Midweek week 3

So I did eventually get out for a cycle yesterday (Tuesday) after all - late afternoon, after a day in the city shopping and lunching.

Today (Wednesday) is Kelly's day off and we decided to drive to the Barossa for lunch and some wineries, but first of all, we had to do the shopping at Westfield, where they had a nice play area for Miller - and his Mum:

Then - trauma of all traumas - Miller went for his first haircut:

Grocery shopping then off to the Barossa for lunch at the Artisan winery, a co-operative of 7 small vineyards, with an adjacent restaurant, whose chef featured recently on MasterChef. Miller had a mini-meltdown:

Kelly took him to play with the cricket equipment:

Lunch was lovely and then we were off to do another couple of tastings at nearby wineries. First of all was Bethany, then it was on to Pindarie:

There's some weather around just now so we're going through a slightly cooler spell - like a good summer's day in Scotland - mid 20's - but it's going to get hotter again over the next couple of days.

Weekend in Robe

It's now Tuesday morning in Adelaide. We've been up for a few hours now and I had thought I might get out for a cycle this morning, but, would you believe it, it's raining! In fact, we've had a fairly damp weekend down on the Limestone Coast. It rained virtually all day Friday but it didn't really matter as we were in the car for over 4 hours anyway.

We got to our cottage in Robe to find the heaters on in preparation for our arrival - in the middle of summer! According to the local press it was the coolest January day for 9 years - it only reached 20 C in Adelaide. Anyway, we quickly settled in:

Dinner was at the local Caledonian pub washed down with pints of Little Creatures Pale Ale.

By Saturday morning the clouds were gone and, after brunch at a local cafe we took a stroll down to the beautiful beach:

Walking on to the marina, Lorene, David, Jo and I had a coffee there whilst Kelly and Chris took Miller back for his - and Kelly's - lunchtime snooze. Lorene, Jo and I strolled along the walkway round the harbour to the Yacht Club:

From there, it was just a short hop to the end of the breakwater:

Later on, Jo and I took Miller down to the small beach near our cottage, where Miller explored the little caves:

On Sunday, our plan was to drive to the Coonawara wine region, about an hour or so away, but first there was breakfast/brunch at another local cafe. The sun was a bit reticent to make an appearance and it was cloudy most of the day until early evening - pity we couldn't get the iconic Coonawara photo in sunshine:

We'd attended a Wynn's masterclass at the Wine Gang's Xmas Fair in Edinburgh just a few weeks prior so a visit to the vineyard was essential. The samples were great and we bought some wine - and chocolate.

When we got back to Robe, the evening sun came out and we went for another stroll round the harbour - this time taking a wider circle round a lovely walkway, exploring other beaches and caves:

The setting sun provided some nice views over the rocks and sea:

Soon we arrived at the high viewpoint:

Chris and I stopped at the Caledonian on the way back for a couple of pints and to watch a bit of the tennis final.

Monday morning came and we were heading back to Adelaide, but, first there was breakfast at yet another local cafe:

We took a break at Meningie where Jo demonstrated her skills on the fitness machines:

It was 32 C when we arrived back in Semaphore.

Eve of another holiday

It's Thursday evening and we're still eating the leftovers from Australia Day - they have to be finished by tomorrow morning as we're off to Robe for the weekend. Talking of food - what a lovely lunch at Penfolds yesterday. Not cheap but worth it - none of us could face eating any more that evening.

Jo and I had caught the train in to Bowden and had something to drink in the Loose Caboose cafe whilst we waited for Kelly to pick us up:

We picked up Miller at his nursery on the way home and I, for one, was in bed before him for a change, trying to make up for lost sleep the night before.

