AVFF

Monday - at home, watching the wild and wet weather outside and thankful not to have to do anything much today - other than blog, of course.

It's been an interesting week. I went to Pittodrie last Tuesday night with Malcolm Grigor to see the Dons get pulled back to 2-2 against lowly St. Mirren, then, on Wednesday, exactly 11 months after my knee replacement operation, I made a tentative comeback at squash doubles - and it was OK.

My physio had told me it would take 11 months to fully recover from the operation, so I took her advice to the letter!

Prior to playing squash on Wednesday, my right eye had begun to feel a bit itchy and sore and when I awoke on Thursday morning, my eyelid remained closed and my eyeball felt like somebody was sticking needles in it. I went to the Chemist on the way to work and got some antibiotic eye drops. He told me I had bacterial conjunctivitis and had to take the eye drops every 2 hours for 48 hours then every 4 hours thereafter until finished - 5 days in all.

Today is the 5th day and it's not cleared up yet so I've arranged an appointment with a doctor this afternoon. I feel it's a little better, but the pack says it should clear up in 48 hours - if not, seek medical advice - so I am.

Of course, we've been away all weekend, so I couldn't have sought advice until now anyway. On Friday, Jo and I headed to the North of England for the Allen Valleys Folk Festival. We stopped at Lauder for lunch at the Flat Cat Gallery - very nice - then stopped again at Jedburgh to have a quick look round the Abbey, Castle and Jail. Our timing was bad, however - it chucked it down:

Friday night at the Folk Festival is recorded on my music blog (http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.co.uk/). On Saturday morning, we had planned to join the organised walk round the old lead mines in Allenheads, reputedly the highest village in England, but it was arranged for Sunday morning, so we just went there on our own, starting with the short Nature Trail:

We decided we wanted to explore round there a bit more, although the rain was getting heavier by now. We climbed a bit but it was getting pretty bleak and miserable so we decided to loop back:

Nice warming coffee in the Hemmel Cafe however before we headed back to our accommodation in Allendale to put dry clothes on. We were staying at Deneholme, an Adventure Training Centre, which had been recommended by the Folk Festival organisers. It was more Youth Hostel than hotel, but they were very friendly:

Deneholme was also a Folk Festival venue so were able to relax over a nice beer whilst listening to some music, after which we went for another walk to explore potential dinner venues:

The walk back along the river from Allen Mill was very pleasant and the sun had finally come out as we rewarded ourselves with a pint outside the Golden Lion, watching the Clog and Morris dancers in the square:

After a couple of concerts in the local church, we had supper in the Allendale Inn - the only place we could get in to eat - then headed back to Deneholme for a quiet evening with a book and a bottle of Rioja.

On Sunday we decided to head home via the Coastal route, with a few scheduled - and unscheduled - stops on the way. We were in Hadrian's Wall country, although it took a bit of effort to find a bit of the wall to take the obligatory photo. It took even more to get Jo to pose on the wall, as she is still getting over her disappointment at the result of the Referendum:

That stop was partly planned, but the next one was a complete surprise - Wallington, a National Trust property with huge grounds and a beautiful walled garden:

Across the road, back at the main property, there are 4 dragons' heads:

Inside the house is spectacular as well:

Jo with Grace Darling

 We did make it to the coast in the end. This is Bamburgh Castle:

A bit further up the coast is Holy Island, home of Lindisfarne Castle. There is a tidal causeway to cross first and you need to check the timings to find out when it's safe to cross. We were out of luck - only just. The tide was already receding but it would take another hour before it was safe and we didn't have that much time left, so I posed for the photo on the causeway instead:

Our last detour was in to Berwick Upon Tweed for a spot of supper and a photo on the ramparts:

Good fun. Now it's time for me to go see the Doctor.

September sunshine

Yes, it's been beautiful the last few days - better than some of the summer days - and we're almost in October.

I went cycling on Friday afternoon during a brief break from the first day of the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, but it felt as if I'd never been on a saddle before. I don't think I was quite over the holiday traumas yet. Likewise golf on Saturday at Duff House Royal in Banff - I could barely get the ball off the tee. Fortunately, although I started poorly yesterday in our annual Scotland v Rest of World Challenge match, I did recover a little and just did enough to help our team to a win.

