Winter

They say it's the start of the "Meteorological" Winter today. I think they mean the Calendar - the weather doesn't conform to dates. It may be the 1st of December and there may, coincidentally, be snow on the ground outside, but we've had every kind of weather at this time of year.

Yes, it's cold out there. The snow arrived a couple of days ago and it's been too cold since for it to disappear - I guess it'll be on the ground for a few days yet.

December also means, of course, that we're on the countdown to you-know-what. After some swithering, I finally took the plunge and bought myself my Xmas present this week - a replacement for my old work laptop, which looked like it was going to collapse completely earlier this year, but, stubbornly, it's been hanging on and seeming to behave itself since. Nonetheless, better to bite the bullet now. I've ordered one of these hybrids - a Microsoft Surface Pro, which has a detachable skinny keyboard and a touchscreen so you can use it like a tablet as well as a laptop. It should arrive next week some time.

On Sunday morning, while Jo was at church, I took a walk up Scolty:

It was nice to get out and get a bit of exercise. In the afternoon, Jo and I took a run in to Aberdeen to look for a couple of presents etc in John Lewis. We were only partially successful there, but we fared a little better when we drove over to Kittybrewster and bought the new chest freezer Jo had been looking out for. Incidentally, anyone want the old tall fridge/freezer that sits in our garage? It's definitely surplus to requirements now - we only tended to use it at Christmas/New Year time when family and friends were around. After all, we've still got a fridge in the kitchen and a fridge/freezer in the utility room and now a chest freezer in the garage, so the extra fridge/freezer would definitely be too much, especially as there's only two of us.

The following day - Monday - I cycled along to the dentist's for my half yearly appoinments, after which I went for a shortish ride. In the evening, Jo and I attended the BDI (Banchory & District Initiative) AGM at the West Church Hub. It wasn't the greatest meeting, although we did learn a little about some of the ambitious plans for the area. The main reason I wanted to go was that I had spotted that there was due to be a presentation about River Dee Radio. As a mere presenter, I have no idea what's going on with the station and I was keen to find out, but it was a complete waste of time. The Chairperson even said, when I arrived - "good, you can do the RDR presentation then, Ian". What?

Tuesday was Luca day of course, but his Dad said we could bring him over to Banchory if we wanted as he was likely to be in the area and could pick Luca up from ours after tea. We decided to take advantage of this offer - it would mean Jo wouldn't have to travel over - I would drive over and pick Luca up, take him to his dentist appointment, and then drive him over to Banchory.

Wednesday was when we found out that Ross' little work "shack/hut" had been burnt out overnight. We managed to have a video message with Ross to find out if he was OK and he seemed sanguine enough about it. Hope it all works out for him OK. He's just sent me these photos which seem to show they're up and running again - in a fashion anyway:

We'll see Ross in just over a week or so when Jo and I travel down for 2 nights - I'm meeting my old school pals again then as well.

Wednesday evening was another live show on River Dee Radio for me.

Wednesday night and Thursday were our snow days. No cycling for sure, but Jo and I had booked tickets to go down to the library for An Afternoon with Karen Campbell, a Scottish writer. It was OK - it passed the time - but we didn't exactly rush out and buy any of her books.

This morning - Friday - it was time for me to drive down to Aboyne Hospital to have the electrocardiograph that my cardiologist asked for. It's basically a detailed ultrasound scan of the heart, measuring all the valves etc - it took about 15 minutes of scanning. They send the measurements off to my GP and also my cardiologist and no doubt I'll hear if there's anything they're concerned about.

What's ahead over the next 7 days? Well, we're off to the Kilgours for dinner tomorrow night and the chest freezer arrives on Tuesday. I'm supposed to be going walking on Wednesday, but that will be weather-dependent of course. On Friday, our new Sky box is being fitted.

So that's the diary up to date again, I think. Hope all's well with everyone.

Thursday thaw?

We had our first snow of the season today. We awoke to a fairly light dusting sitting on top of our cars - not enough to cover the cars and not lying on the roads yet, but it's a start - and it certainly feels like winter is about to bite.

Of course, it's Thanksgiving in USA today. We now know, courtesy of Luca and Grannie Jo's Google search, that it's always held on the 4th Thursday of November. The Lesina family are celebrating, for a change, at Scott's sister, Laramie's house today. It means Lucy won't have quite so much prep work to do this year, but she's still got to shuffle her clients around a bit to accommodate the holiday. In recent years, it's become heavily commercialised with the onset of Black Friday - a habit that we've picked up now on this side of the pond.

Jo and I have been discussing what we'd like for Chrsitmas this year. We've tended not to bother too much in recent years - especially last year, when we were flying off to Australia on Boxing Day - but we might revert to the prior norm this year. We've discussed updating our main IT - Jo's iPad is probably ready for replacement/upgrade, as is my laptop. Somewhere in the not-too-distant future an e-Bike would also be on my wish list, but I may have to wait a bit for that one - unless the price comes down soon.

I got a phone call from our medical practice the other day, following the blood samples that were taken at the annual Cardio Clinic last week. They want me to do them all again in a month's time. I can only deduce from this that everything wasn't quite right - not bad enough to ring alarm bells and call me in to see one of the Doctors now, but perhaps something that wasn't quite normal and which they want to check again?

Got another live show on River Dee Radio tonight - tune in at 8 pm, UK time!