After a good sleep we were up bright and early on Thursday morning. Chris had offered us the use of his car as we fancied taking a walk in the hills on the other side of Adelaide, so we dropped him off in the city and then drove out to Morialta Gorge where there are a variety of trails. Jo didn't have her walking shoes with her - only her thongs (flip-flops to the rest of the world), so we selected a middle of the road relatively light hike that took in two of the falls - or so we thought. We made a wrong turning at one point and ended up doing the longer all 3 falls hike. It's the middle of summer, however, and they were all dry, but it was a nice walk. Here's a few photos:

No, not an animal, but we thought this tree/plant was a bit sloth-like

Not forgetting some of those back home, the night before we left we had supper with Ross and Lizzie. For those that haven't yet seen his new car yet, here it is on the right outside the back of his flat:

 Across the other side of the pond, Braeden has taken up wrestling. Scott and Lucy sent us some snaps:

That's him on the right of course

Post Australia Day

It's Wednesday morning here in Semaphore - the day after the Australia Day celebrations. Chris is at work, Miller is in nursery and Kelly has gone to get her hair done. Jo and I will be catching the train in to town and Kelly will meet us and take us to Penfolds Magill Estate for lunch. After yesterday, I should probably be having an alcohol free day today but we can't go to Penfolds and not drink some of their delicious wine. Maybe tomorrow then?

Sunday's trip to the hills and Lobethal Bierhaus and Maximillians winery was lovely. It was Crush Festival weekend and they had a kids' playpen at the winery:

Monday was quiet - I went for a short cycle and then we did the shopping for Australia Day - lots of protein.

Tuesday itself was busy. Kelly and Chris got up early and drove to the hills for a walk up Mount Lofty. I could have joined them but opted instead for another short cycle. We were all back well before 10 am, in good time to prepare for the arrival of our guests - Chris' Mum, Dad, brother Matt, former sister-in-law Amanda and friends Simon and Nicole - with children.

Chris presented Kelly with a framed certificate of her Australian naturalisation certificate:

The group gathering:

Chris and Kelly had bought me a ticket to go and see the Twenty Twenty international between Australia and India at the Adelaide Oval so Matt, David, Chris and I jumped on the train in to Adelaide in the evening, where we met up with Chris' pal Anthony. Great stadium and a lovely evening but there was to be no happy ending for the home team as India won fairly comfortably in the end.

It was all happening at the match - as well as the usual pyrotechnics when somebody gets a six, there were fireworks, a 21-gun salute and a flypast adjacent to the ground - all for Australia Day.

End of first week

I've been a bit nervous about using my laptop recently. After my Facebook account was apparently hacked last weekend, there has been further suspicious activity since then - like losing control of the mouse - a scary situation. My virus guard spotted a multitude of errors on my Outlook files and tried to clean it up but, as a result, Outlook doesn't work at all for me now - I'll have to re-load it when I get home. All I can use for e-mail, diary, contacts etc just now is Windows Live - and my phone of course.

Therefore, I'll keep this short.

Been out cycling twice and Jo and I now have our Metro cards which make travel on the buses and trains a lot easier.

Miller asked Chris for a "Superman" the other day:

Jo and I were back at the Wheaty on Friday to return their tab card and we got caught in a brief storm on the way back to the station - fortunately we were under cover as the heavens opened, and, almost before we knew it, it was all over and the sun was out again.

Yesterday (Saturday), Chris, Jo and I took the train in to town and went for a spot of lunch and a couple of beers. Kelly picked us up and took us to Chris' friend Simon's 40th birthday party, held in the Bombay Bicycle Club:

This morning (Sunday) Miller's going for a short ride on the little train that runs along the prom here, after which we're heading to the hills again for lunch at one of our favourite brewpubs, Lobethal Bierhaus, followed by some wineries - it's the Crush Festival weekend here.

Week 1 midweek

I did get my credit card back on Monday - Chris popped in past the Wheaty on his way home to retrieve it - an expensive detour for him - it cost him A$80 to settle the bill I had left behind! I've still to return their tab card, but there's no great rush now.

Jo was housebound with Miller on Monday so I had to go to do the shopping. I strolled down to the prom - just 200 yards or so from Kelly's - and took this photo from the end of her street:

Taking a slight detour, I walked to the end of the pier, where there were 3 large pelicans perched in various positions:

Miller was OK to go back to nursery on Tuesday morning so Jo and I decided we needed to get out and about and get some exercise, now that we were over the worst of the jetlag, so we decided to take the beach walk south to Grange and have brunch at the Jetty Cafe there. We hadn't walked for a while and we were pretty tired when we got back to Kelly's not long after 3 pm, having covered almost 20 kms. The toughest part was through some of the softer sand trails. Jo was pretty red by the time we got to Grange:

- and we still had the return leg to do!

