but the exercise bike is no substitute for getting out on a real bike. It's not that I can't do it, but 30 minutes on an exercise bike is so tough mentally. There's no respite - you've just got to keep pedalling and pedalling, going nowhere fast. I did a bit of weights work as well, then a little splash in the pool, steam room and jacuzzi.

Oh - and Kelly FaceTimed us on Tuesday evening when we were in Inverurie. My, Miller is fairly coming on - he looks a big strong boy. It reminded and encouraged me to look again for suitable flights Down Under, but nothing doing yet, I'm afraid.

So I think that's my week so far.

Saturday afternoon in Pitlochry

The cafeteria at the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre was closed so we decided to head a few miles up the road to Blair Castle for coffee. The gates were open but there was a sign saying the castle was closed at this time of year. Naturally we assumed that this meant we could have access to the grounds only, but we were to discover that the restaurant and shop were both open as well, which was very convenient for us.

Tea/coffee and a nibble - I had mincemeat crumble - and very nice it was too. This was what the castle looked like when we arrived:

By the time we'd had our coffee, they were hustling us out of the building and the coaches had gone:

We discovered that they had only opened the castle gates and the restaurant and shop for the coach parties, and that we had just crept in under the radar. By the time we left, the main castle gates were closed again and we had to leave by the tradesmens' exit.

We just had time for Jo to pose on the bridge of the burn:

We didn't have time to do the walk up to Hercules Gardens:

We timed our departure nicely - just in time to drive down to Linn of Tummel to watch the idiots scheduled to bungee jump at 1:30 pm. We'd never seen this crazy act live before so it was interesting to watch. The set-up is very professional and there's been a substantial investment made in the platforms and walkways etc:

I hadn't charged my camera battery and I was starting to get warning messages, but I managed to get this distant shot of the first bungee jumper:

As we left Linn of Tummel, we spotted a sign with some lyrics from a well-known tune on it:

Time now for a beer or two, so we headed off to one of our favourite places - the Moulin Inn, where we managed to see the second half of the Italy - Scotland match. Then it was back to our hotel for an hour or so before heading out again, down the hill to the Auld Smiddy for a quick beer then to the Prince of India for a curry. We left it a bit late and had to scamper along to the theatre again to get in seconds before Neil Oliver took the stage:

On Sunday, we had planned to have a little walk around Dunkeld, but it was very wet so we parked the car quickly and had a quick look at the Dunkeld Ell, the National Trust property in the town square:

So that was our weekend over. We drove home via Perth and stopped at the Glendoick Garden Centre for coffee and a scone and were still home well before 2 pm - in plenty of time for Lucy's weekly FaceTime call later in the afternoon.

Saturday in Pitlochry

After breakfast we needed cash so went to look for a hole in the wall. It took ages to find a parking space and when we did, across the street was a barber's shop:

Would you like to have a shave or a haircut here?

None of us had ever been to nearby Killiecrankie, so we thought we'd give it a go. It's not far from Pitlochry and there's loads of walking/cycling tracks so we could have walked, I suppose:

We weren't sure about the weather forecast, so the car it was. Our first stop was the Visitor Centre, which should have been closed at this time of year, but it also houses the Highland Fling Bungee (http://www.bungeejumpscotland.co.uk/home) and a stag party had just arrived, so we got in on the back of them to learn all about the Battle of Killiecrankie etc.

We heard of the Soldier's Leap and there was a slab to commemorate it:

Walking down the trails from the Visitor Centre, we first of all came across the sign, then the Leap itself - 18 feet from a standing start from rock to rock, across the raging River Garry:

Colin and I would have done it, of course - but the girls couldn't have made it over, so we decided to walk on instead. It was a pretty mild day by now and, as we posed for a photo looking down the river towards the Pass of Killiecrankie, a big yellow thing appeared in the sky behind us, adding a slightly ethereal quality to the photo:

The riverside walks were lovely but we didn't know where and how far they went. We hoped they would loop us back to the Visitor Centre but, after a while of walking back south again, we thought it was wise to backtrack.

The road and rail run parallel to the path, with the latter on a large viaduct at this point:

and it still wasn't even lunchtime. More to follow.

Events of the last week

Been a busy time - both at work and socially - since my last post. First of all work - going through a tough time and we've announced some changes, which include some redundancies and the closure of the admin facilities at our Aberdeen office - we're centralizing things in Fraserburgh, although production in Aberdeen carries on as normal.

My contribution to the cuts is to go part-time from April onwards - 3 days per week. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in practice - I need to ensure that I don't end up doing the same work for 40% less salary. I have to ensure that my extra 2 days per week are kept for me time and that I don't get sucked in to doing work then.

We started this process last Tuesday in Fraserburgh, but I'm determined that all the detail and the bad news will be complete by the end of this week - it's never good to let these things rumble on.

On Wednesday, I worked from home as I had a Webinar to do. This also gave me the chance to go cycling with the boys again on Wednesday morning (details on my cycling blog).

Thursday was Fraserburgh again, but on Friday we headed off to Pitlochry in the afternoon for the Winter Words Festival that we've attended for the last few years. We - and Colin and Johanne Kilgour - were staying at the Pine Trees Hotel, which was basically a grand old house - spacious and quiet - perfect! Here's Jo and I on the first floor settee as we were about to head out for the evening:

It was pretty near the town centre, with the only drawback the hill you had to climb on the way back. Not quite Mount St. Banchory, but similar. On the way down the hill, it was pretty obvious that Spring was just around the corner:

As well as the snowdrops, there were crocuses too.

We walked down over the famous dam and fish ladder to the theatre to see Mike McCartney - Paul's younger brother. Colin and I chatted to him afterwards at the book signing:

We took a slightly different route back - over the railway line. Twa auld biddies followed us:

We had a nice bar supper at the Old Mill Inn, then a nightcap back at our hotel:

Fun day. More photos etc on my other Headbang and Ale Adventures blogs. More to follow.

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: