First post of 2018

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It's a New Year and we're 2 weeks in to it already. Deeside was cold for weeks. We had a spot of snow several weeks ago - late November? - and after that, the temperature stayed low for as long as I can remember, making it difficult to get out and about safely, whether on foot or bike. Arbor Court was a skating rink for weeks.

Finally, on the 12th day (6th Jan), Jo and I managed to get out for a decent walk. We headed up the railway line at Burnett Park and then through the forest paths, coming out past the newish development where the Cooks live. We walked through that estate for a bit then headed up the at first narrow track which soon took us back on to the old railway track and up to Brathens. We did a loop round and back home - Strava failed me, but it was about 5 miles. As usual, Jo picked up a stick to walk with:

Less than a week later, we were off to Loch Rannoch Highland Club for a short break. We drove over on Thursday, stopping at the Horn for brunch, then at the Hermitage (near Dunkeld) for a short walk. I forced a reluctant half smile from Jo in Ossian's Hall, overlooking the waterfall:

We walked up to Ossian's Cave:

Then it was on to our accommodation at Kinloch Rannoch, where we found we'd been upgraded to a 2 bedroom unit, which would come in handy when Dawn arrived on Saturday as she was due to share with us. Snow-covered Schiehallion was looking lovely from our window overlooking the loch:

The car was packed with what looked like all our worldly goods, including my mountain bike and hybrid, but it meant we could eat in whenever we wanted - as we did on the first night after coffee, then beer at the adjacent hotel.

On Friday, Jo and I decided we would try one of the local walks. We opted for the Nature walk, which was a nice friendly 4 kms stroll. Coffee and scones in the Riverside Cafe then it was off again for more walks in the afternoon - to Carie on the south side of the loch, where we completed the red and blue walks - a similar distance to the morning walk. Our strangest discovery was these semi-circular rings, each of which had one of their stones slap bang in the middle with what looked like an old Celtic/Pictish symbol:

We still had enough daylight left to do some more walking so we thought we would head to the Black Wood of Rannoch, but we couldn't find the start of this walk, nor anywhere to park, so we just carried on driving along the south side of the loch until we reached the t-junction at the western end. Turn left to Rannoch station, or right back to our lodge? We chose the former - it was only 5 miles and we knew they had filmed some Harry Potter scenes at the station so we had to get some photos to send to Braeden.

Rannoch Moor is one of the last real wildernesses in the UK and we knew the station would be unmanned, but it's very well kept and welcoming, even at this time of year. There's a small visitor centre and although the well-known little tea room doesn't open again until March, there was a small self service counter with an honesty box:

We took a walk down to nearby Loch Laidon and even spotted one of the rare trains from the south heading out to Fort William and beyond to Mallaig. Here's a few of the photos I took:

A family of deer have been fed daily for years by an old man, but he's in hospital so one of his neighbours stood in so that the animals - and birds - didn't miss their treats.

On Saturday, Barry, Helen and Dawn arrived just in time for a bacon butty lunch. We had targeted an archaelogical talk in the village hall, organised by the local historical/heritage society, for our afternoon's "entertainment", but, somehow, I got the start time wrong and we stumbled in to the meeting 20 minutes after the start. Bits of the presentation were interesting but I got a definite NIMBY feeling in the room which was populated by what in less PC times were once described as "white settlers". We didn't stay for the tea/coffee afterwards but headed for the Nature Walk again.

Jo had cooked mince and tatties for tea and had made apple crumble for afters, whilst Helen had made soup for starters.

On Sunday morning, the targeted walk was up to MacGregor's Cave. It was a lovely walk, albeit there were a few mumbles from behind on the climb up, and there was one tricky crossing of a burn:

We missed the "cave" the first time. It turned out to be a proper construction - how could we have missed this?:

Time now for coffee and scones back at the Riverside Cafe, after which it was time for our afternoon rambles, the first of which was at the Black Wood of Rannoch, which Jo and I had failed to find the day before. It wasn't easy this time either, but we took a gamble on what looked like one end of the circular walk and it turned out OK. There was a bit of a climb at the start but everyone managed OK and soon we were back down to the road to head back to the car. A familiar site was Barry striding ahead with the girls trailing behind:

Just time for one more walk on the south side of the loch - Camghouran falls and river walk:

We had decided that we would have dinner on Sunday night in the hotel where Barry and Helen were staying - and very nice it was too - and Barry picked up the bill. That's one we owe him.

