Luca arrives!

(As ever, if you're receiving this by email, it's always best viewed directly on my personal/diary blog at https://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

Had a very interesting walk round Footdee ("Fittie") and Old Aberdeen on Friday. If you want to see some of the sights, check out the walking blog - https://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/

Jo and I went out to the Derbar on Saturday night with Colin and Johanne - the second night in a row I'd had a curry. No more calories required for a while.

On Sunday night, Gary brought Luca over for a couple of school in-service days. They came straight from Luca's judo class and he proudly showed off his latest certificate and belt:

Today (Monday), Jo was out for an extended lunch so Luca and I jumped on our bikes and cycled up to Inchmarlo driving range, where Luca had some success hitting balls, but a few failures as well - https://youtu.be/VipENtmsxFo

We had our lunch there too. Luca opted for the hot chocolate with marshmallows and a flake - but, thankfully, he declined the cream:

It started to spit as we cycled back along the old Deeside railway line, so we had to wash the bikes when we got back home:

This Thursday, I've got the annual Cardio Clinic in Banchory, and today I finally received the appointment I'd been waiting for - Electrocardiograph at Aboyne on 1st December.

Hello again

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post on this blog, but I was away for a week, golfing in Tenerife, and I've spent the early part of this week recovering from that trip! It's all getting a bit much for me nowadays. My body is struglling to cope with the golf - I even took a day off this year and that helped, but it's the accumulation of sun, golf, drink, eating late at night, sleeping in a strange bed etc. We got back on Saturday night and I spent Sunday and Monday doing very little.

My golf clubs never made it back with me - I had to make a claim at Edinburgh airport and that meant we were last out of there on Saturday night. It was Tuesday before my clubs were delivered.

I need to think long and hard before I commit myself to another golf holiday like this. I knew 6 consecutive days' golf would be too much, but even 5 turned out to be a stretch. I could cope, I think, with a long weekend, but not much more than that. Flights to the winter sun tend to be on a weekly, rather than daily basis, however. I'll give it some space before making a decision on future golf holidays. That's the clubs packed away for the winter now.

I'll stop there for now as I'm going to catch the bus in to Aberdeen soon - we're taking a walk round Old Aberdeen this afternoon. To close, a couple of photos from the golf holiday, plus one Kelly sent us of her "snuggle bunnies":

The balcony above the pool is where we had breakfast every morning

Cycling on the day off golf

Tuesday at home

(As ever, if you're receiving this by e-mail, it's better to view this directly on the blog - https://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

It's unusual for Jo and I to be at home on Tuesday afternoon/evening, but it's the tattie holidays here and Luca is all organised for these two weeks. He's back at school next week, but I'm away in Tenerife from Saturday, so I won't see him until the following week, but Jo will.

Jo's off to Elderslie/Houston on Friday, returning Monday. I'll take her in to Aberdeen to catch her train, after which I'm planning to do a bit of cycling and hiking in Glen Esk - that is, assuming I get my bike back in time - it's in for service on Thursday. I was planning to pop in to my old work while my bike was being serviced, but I've been told that they have a lot of visitors then and I should come back another time. Do you think they don't want to see me again?

After my 2 mammoth previous blogs on our UK Road Trip, I'll keep this one short. In brief, I've played a couple of games of golf and been on a few short cycles in the last week, and, on Saturday night, we went with the Kilgours and the Masons to the golf club for a meal - the first time we've been there since the new caterers took over at the start of the season. It was good, but a lot quieter than I expected - but we had a nice time anyway, aided by a few bottles of wine.

After phoning Dawn last night, I then spoke to Barry and Helen, who had just returned from a weekend in Blackpool. They spent an afternoon in Liverpool, doing similar things to what Jo and I did exactly 2 weeks previously. Barry even got his photo taken in exactly the same position as I did, beside the Beatles statues (as appeared on my Facebook page).

UK Road Trip/Nostalgia Tour (2)

(As ever, if you're receiving this by e-mail, it's better to view this directly on the blog - https://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

On Thursday morning, we left most of our luggage - and our car - behind at our hotel (we were returning there on Saturday) and caught the train and tube in to central London. It was over 2 miles from our hotel to the train station but we found a nice walkway through the Lea Valley Country Park where many of the aquatic events were held at the London 2012 Olympics:

Our hotel was a novel experience - The Hub by Premier Inn has rooms that are high tech, but, size-wise are little more than a pod. Every square inch is a prisoner. It all seems to work OK, but the downside for whichever of of you is sleeping on the inside is clambering into and out of bed - over your partner.