Kelly was off work today (Wednesday) so she suggested we take a drive up in to the Adelaide Hills and have lunch in the pretty little town of Stirling, not realising that today was Day 2 of the Tour Down Under and it was passing right through Stirling - in fact 5 times in all on a mountain loop. It was pretty hectic there but we eventually made it to Patch Kitchen & Garden in good time for lunch.

They keep hens there and Miller was enchanted with them - and the playhouse:

We were seated behind the cafe but each time the peloton passed by, I stepped out front to have a look and take some photos:

There's a couple of short videos here - https://youtu.be/EMyGvT_oieQ & https://youtu.be/EMyGvT_oieQ

After lunch, Kelly drove us over to nearby Mount Barker and the Prancing Pony brewery. We had been there a year ago on the very day they opened, but this time they were much more organised - nice place. Unfortunately, Miller had fallen asleep on the short journey in the car and did not appreciate the rude awakening. He eventually settled down on the concrete floor and fell fast asleep again!:

Travel Down Under

You may be receiving this by e-mail, but it's always best viewed directly on the blog at http://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/.

It's Monday morning in Adelaide and there's been a slight change of plan - Kelly and Chris are off to work and, ordinarily, Miller would be at nursery by now, but he woke up this morning with a bleeding nose and it wouldn't stop so we knew he couldn't really go to nursery like that so Jo and I are looking after him today - well Jo is primarily. Here's the poor little boy:

Actually, he's not so little any more - I know, I carried him for a bit yesterday and he weighs a ton(ne) - 200 yards and my back was done. He's a proper little boy now - no longer the toddler we remember from last year. He and I left the house yesterday and I opened up the front gate out on to the pavement and he was off, giggling away. "Come back Miller!" only served to make him go faster and laugh louder. It was all I could do to run after him and catch him. Lesson number one learned.

Anyway, let's go back and do this in chronological order. My last post was just over a week ago so there's a bit to catch up on. The weather last week wasn't too bad - coldish but at least it was mostly dry. I was able to get out for a cycle with the Freewheelers on Monday - through some more floods, but generally conditions were OK. Before that, I had been back to see the Doctor concerning my medication. We agreed to continue on the Rivaroxaban for now, particularly as I would be away for 6 weeks. If I have problems with dizziness again, he told me just to revert to aspirin until I get home and then we can review the situation once more.

On Tuesday, I awoke not feeling too bright and I had to cancel going over to Inverurie with Jo - and also the CAMRA committee meeting that night. I felt a bit better on Wednesday but took things easy anyway, and Thursday was a repeat of that, plus sorting the house out for our absence and doing some final packing.

We got picked up on Friday morning in a chauffeur driven Merc and were driven down to Glasgow airport for our Emirates flight to Dubai. The first leg went fine and we arrived in plenty of time to make our connection for the longer second leg to Adelaide - after a bit of duty-free shopping for Chris and his brother Matt (16 yo Balvenie).

Taking off at 2 am local time on a long flight makes for a strange experience. With a 13 hour flight, 3 meals are served, the first of which is breakfast. Our body clocks were still in Friday evening, not Saturday morning, but I still couldn't bring myself to ask for a gin and tonic with breakfast!

Intermittent TV watching and dozing, then finally, we were served lunch a couple of hours before landing in Adelaide. I think we both missed the interim snack between breakfast and lunch.

Over two flights and more than 20 hours in the air, I only watched one film - Room - and that was pretty downbeat. There weren't any other films on I really wanted to watch, so I ended up just watching a few episodes of Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin-off - as did Jo.

Again there was a chauffeur waiting for us at Adelaide airport to drive us out to Semaphore and we met up with Kelly and Chris before 10 pm on Saturday evening local time.

We both slept fitfully and we were up and about before dawn with the rest of the house. After breakfast, we went for a stroll along the promenade, with a couple of stops at the playparks:

Too quick Granda - you never said cheese

That's better!

Mummy and Grannie had been swinging him along the prom - "again" he cried

Then it was off to brunch at a local cafe before heading home for a little nap. In the afternoon, Kelly and Miller went to the store for groceries but they dropped Chris, Jo and I off at one of Adelaide's favourite watering holes - the Wheatsheaf, aka the Wheaty. I had no Aussie dollars so I left my credit card behind the bar and ran a tab.