The forecast for Monday and beyond wasn't great so we just hung around in the morning and then finished off Helen's soup at lunchtime, after which Barry, Helen and Dawn were heading back south. Jo and I also decided it might be wise if we too left earlier than planned - we didn't want to get stuck or delayed on the Tuesday when we are due to pick up Luca.

So that was it - a lovely long weekend.

Post Xmas through to Hogmanay

Happy New Year to all - hope 2018 is good for you.

We survived our brief trip down to the Central Belt - but only just. The journey down was via Edinburgh of course, as we were dropping Ross off at his flat, but we got snagged in traffic at Dundee and again on the approaches to the new Queensferry Crossing, which is now officially classified as motorway standard - that's a laugh - 70 mph? I wish.

Our planned pit stop at the Horn was thwarted - it was closed - so we diverted to Glendoick Garden Centre instead. We also stopped for a quick coffee at Ross' before hitting the road west to Glasgow. Yet again we got caught in heavy traffic, the aftermath of an earlier accident at Livingston, so we didn't get to Barry and Helen's until almost 5:30 pm - some 7 hours since we'd left Banchory.

It was a no-brainer for us when Barry and Helen gave us the option of going out for a meal or staying in for some home-made Shepherd's Pie. A couple of bottles of red wine in a comfy house with our shoes kicked off eased the pain of our journey.

The following morning Barry took me for a spin in his brand new BMW X3:

Bacon rolls consumed we were soon on our way over to Mary and Brian's in Elderslie. We had a fairly quiet afternoon - and then the Whaleys descended on us en masse. The boys are getting really big - the twins are almost my height now and it won't be long before they're looking down on us all. Take-away curries were consumed, again washed down with red wine.

We awoke on Friday morning to find ourselves in the midst of a snowstorm - the airport was closed for a while and the local bus services were suspended, but we knew we had to be back in Banchory by lunchtime so we set off not long after 8:30 am, after clearing the car:

It was a slow crawl all the way up to Gleneagles, where conditions eased and we were able to pick up the speed a little. By the time we got over to the east of the country, there wasn't even a sign of any snow. We even decided it would be ok to go over Cairn o' Mount - and it was. We were home before noon, in plenty of time for Jo to take the scheduled phone call from our local GP to discuss some changes to the various medications she's taking.

Saturday, of course, was Luca's 11th birthday and we were invited over to Inverurie for lunch. It had to be chocolate cake, naturally:

Then, all of a sudden, it was Sunday and Hogmanay. The Kilgours and Masons were coming over for dinner and to see in the New Year. Anne and Leslie had just got back from visiting family in Crail and Perth and Anne had a new selfie stick - from a cracker apparently! I decided to experiment with it:

Anne supplied a bottle of Moet for us to toast the bells. This time I used my camera:

We had expected the usual fireworks displays from our neighbours - notably the Tor-na-Coille and Fred Duncan - but nothing!

To close, I noticed that my previous blog posting featuring our Xmas tree had accidentally cut off the top of the tree, where we still place the angel Kelly made more than 30 years ago:

Xmas etc

It's Boxing Day and our 45th anniversary but we've got used to doing nothing much to celebrate, coming so soon after the over-indulgences. I did, however, arrange for these to be delivered to Jo:

A couple of random snaps:

Xmas Day meal and drinks all consumed, we all sat patiently while Luca distributed the gifts from under the tree - but first, the team photo:

Everyone stayed overnight and today Gary and Carole took part in the Boxing Day fun run:

Carole's mum and I stayed to watch the start and finish:

After Gary finished, he went back to meet Carole and run in with her:

That's about it. The Inverurie clan have left and Jo, Ross and I have spent the afternoon in front of the TV with Mary Poppins playing. Tomorrow we head south to take Ross back to Edinburgh, where they've got some snow today - hope it's gone by tomorrow.

The Eve of the Eve

It's Saturday afternoon and Jo's been busying herself all day - wrapping presents, finishing off the tree decoration, even setting the table for our Christmas Day lunch, which looks like being a busy one. We've got Gary, Carole and Luca coming of course, and Carole's Mum, Liz too. Ross is travelling up from Edinburgh tomorrow (Sunday) to be with us - and the news is that Lizzie seems to be back in his life now.

Until the last couple of days, it's been a frozen waste we've been living in since the time we were in Edinburgh. I got a bit of cabin fever and tried to go out cycling on Monday and Tuesday and both times I had to abort as it was too icy, but thankfully the thaw finally arrived and I've been out for rides on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with the middle day being our annual Freewheelers Xmas lunch.