We walked out in the evening past Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The latter two are undergoing major repair/refurbishment and are shrouded in scaffolding and cladding. Further along the Embankment, we came across a statue of Rabbie Burns - I had no idea there was one here - nor why.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a terrific, classic West End theatre and 42nd Street, with its vast cast who tap-danced the whole evening away, was a wonderful spectacle.

On Friday morning we hot-footed it over to the V & A to see the hugely popular Pink Floyd exhibition which was in its last days there. Glad we made it just in time:

We met up with our neighbours, Anne and Leslie Mason, in the evening and headed to Shepherd Market for pre-dinner drinks. The place was buzzing with office workers having a few drinks to start off their weekend. The Intercontinental Hotel was just a short stroll away - we had booked dinner at Theo Randall's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Randall) restaurant. It was a gourmet 5 course meal that took over 3 hours. Very expensive, but a terrific meal:

On Saturday, it was the Festival of Wine. Jo and I had had a heavy week already and we had to pace ourselves a little wandering round the tables in the main hall, sampling the wines, carefully spitting and tipping to ensure we weren't taking on too much alcohol too soon. The Masterclasses brought some relief, especially as they gave us a chance to sit down for a while. The Noval Port one was really good.

After the festival we went for a spot of dinner before saying our farewells to Anne and Leslie and their friends and then heading for the tube and train back to Cheshunt.

The plan on Sunday was to drive to Chester, but I noted that the route took us fairly close to Corby, where I spent some of my early years - from 1952 to 1959 - so we decided to take the diversion and check out what it was like now. Barry had been there a few years ago and had warned me it wasn't very pretty now - and he was right. I recall when we moved in to Landseer Court our house was No.1 and there were just open fields on one side of us - we were the end of the short cul-de-sac. Some time later they decided to build more houses in the open fields and, as a result, we were no longer at the end, but were now in the middle of a much longer street, and they had to re-number us No. 19:

We went to hunt for the primary school I attended - Hazel Leys - with its adjacent Secondary Modern (as they called them then). All we could find was a Catholic primary school and this:

It doesn't look anywhere big enough to be the Academy it claims to be, and it's way too modern to have been there back in the 50's. We spotted another building across the road which did look old enough, but there was no school sign there.

Eventually, we gave up and headed for Chester to walk the City Walls and check out yet another Cathedral. Some nice pubs there, particularly along the canal bank, where we dined at Artichoke and drank afterwards at the Old Harkers Arms.

The weather forecasters had been warning us about the approaching former hurricane, now storm Ophelia, but it seems only the south of Ireland got the full brunt of it. We did get spooky-looking skies however - dark, brooding and yellow and red at times. Weird.

We took another slight detour on the way back to Banchory and went to see Ross in Edinburgh:

Our time was limited and after a coffee and a bite to eat, we headed off for the new Queensferry Crossing, with quick pit stops at St Cuthbert's Primary, which Lucy and Gary attended:

Slightly further west, we popped in to see our old house at 7 Cherry Tree Loan:

Like Caldecot Way, Cherry Tree Loan was absolutely packed with cars.

Our first time across the new bridge over the Forth, but the angle from the car doesn't really show the full majesty of it:

It got pretty misty as we headed north east and the drive over Cairn o' Mount was particularly tricky - we were in first gear the whole way up. Further frustration when we got to Strachan - the road from there to Banchory was closed, so we had to detour past the Feughside Inn and over to Potarch and back. Boy, was I glad to finally get to Arbor Court.

Here's our route for the week:

UK Road Trip/Nostalgia Tour

(As ever, if you're receiving this by e-mail, it's better to view this directly on the blog - https://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

We're back in Banchory after one of the most hectic - and interesting - breaks we've had. It was all go - as Jo said, we were like Japanese tourists, hitting town after town - quick, park the car, then walk, walk, walk, photo, photo, photo, beer, beer, beer - then move on. 7 separate hotels in 9 days and over 100,000 steps to boot.