All the sporting etc stories you can read about in my other blogs - if you're at all interested - but today, with the temperature above 20C again, Jo and I decided to go for a short walk. The initial idea was to walk to Woodend Barn at the other end of town and have a coffee in Buchanan's Bistro, but it was so nice, that, after sitting on the banks of the Dee, down by "Platties", for half an hour or more, just soaking in the sun and scenery, we decided to venture out a bit further and head for the tearoom at Crathes Castle.

This was our first stop by the river:

Looking west

Looking east

I set up the camera timer for a selfie of Jo and I, but this Vizsla walked right in front just as the camera clicked!

"Platties"

We walked round the little lochan and took the east trail up to the castle. There's loads of little wooden walkways there:

Waiting for Jo in the castle tearoom courtyard after lunch, when we were plagued with wasps

We went on a loop home that took us past Deeside Brewery and across Upper Lochton and out past Glen o' Dee, where the old sanatorium now looks a sorry sight:

We took our time, but we were out for a total of 5 hours and walked 11 miles in all. All the stats and the route are here - http://www.mapmywalk.com/workout/749358809

Back in the saddle

Yes, after a week's golf in Turkey, it's back to the old grind - although hopefully not for too much longer. Our return flight times meant a 1 am departure from our hotel, 2 flights, a 3 hour stopover in Istanbul then a drive home from Edinburgh - pretty tiring in itself, but worse when you miss a complete night's sleep.

Not that anyone out there is going to sympathise, of course. The holiday was great but the edge was taken off by a virus we think we picked up on the plane out to Istanbul. It was pretty uncomfortable and draining for me, but one or two of the others were a lot worse - a lot, lot worse, to the point of major embarrassment.

The last 2 days in Fraserburgh have been a bit of a strain - especially the journey. My eyes are stinging - hope to sleep well tonight and get back to normal.

My successor is still doing a 3-day week, mirroring me, but will start full-time in a couple of weeks. I'm already starting to experience occasional feelings of being surplus to requirements. Not my successor's fault - it's just me.

The days are already noticeably shorter - it's starting to get dark in the back room already - and it's only 6:30 pm. Autumn - and slow descent in to winter - has begun, it seems. The golf season goes in tandem with this - although I'm playing again this Saturday and Sunday. The latter is our traditional end of season bash, followed by lunch in the clubhouse. We always play a Scotland v Rest of the World match, which this weekend mirrors the Ryder Cup being played down the road in Gleneagles.

To close, here's a shot, looking in to the early morning sun, at the back of my villa in Turkey:

You can also have a video tour of my villa in Turkey at  http://youtu.be/S1Bdi4zqU6g

Turkish Delight

Greetings from Gloria Serenity Resort, Belek, Turkey. 5 of us spent a couple of nights at the weekend seeing round Istanbul before meeting up with the others down here on the Med. It's a fantastic hotel we're staying at and they upgraded us to individual villas - each with 2 bedrooms and all mod cons, including indoor and outdoor hot tubs - and everything is free - it's an all-inclusive resort.

Anyway, here's a few photos from my stay so far:

Istanbul - about to enter the Blue Mosque - Jas, Keith & brother Kenneth with me

Spices

Basilica Cistern

Down near the Bosphorus

Fishermen on the bridge over the Bosphorus bridge from Europe to Asia

On top of the tower overlooking the city and the Bosphorus

After dinner in Istanbul

A quiet corner of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

Relaxing at the rooftop pool at our hotel in Istanbul

Lights in the Grand Bazaar

Topkapi Palace

Harem means private place apparently - not just the way we think of it

Beach huts at Gloria Serenity on the Med

Waterway between the beach and our hotel

September week one

After Boat of Garten last weekend, it was a hard 3 days at work this week, most of it with my replacement, but also catching up on some backlog. I was done by Thursday evening and was grateful to chill out on Friday morning, with no drive to work to concern myself with.

Jo was swimming on Friday afternoon so I had planned to go a reasonably long cycle, but the rain was pretty persistent and I had to wait until nearly 5 pm before I set off, so it ended up as just a short 10-miler (details on my cycling blog - http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/).