Jo and I have both been regulars at our GP's - a couple of blood tests plus Jo's annual visit to the Cardio Clinic. So far, so good - no major issues it appears although Jo had to go on a short course of antibiotics for a few days.

Anyway, enough words - here's the photos:

When walking home late at night after our recent Headbang, I took this photo of our town tree.

On Sunday, we drove down to Dess and bought this tree - seen here before decoration

Post decoration

A Marks & Spencer gift box arrived yesterday - an unusual Xmas pud flower arrangement from Lucy

Dark close-up of Lucy's flowers

The table's almost set

Although it's been cold, the weather has been great - lots of sunshine, plus lovely sunsets and, this morning, a nice sunrise.

Strava have summarised my year for me.

 So tomorrow is our annual Xmas Eve footy match - not that I play nowadays, but I still go along to watch those who still can - and have a few beers with them afterwards.

We head south on Wednesday, dropping Ross off in Edinburgh then over to see Barry and Helen (Dawn leaves for NYC on Boxing Day) and then Brian, Mary and family, then home on Friday.

Have a good one everyone.

Mid-December

It's been nearly 2 weeks since I last posted here, so I'll try and give you a quick rundown of what we've been up to since. The weather has restricted outdoor activity a little, but we were fortunate to escape Storm Caroline - it seemed to hit a fair bit north of us and the islands, and it certainly didn't stop the various Amazon/Deliveroo etc vans as we seem to be getting deliveries every other day, including our new chest freezer and my hypbrid laptop.

In fact, we didn't get any snow at all until overnight Friday and it wasn't all that much even then - but - and it's quite a big but - the temperature immediately plummeted and the snow is now well frozen in and looks unlikely to move for a bit yet.

Not much cycling of course, but the weather was pleasant enough for our walking group to go on a 12 kms hike last Wednesday (see https://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/). Friday was a bit of a frustrating day, however. We had booked a Sky engineer to install their new(ish) Q system. He duly arrived and set about work - replacing our old dish and antennae then removing our old box and all the connections to it. The final bit was to replace our router. We had no idea there were to be so many changes and this last one proved to be fatal. I noticed that the new router only had 2 ports, whereas our old one (also supplied by Sky) had 4 ports - all of them currently in use.

At this point I objected - we couldn't do without our connections for Hive (central heating), our WD data storage and Vodafone signal booster. Could they supply a different router, or an ethernet extension port? The answer was no in both cases, despite appeals to the Area Manager and, subsequently their sales team.

So the engineer had to go back and undo all the work he had done and now we're back to square one with our old Sky system. Ho hum.

We travelled down to Edinburgh on Sunday. I met up with a couple of my old school pals again on Sunday afternoon. We were musing about other ex Victoria Drive pupils who we might get to join us next time and the name of "Ronnie McDonald" was suggested. Apparently he's Chairman and Chief Executive of Hamilton Accies FC. Can this really be the boy a year or two below us who lived in Windyedge and was known to me as "Chubby"?:

I can't make up my mind whether it's him or not. If it is - and it could well be - I may have missed a trick. When I was newly qualified as a C.A., Chubby wanted me to go in to business with him - he had in mind that we should start up an estate agency. We had started up a new football team - Knightswood Amateurs - although I didn't last much longer as I ruptured my medial knee ligaments at training and then, of course, got married and soon moved away from the area. I've made efforts to contact him, but, so far, no success.

Jo and I went out for dinner with Ross in the evening. We chose a Nepalese restaurant:

On Monday morning, Jo and I did some Christmas shopping in John Lewis and then popped in to Apple to try and decide which new iPad to get for Jo's Xmas. That area of Edinburgh is a hell of a mess just now - they're knocking down the old St. James' Centre:

We met Ross for lunch back in Tom Kitchin's Scran & Scallie where we'd been the last time we were in town. Nice meal, but we left absolutely stuffed:

Stockbridge is absolutely full of charity shops - I've never seen so many. Ross spotted a gilet and a ski jacket that would help keep him warm in his outdoor job:

We had a couple of drinks in the evening and Jo had a small pizza - Ross and I were still too full. I took this view of the end of Princes St and the Balmoral Hotel as we walked home:

So that's about it. Tonight (Wednesday) I've got another show on River Dee Radio and Friday is our next Headbang. Not sure about tomorrow - although Jo's got an early morning visit to the Cardio Clinic.

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.