Our movements and the main sights we saw are pretty well recorded on Facebook, but this was also a bit of a nostalgia tour, revisiting former homes etc. Our first pit stop was Liverpool where we managed to cram in Albert Dock, both cathedrals and a trip to see where Jo's mother's paternal grandmother stayed:

We also spotted my Dad's and my - middle name on a street sign in Liverpool:

We stayed in Liverpool for a few hours on Monday morning as well and went round the Beatles Story, after which we headed south to Winchester - a journey that took a bit longer than planned due to roadworks on the motorway.

We still managed to see round the town and the famous cathedral before darkness fell. It was an unexpected treat to find a Rick Stein restaurant in the High St and we had a lovely meal there. We discovered later that Chris had stayed in Winchester when he worked in Southampton some years before meeting Kelly.

As in Liverpool, we managed to have an extra couple of hours in Winchester on Tuesday morning and we spent most of that time in the Great Hall, where the mythical Round Table hangs.

Tuesday night's bed was the Dover Marina Hotel and Spa but Sat Nav initially directed us back on to the motorways towards London and down from there. We didn't fancy that - in fact, we wanted to drive along the south coast and pay our respects to Eastbourne, which was a favourite holiday spot for my Mum and Dad, and, after a bit of re-programming, we achieved our aim.

After they passed, Dawn, Barry and I spoke about dedicating a memorial bench to our parents along the seafront in Eastbourne. I remember contacting the council and found out all about it, but, in the end, we decided not to do it - mostly because we all felt we would never even see the bench. Goes to show you never can tell.

Dover appears to be a fairly depressed area now, despite all the lorries that still use the ferries to cross the channel, but our hotel was fine. Its current name has only been in existence for a short while, but we knew it as the White Cliffs Hotel - a name now used by another hotel. Apart from a nice meal we had at an adjacent brewpub/restaurant, we didn't really explore the town at all, although we did do a brief drive around the surrounding countryside on Wednesday morning before our relatively short drive north to Broxbourne, our home from 1974 to 1979.

We decided to re-orientate ourselves with the area by driving around. Our first stop was lunch at the Crown (not the George as we've been calling it since!), which was a popular Sunday lunchtime haunt for us back in the 70's, mostly because it had a large beer garden where kids could roam safely. Naturally, it's changed a little since then - both internally and externally, where decking and seating now take up most of the available free space. Compare and contrast 40 years apart:

The Cheshunt Marriott Hotel is technically in Turnford, which is south of Wormley, which is south of Broxbourne - all of them a seamless string of housing developments. It was close enough, however, for us, after checking in, to walk back to see our old home at 44 Caldecot Way and the school that Lucy first went to. That school has now been renamed as Wormley C of E Primary:

Our old house - and virtually all the similar neighbouring houses - has changed a bit. Compare and contrast what it looked like in 1977 and what it looks like now:

The front door and garage are now linked and the long glass windows have been replaced by smaller ones - no doubt assisted by environmental grants. The whole cul-de-sac was much busier - full of cars:

We took a walk along the New River towards the town centre:

Jo and I then had dinner in another favourite old haunt - the Bull.

More to follow

Saturday - eve of road trip

It's Saturday morning and Jo and I have just been to the Doctor's to join the myriad of other grey hairs to get our annual flu jabs. They say that Australia has had a very bad winter with flu and apparently we here in the UK monitor the strains that are found in the southern hemisphere and these are built in to the vaccinations.

Tomorrow morning, Jo and I start our UK road trip. Tomorrow it's Liverpool, then Winchester on Monday, Dover on Tuesday, followed by nights in Broxbourne, London (2), Broxbourne again and then Chester on the way home. We enjoyed our USA road trip this year - apart from the bug we picked up - and hopefully this one will go well too. It's a blink and you'll miss it trip, so we have to steel ourselves to get as much out of the brief visits as we can.

When we're in London, we're going to see the musical 42nd Street on Thursday night, then the Pink Floyd exhibition on Friday morning, after which we meet up with Anne and Leslie Mason for dinner at Theo Randall at the Intercontinental. Who he, you ask? Well, I'd never heard of him either but Anne is a bit of a gourmet diner and her brother Tom, a wine expert, travels the world and knows all the best restaurants and chefs and no doubt she took this recommendation from him.