When Kelly and Miller returned to pick us up and take us home, we dashed off to the car, completely forgetting about my credit card. I think it was some time during the night when I woke up and realised it. I haven't done that before - shows how tired we were. Hopefully, I'll get my card back some time this evening.

Some other photos of yesterday:

Miller's bedroom

Miller's bedroom from another angle - note the step up in bed size

Inside Miller's playhouse in the back garden

Back garden

No rain?

We've had 3 virtually dry days in a row - that's a huge relief after the constant rainfall earlier in the week. We even managed an outing for our Freewheelers cycling group on Friday morning (check out http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/). I had a plan B in case we were rained off again - Keith Gray and I were going to go to Kippie for a swim and sauna. In the end, Keith didn't fancy the cycle but still wanted to go to Kippie, so I rushed in after the morning cycle, showered, bolted down some lunch and then headed off to Kippie. From sitting around doing nothing most of the week, all of a sudden it was all go.

We got some photos from Cade and Scott of Lucy's citizenship ceremony in Portland last week:

It's virtually a whole generation that Lucy's been in America, so it was hardly a surprise - in fact why did it take her so long? - but we couldn't help feeling a moment of sadness.

This family blog has now passed 400,000 viewings since inception almost 9 years ago. Although numbers have dropped a bit from their peak of a couple of years ago when it was viewed 200,000 times that year (last year was half this), there still seem to be about 300 people who read each post.

My Chronicles blog, which is now finished of course, attracted about 150 per posting and the other relatively active ones - football, cycling, music and beer - are each viewed about 100 times each posting. The golf and hill-walking ones are mostly summer seasonal and the squash and pet hates are only spasmodic ones now.

We're starting to prepare for packing now - I plan to travel as light as possible. It's dark in the very early hours of Monday morning in Adelaide as I write this and it's still 24 C there. The forecast for our arrival there this weekend is around the 30 C mark in daylight hours, which is thankfully a bit cooler than they're going to have it for the next couple of days, when it's again approaching the frankly unbearable 40 C level. Bit of a change from our low single digit temperatures in Banchory.

Will it ever stop?

What a week it's been - rain, rain and more rain. We thanked our lucky stars last month that we avoided all the bad weather and floods they had in Cumbria and the south of Scotland, but it seems like it's our turn now. Ever since Storm Frankie arrived last Wednesday, we've only had brief moments of respite, weather-wise. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week were definite indoors days - a pity because we had Luca here on 2 of those days and the only time he was out of the house was when Jo took him (in the car) down to Tesco.

Suffering badly from cabin fever, I donned my cycling gear first thing on Tuesday morning, ready and waiting for a break in the rain - but it never came. I repeated it on Wednesday and this time I was lucky - it was dry first thing so off I went as soon as there was enough daylight to make it safe.

I headed along the Deeside Way but it was blocked off by piles of debris halfway between the east end of Banchory and Milton of Crathes, so I turned round and went up through the Crathes Castle estate, where I took this photo using the timer on my camera - a lot easier than trying to take a selfie with my phone:

The back roads north of Crathes were fine and I managed to get 20 kms in.

One problem I've been having recently when out cycling has been numb thumbs - they always seem to get frozen and damp and I lose all feeling in them, no matter which combinations of gloves I wear. I decided to finally bite the bullet and go to our local outdoors shop and buy a pair of Sealskinz (http://www.sealskinz.com/UK/) gloves. Ridiculous price - and I also bought socks too - let's hope they both work.

We sampled my home brew last night and it was - I think the word is palatable - so I bottled it this morning - check this out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wt86qXq-D0. Now to sterilise everything ready to start the next batch when we return from Oz.

We're busy watching all the series that have built up on our Sky box to leave enough room on the disk for recording whilst we're away. Fargo is finished and we've got just 4 episodes of Homeland to watch. Some of the others I've now moved off the box and put on our network drive, so we can access them anywhere anytime.

I've also been doing some more digitising of my old vinyl albums. I've selected about 20 or so still to be done - no rush though.

As I write this blog posting, we're watching Wanted Down Under, which is from Adelaide today. Lots of places we know - McLaren Vale, Glenelg, Hahndorf etc - a nice reminder.