On Saturday, Jo and I walked round Loch Muick (some details on http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/). Here's some more of the photos:

Today has been very lazy indeed. Lucy FaceTimed - as did Kelly yesterday - but that's about it. We did, however, book ourselves a week in Breckenridge, Colorado next June - the first week of our long(er) stay in USA.

Golf tomorrow for the Seniors - and possibly again on Wednesday afternoon in Fraserburgh if the weather's OK - but my next game after that will be in Turkey next week. We're having a couple of days in Istanbul first of all - that should be interesting.

Oh - and I picked up a tick at Boat of Garten last weekend. Somehow it got all the way up to my groin and was heading for the big artery there. I think I got most of it out OK, but there may have been a trace left and I've got a Band-Aid on it to try and draw the remains out.

September - a change is coming

Yes - back to work tomorrow after a very busy period of playing golf, watching football and drinking beer - 3 of my favourite recreations.

Tomorrow is also the day my eventual replacement at work - Group FD Designate - starts on a more regular basis with us. He's going to match my 3 day week for the next month before joining us full-time.

Not much else to say in this blog just now - it's all in my other blogs - but I didn't want a full week to go by without another blog posting.

Tuesday Medical Report

Saw my cardiologist yesterday for my annual "MoT". He seemed quite satisfied - they did an ECG and then he did an ultrasound scan on my heart and said it was working well. The only thing wrong with me is the large Atrium which is either cause or effect of the Atrial Fibrillation I have.

Of course, I'm now over 65, which tends to be the rough tipping age for considering a change from my daily baby aspirin to a stronger blood thinner such as Warfarin or one of the new series of similar drugs - Rivaroxaban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivaroxaban) was specifically mentioned by him.

I told him I had a slight aversion to Warfarin following what happened to my Mother, and there's no doubt that Warfarin takes a lot of care and regular monitoring of levels, whereas the new breeds of drugs don't. I had the same discussion on the phone today with my GP and both he and my cardiologist pointed out that, whilst Warfarin is a bit of a pain and not very pleasant, they do at least have an antidote to it, whereas the new drugs don't yet - you just have to wait for them to go out of your system naturally.

Something I need to think about before I see my GP about changing from aspirin.

In other news, I'm heading off to the Music Hall tonight to see Richard Thompson - try this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HApy-Xoix-g

Tomorrow, Fraserburgh in the morning then golf at Meldrum House in the afternoon. Thursday is a trip down to Bradford to see one of our large customers - Morrisons. After that it's golf Friday/Sunday/Monday, with a trip to Pittodrie sandwiched in to see Thistle playing Aberdeen.

Busy boy.

Home again

The journey back went well - but New York is too near! By the time you have your drinks, then your meal, start to watch a movie, then maybe drift off for a few minutes, before you know it they're waking you for breakfast!

The two large Tanquerays and two large Pinot Noirs were nice, but otherwise, it was a waste of Club Class flat beds. Incidentally, the movie I watched was pretty good - The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared. It's Swedish subtitles mostly, but the narrative is in English. It had a bit of the Forrest Gump trickery about it, showing him meeting famous characters from the past in the course of his life. Amusing.

So, we get home - Gary picked us up - and we spend the day unpacking and getting organised again before heading to bed about 9 pm. Ding! 2 am and I'm wide awake again. I lay there till about 4:30 and eventually got up, had a slow breakfast, showered and changed and headed to Fraserburgh.

It was a really busy day at Fraserburgh with lots of meetings and visitors, but I still managed to get away in time to get back to Banchory for golf at 5 pm. I was playing with Dick Taylor and I promised him I would meet up with the guys in the morning for the usual Thursday cycle at 9 am. Wouldn't you know it - I slept in. Hardly surprising, I suppose, after two nights without sleep.

I had to go to the dentist anyway to get the cap on my implant glued on - it had come off again - and then my car was in for its MoT, which it failed. Jo came in to meet me at work and we just went home and left my car in the garage - I pick it up tomorrow - and it's had the work done now to pass the test.

Friday was golf at St. Andrews - and it was lovely. Brother-in-law Brian met us there - he was staying a couple of nights with us as we had golf organised at Banchory on Saturday morning. Mary came up too - but on the train.