Tom is the main reason we're going to London - it's his first year at running his own wine fair, but he was formerly a member of the Wine Gang and we used to go their Edinburgh fairs every year, but he's broken away from them and is doing his own thing now. He's already held one event in Glasgow and this is his second fair - https://festival-of-wine.com/london-wine-festival/

I've now booked just about everything for our Australian trip - including the overnight stays in our Motorhome on our drive from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Great Ocean Road. We're staying at 3 different Big 4 holiday parks - 2 nights each at Apollo Bay, Port Fairy and Robe. We've got our visas approved as well - just 4 months to wait now.

Kelly went to look at the accommodation we've booked in Adelaide and sent a couple of photos from different angles:

Kelly also sent us a cute photo of the boys taking their milk:

The USA big flights are organised as is the week on Maui, but we've still to book domestic flights - Denver-Medford and Medford-Maui returns. I have however booked us in to an airport hotel in Denver so we can rest then fly to Oregon the morning after our international flight.

I'm wearing my Grants Pass Cavemen Football t-shirt today. I'm supposed to wear it on Cade's match days - Fridays, but I'll claim that, with the time difference, it was still Friday in Oregon when I got dressed this morning. It didn't help anyway as, after 4 straight wins, the Cavemen lost their second match in a row yesterday. What's going on?

Holidays update

.It's becoming habitual, this blog being updated on a Wednesday. Here goes with the events of the last week.

I got the steroid/cortisone injection in my left knee last Wednesday. I was told it would take a couple of days before it would have full effect, so the first game of golf when the benefits should have been felt was on Sunday, when we played our annual Scotland v Rest of World Challenge match - and I have to say so far, so good - no pain. Now I have to trust it a bit and try to swing normally, instead of trying to protect it as I've been doing for a while.

Incidentally, Scotland won back the ugliest trophy we have:

Yes, it's a gauntlet and the only person I know who likes it is Jo, although she's a little unhappy about the upward middle finger. I can't remember if it was always like that, or whether somebody has tampered with it.

We had a very nice lunch after the golf on Sunday, with over 30 present. We sat at a table - complete with proper linen tablecloths - with Raymond and Myra Orr and Dan Corbett and Mary. This event signals the virtual end of our competitive golf season. Our weekly Wednesday Quaich competition also finished last week and all that's left now is tomorrow's Autumn outing to Edzell and then, at the end of the month, a week in Tenerife.

We were out for dinner on Saturday night at Ken and Irene Page's, with Archie and Eileen Cook also there. A very nice evening - but probably too many calories. I tried to burn off a few on Monday afternoon when I joined our cycling group on one of their jaunts. It was the first time I'd been out with the larger group for 4 months and it was a bit of a struggle - they've got faster and fitter - and I haven't. I was very grateful to the two members of the group who had their e-bikes out with them that day - they gave me a shot of them on a couple of the harder uphill climbs. I'm now completely sold on the e-bike idea. You still have to pedal to get the battery to kick in, and they are heavier than conventional bikes, so when you don't have the power on, I imagine they will need a bit more effort to propel them. I guess it's just a question of time - and money - before we're all riding them.

I've been busy on the holiday front over the last week as well and we've now locked in our dates and locations for next year's big trips to Australia and USA. The first one I booked was the USA one, where I normally try and make use of our Avios points and Companion Voucher. I tried for a couple of days to get flights online, but kept coming across error messages. Eventually, I gave up and phoned the Executive Club. They managed to do the necessary. For the first time for many years, we'll be travelling out at the back of the bus, but the good news is that I managed to get us Business Class flights on the way home. We're flying in to Denver. Now I've got to find the domestic transfer from there - and also to and from Hawaii - we're spending a week on Maui at Marriott's Maui Ocean Club:

We've been to Hawaii once before - back in 2003, Jo, Kelly and I went to Kauai - that's the island at the top of the map below. Maui is pictured just above the big island and the location of our resort is marked on the map in the north west of the island.

We're flying to USA on 27th June, returning on 11th August, 2018, with the week in Maui the 5th of our 6 weeks away.

With that in the bag, I decided it was time to finalise our plans for Australia. We're going out again with Emirates from Glasgow to Dubai and then, for a change, flying from there to Melbourne. After a couple of nights in the city, we're trying out a little adventure by hiring a Motorhome and driving east along Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, with stops planned at Apollo Bay, Port Fairy and Robe along the way. Here's the rough route:

We'll be travelling in something that looks approximately like this:

When we get to Adelaide, we'll no longer be able to stay with Kelly and Chris as their new home is too small to accommodate us, so we've rented a place in Seacliff:

I think the photographer has done a good job - we expect the reality to be a little different!