To close, I spotted this newspaper article recently concerning Atrial Fibrillation and the use of anti-coagulant/"blood-thinning" drugs:

Blood-thinning drugs taken to prevent strokes may dramatically reduce the risk of dementia, a study has found.

Patients with abnormal heart rhythms who took anticoagulants to stop blood clots had a 48 per cent lower risk of dementia than untreated patients.

Large clots cause strokes by reducing blood flow to the brain. Smaller clots are suspected of causing unnoticed strokes that lead to cognitive deterioration. “No brain can withstand a constant bombardment of microscopic clots,” said Leif Friberg, associate professor of cardiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who carried out the research.

About a million people in Britain have an abnormal heart rhythm, known as atrial fibrillation (AF), which carries a risk of blood clots forming in the heart chambers. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends anticoagulants for many AF patients to prevent stroke. They can raise the risk of bleeding but the NHS says the benefits outweigh the dangers.

Professor Friberg said that many patients stopped taking the drugs prematurely and had a “fatalistic” attitude to strokes, believing that “either you get it or you don’t”. He added: “Few patients are fatalistic about dementia.” He would not recommend anticoagulants for people without AF to prevent dementia.

The study, in the European Heart Journal, involved all 444,106 patients in Sweden with AF between 2006 and 2014, 26,120 of whom were found to have dementia. The 54 per cent taking anticoagulants when the trial began had a 29 per cent lower risk of dementia overall. The sooner anticoagulants — including warfarin and rivaroxaban — were taken after diagnosis, the greater the protective effect appeared to be.

Professor Friberg said that researchers were right to suggest a causal link. An earlier study found that people on statins had a 29 per cent lower risk of dementia. Age is the strongest risk factor; smokers and diabetics are also at greater risk. In Britain 800,000 people have dementia.

So - some good - well better, anyway - news? During our lifetimes, Cancer had always been the great health fear. Not that it's been eliminated yet - far from it - but at least the cure and survival rates have improved dramatically - it's no longer an automatic death sentence. Huge publicity and investment in research have brought about this change, but very little has been done so far on dementia, Alzheimer's etc research and it's now the number one health fear of our generation, occasioned partly by our ageing population, with average life spans apparently ever increasing. That reminds me - time to get our Powers of Attorney completed before it's too late!

Weather woes

It's been pretty bleak these last few days - typical late November weather, I guess. We shouldn't be surprised, but that doesn't stop us feeling a bit down - trapped in the house and with ever-diminishing daylight.

I had to do something. The forecast was for more rain, but there might be a small window of opportunity for a short cycle if I got my skates on first thing this morning - and I did. I managed most of the trip with little or no precipitation, but it got progressively wetter as I neared home. The underfoot conditions were pretty damp - the Deeside Way was littered with puddles and I arrived home splattered with mud from head to toe:

The photo doesn't quite do justice to how muddy I was, but my top, shorts and leggings are back in the wash now.

I've completed all my CAMRA work for the time being - at least that was something for me to do when it was dreich outside. I also took the opportunity to book some more of our domestic flights in USA next year - to Medford from Denver and return. Still got to book flights out to Hawaii but I'll leave that for another day.

Got some forward planning to do for our River Dee Radio programmes and also our next Headbang, which is only just over 3 weeks away now. We're heading down to Edinburgh again 10-12 December and we've got a timeshare booking at Loch Rannoch mid-January so that'll keep us busy until we leave for Australia on 1st February.

Quiet Friday

Yes, I'm home alone today. Jo has a busy day - church coffee morning then swimming this afternoon - and I tried to get some of my cycling buddies to go out for a ride this afternoon, but they're all busy. Billy No-mates, that's me. Of course, I could go out myself but I seem to be lacking motivation. If I'd organised others to go along then that would have energised me, but it looks like lethargy is going to win this one.

Jo's had a sudden rush of meals out with her pals - Monday lunchtime, last night and again tonight. Of course, I'll be going out tonight anyway - it's the golf club quiz night. I did go in to Aberdeen for a short while last night - it was a Meet the Brewer evening at the Justice Mill - Spey Valley Brewing. My meal was a fish supper at the new Rock, Salt & Sole next door to Tease in Banchory - not bad.

I've got my fingers crossed that we've finally resolved the issues with the heating in our house. Just over a year ago, we got a new boiler fitted by a company called ENTU. The boiler was fine - even Scottish Gas said so - but the link between the thermostat and the wireless receiver that switches the boiler on and off didn't seem to work properly. I was constantly changing the batteries and re-setting it, but nothing seemed to work. I complained to ENTU and they made repeated promises to come out and fix it, but never appeared. Finally, a couple of months ago, we got a letter saying that ENTU were now in administration and our warranty was now null and void.

We tolerated the situation through the spring and summer but, with the weather turning colder, it was time for action, so I called Scottish Gas and they sent an engineer out, who persuaded me to buy their HIVE device. So far, so good - it seems to work well and we get the added advantage of remote control - I can control our heating from my iPhone even when we're in Australia.

My inaction today is not helping me get my daily steps back up to the targetted 10,000:

With no golf now until spring, I'll need to go on a huge number of bike rides and hill-walks in the next few weeks to get my average back up again - highly unlikely.

That's all my news for now. I can't procrastinate any more - I'll need to go down to the "office" and finish off the letters I'm sending out to all our local CAMRA members who haven't supplied an email address.

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?