After golf on Saturday, Jo and Mary joined us at the club for lunch and we then walked back home, stopping briefly at the War Memorial for a photo:

In the evening we all went to the Derbar for a curry - and very nice it was too. Mary and Brian drove home after church today, but not without a typical Mary mishap. She left her jacket and her keys here. We called and texted them and eventually they got the message when they reached Stonehaven, so they had to come back and collect them. Brian didn't look best pleased.

Anyway, that's all my blogs and photos etc all back up to date again.

Tomorrow, it's my annual (personal) "MoT" with my cardiologist, but I'm hoping to get some golf at Aboyne afterwards.

Last blog of the holiday

We arrived in our hotel at Central Park not long before midnight on Saturday after an "interesting" taxi drive from JFK. Sunday morning was a slow start - especially for Jo, who didn't make it down for breakfast. Once she did get up, we grabbed coffees to go and crossed the road to Central Park to soak up the atmosphere:

Don't we look happy? Call it tired.

We had arranged to meet niece Meghan, now resident in Brooklyn, for brunch, so I asked for a recommendation from the concierge and he suggested http://www.sarabethsrestaurants.com/central-park-south/. Of course, it was peak time around noon on Sunday so we had to wait in line for half an hour, but it was worth it.

We felt it necessary to walk off some of the calories so we set off to do a full lap of Central Park - up the west side and down the east. We now know Central Park is 3 miles long so we reckon we probably walked 6.5 - 7 miles in all. We enjoyed it but not sure about Meghan - she's not a great one for exercise and we discovered afterwards that the whole park is smoke free, so she must have been gasping by the time we eventually left the park and headed for some cool beers!

Our first attempt at finding a suitable brewpub was (partially) unsuccessful but Meghan soon redeemed her direction finding ability by taking us to The Jeffrey,where we were delighted to find an inner city beer garden - and it was Happy Hour! It's a very New York setting with the fire escapes etc - think Ghostbusters etc:

In the evening, Jo and I decided to head for another brewpub, but, again, the information on the web was out of date and it was no longer there, so we trawled some more and then walked some more and ended up in the very place Jo,  Kelly and I were in back in 2004 - the Heartland. Strangely, they were stopping serving food at 9pm - it felt like we were back in Banchory again! We managed to grab something before they closed and then we walked just round the corner to the huge crowds and neon lights of Times Square where everything was open 24/7 - what a bizarre difference in just a few yards.

We had some free time on Monday morning and early afternoon and we headed initially back to Central Park and Strawberry Fields where the Imagine memorial is. After that we took the chance of taking the subway downtown to the shore at Battery Park and the site of the former World Trade Center, where we had been just weeks before 9/11 - and then again in 2004 when it was just a huge hole in the ground. Another tower has been erected but there's still some fairly substantial building work going round there before the site is finished.

The shore round Battery Park is lovely and we stopped and had a bite of lunch overlooking the water and the Statue of Liberty over on Ellis Island:

I'm finishing this off at Heathrow and should close with the traditional end of holiday family photo:

Coming to the end

We did actually finally see some rain on Wednesday but it was hardly anything. In fact, it was very nice when the temperature lowered a bit from the highs we experienced the last few weeks.

Cade was still being put through his paces at football camp on Wednesday and Scott took care of him all day. I took the opportunity of the cooler weather to go for a short bike ride up to see the Cathedral Hills trails - check my Cycling blog (http://bvetscycling.blogspot.com/) for a photo.

I'm losing count of the days, but Lucy, Jo, Braeden and I this last few days have been to Fort Vannoy Farm, done the Harry and David's factory tour, had a slightly boozy lunch at BricktownE brewpub in Medford and been on a trail hike to Rainie Falls. Great fun. Many of the photos have appeared on Facebook and there are a few on my Hill-walking (http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/) blog as well, but here's a few more - firstly Fort Vannoy:

Zip slide

Then yesterday on our trip down the Rogue Valley:

Watch this short video of them coming down:

We stopped off for refreshments at nearby Galice before heading back to Grants Pass:

Finally, a photo of the weird site that greets you as you enter Grants Pass from the North/West:

The Caveman is the symbol of GP - why?