We leave for Oz on 31st January and return home on 14th March.

Another midweek update

It's Wednesday morning and here I am blogging again. The 4 consecutive days of golf that were planned from Wednesday last week were thankfully abbreviated to only two - the weather intervened and I was spared that agony. Even the two consecutive days I did play - Friday and Saturday - were painful and I struggled, particularly on Saturday.

On that matter, I had my appointment with our GP on Monday to review the results of the recent X-ray on my knee. I was surprised - as was our GP - as the X-rays revealed nothing abnormal. He expected they would show further arthritic deterioration, particularly given that I've had several previous treatments on this knee, but even they didn't show. I patiently explained how, unlike the pain I suffered before I had the right knee replaced, the pain in the left knee is localised.

Our GP listened and then suggested that perhaps we should try a steroid injection? I agreed and this afternoon, it's happening. It means I'll have to miss golf today, but hey ho. It's the last of our Wednesday Quaich competitions and we're having a bite and some beers afterwards, so I'll go along to that after my injection. I'm playing at Aboyne tomorrow afternoon anyway and on Sunday we have our season finale with the Scotland v Rest of the World match.

What else has been happening? Well, we took a quick drive to Ballater on Thursday to look for a new winter coat for Jo in Wilkies (who are shortly about to open in Banchory) but nothing doing. Jo's taken a walk down to the Woollen Mill this morning to try again.

On Saturday night, we were invited round to Anne and Leslie Mason's for dinner. It was a lovely evening, which we ended with a photograph:

Unfortunately, Anne and Leslie were sick through the night - they thought it must have been food poisoning, but we didn't have any effects other than tiredness and a feeling of one too many glasses of wine. Strange. Hope there's no recurrence this Saturday when we're at Ken and Irene Page's for dinner!

In other news, poor Braeden broke his arm and will be in plaster for 3 weeks:

Cade's been a bit luckier - he's got a new(ish) car:

Yes, Lucy's old green Mazda has gone now and been replaced by this saloon - a more acceptable look for an image conscious 17 year old. Cade's football team has had a good start to the season - 4 wins from 4 played. This Friday at 19:00 Pacific Time (3 am Saturday in the UK) Grants Pass Cavemen have their next match - at home to Sprague. Can they make it 5-0? For those who haven't been there, this is what the Cavemen's stadium looks like on match day:

Yesterday (Tuesday) we went over to Inverurie as usual to look after Luca. We pick him up from school, take him home and Jo cooks dinner for us all, after which I take Luca to his football practice. The days are getting shorter, however, and outdoor training will soon be coming to an end. Luca's growing up fast too and on Monday he was given his first taste of freedom by his parents, who allowed him to walk home alone from school and let himself in to the house. Tempus fugit. How long will it be before our Tuesday jaunts are superfluous to Luca's needs?

I did another show on River Dee Radio on Monday night with fellow Headbangers Gerry Mullins and Andy Marshall. If you were on Facebook you may have seen our live video introductions. The EQUINOX  show can be listened to again and/or downloaded via https://www.dropbox.com/s/jxaen9zzwafbya7/20170925%20Equinox.mp3?dl=0 or 
https://www.mixcloud.com/River_Dee_Radio/equinox/

This coming Saturday is 50 years to the day since Radios 1 and 2 started. Prior to that, pop/rock music broadcasts in the UK were very limited - the then crusty old BBC had a bit of a monopoly of the airwaves and were stuck in a bit of a post-war timewarp, which eventually led to the establishment of several illegal offshore "pirate" radio stations, playing non-stop pop/rock music. The popularity of these stations eventually led to Radio 1 & 2 opening and the pirates then all wound their operations down. How times have changed - it's an old cliché but nonetheless true. The next Headbangers show on RDR next Monday will be taking a look back at events of 50 years ago.

We're getting closer to a plan for our Australian trip - it's down to a level of detail now, including figuring out how much time to spend with Kelly, Chris and the boys in Adelaide and how much time on trips?

Autumnal Activities

As we approach the Autumnal Equinox it seems like I'm on a frantic activity dash before winter sets in. I've just returned from a 5 day/4 night walking trip to the Yorkshire Dales (read all about it at https://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/) and I'm now facing 4 consecutive days of golf - the most I've done all season.

I coped OK with all the hill-walking - my knee was sore on the downhill sections, and particularly on uneven surfaces, but I recovered OK. It will be interesting to see how I get on with golf at Banchory, Kemnay, Aboyne and Banchory again over the next 4 days. My appointment with our GP is next Monday so I'll find out the results of the recent X-ray then.

In other news - Jo's leg is finally improving. She thinks she was bitten by a mosquito when we were down in Edinburgh. It itched away for days and seemed to be spreading:

Eventually I had a close look at it with a magnifying glass and found what appeared to be an insect leg stuck half inside/half outside. I managed to extract it with a pair of tweezers:

Jo tried the pharmacy/chemist first of all but this didn't seem to cure it, so eventually she went to see the nurse at our medical practice and finally it seems to be diminishing.

Some good news from across the pond - Scott's back at work and Lucy's recent tests have come out with much more positive results than she initially feared. They must also be pleased that, at long last, it seems like the summer heat has passed and hopefully with it the threat from the hundreds of thousands of acres of forest in Oregon that were alight. It seems that these vast fires didn't scare everyone however, as this recent photo that appeared in our papers shows:

I'm still struggling with plans for our Australian holiday - looking for suitable accommodation and also planing potential trips to Tasmania and along the Great Ocean Route. Need more time to reflect.

End of a (blog) era

Well, that's it - I've now given notice to all my sporting colleagues that I'm retiring from writing all my sports blogs and keeping the historical records, photos, databases etc. Some have stopped already and some will stop at the end of this year. I'd given notice a year ago that I would be phasing out of organising all the golf outings this year - still around to help, support and advise, but not taking on any new admin duties.

So no more golf, football, squash or cycling blogs. That "just" leaves me with the Family, Music, Beer and Hill-walking as "live" blogs, with the Chronicles and Pet Hates lying dormant in the background.

My time and attention has turned a little to other interests such as River Dee Radio and CAMRA so I won't exactly be idle.

It's also now time to organise next year's big holidays - first of all Australia, where it's going to be all change with Chris and Kelly having now moved out of their lovely 4 bedroom home in Semaphore to Chris' smaller 2 bedroom unit in O'Halloran Hill, which, of course, means there's no room for us! Boo hoo! It's right across the other end of the city - from the north west down to the south:

The upside is that they're nearer the McLaren Vale wine area. Perhaps somewhere with good train and bus connections to both the city and the south would be good for us?

We'll manage, of course, but it's a very residential area that they're moving to and it's proving difficult to find accommodation nearby - there are no hotels nor B & B's - not even an Air BnB within a 10 minute drive. We're considering a beachside location - possibly a cabin in a caravan park, or even hiring an RV and using that as accommodation and to get us around. Brighton might tick most of the boxes? Not too far from Kelly & Co., on the beach and also on the train line.

Timing has to be decided too. Some of the dates/events we're trying to work round are:

• Sat 13th Jan - Sun 21st Jan - Santos Tour Under
• Friday 26th January - Australia Day
• Fri 26th Jan - Sun 28th Jan - Crush Festival
• Friday 9th February - Chris' birthday
• Fri 16th Feb - Sun 18th Mar - Adelaide Fringe
• Fri 2nd Mar - Sun 4th Mar - Cellar Door Festival
• Sunday 4th March - Adelaide 500
• Tuesday 6th March - My birthday!
• Fri 9th Mar - Mon 12th Mar - WomAdelaide

Now it's obvious that we're not going to manage all of the above. We also have a potential trip to Tasmania to plan. Much to think about - but it helped my thought process to write it all down here.

Then there's USA next year. We'd half considered a possible trip to Hawaii, but we'd need to book it soon before all the Marriott villas are booked. We need to consider when's the best time to travel as well.

Last weekend I was at Boat of Garten and I coped not too badly, but, generally, golf is becoming a bit of a struggle for me. I'll be very interested to see the results of my knee X-ray when I see our Doctor at the end of the month.

This weekend, Brian and Mary are up with us for a couple of days. We got soaked on Friday afternoon when a sudden thunderstorm hit, just when we were at the furthest point from the clubhouse. It was much better this morning when Brian and I played Aboyne. Tonight we're planning to go out for a curry.