Smokey!

The wildfires in this area of Southern Oregon (Josephine County) are continuing to affect visibility and air quality. Normally, when we get smoke here, it's usually from fires in California or sometimes other parts of Oregon, but this year they're all around Grants Pass, viz. this map:

Grants Pass is just 30 miles west of Medford.

The smoke blocks out the sun for most of the day and they're handing out free breathing masks in Grants Pass now. When we get up in the morning, the particles of soot etc are on most of the surfaces in the garden - they were even landing on me when I was lazing in the pool yesterday.

Jo and I were planning an away day on Monday and Klamath Falls was our planned destination, but the morning air quality reports on the TV showed that it was pretty bad there, so we decided instead to head a little further north to Crater Lake. Good decision - the air was clear there, although we could see the smoke approaching at the end of the day on our way back to GP.

We had a nice day at Crater Lake - the altitude meant the temperature was much more to our liking as well. No fear of triple digits there - high 70's, low 80's - perfect!

We started our day on the Discovery Point Trail, just to get a view of the deep blue lake:

We were never going to walk too far on this trail - we only had our flip-flops on and it was a little precarious and precipitous, so then we headed over to nearby Rim Village to grab a spot of lunch, after which we strolled eastwards down the pathway heading towards Crater Lake Lodge. It was at this point that we remembered where we'd been when we came to visit many years ago.

This time around, we wanted to see a bit more of the park. We didn't really have time to drive right around the crater - we knew there were roadworks going on anyway - and we wanted to see some of the regular stopping points and stretch our legs a little, so we decided to drive east, where our first port of call was Vidae Falls:

When we first parked the car there, we were immediately hit by mossie bites. A lady, spotting our predicament, immediately came to our rescue and offered us some bug spray. Too late for some, but gratefully received anyway.

Driving on, the next stop was Sun Notch, where we could stretch our legs a little to the top of the hill and look down at the "phantom ship" below:

That was two stops ticked off - next was the Phantom Ship Overlook, where you could view it from the other side. From there, it was a short drive down to the trail that led to Plaikni Falls, which we both thought was one of the most beautiful spots we'd seen:

 

and that was pretty much that - it was time to head back now, but here's an overview of the park, with the various stopping points marked:

 So, having driven for 4 hours on Monday, we were never going to go far on Tuesday. In fact, we just stayed in Grants Pass, did a bit of (unsuccessful) shopping for replacement flip-flops for Jo, then took the festival chairs down to a shady spot beside the Rogue River, after which we popped in to Cade's new place of work - https://www.truejuiceorganic.com/ - for a couple of smoothies.

When we got home, the newly shorn Buster, following his morning at the dog groomers, was waiting to greet us. He looks tiny now - especially next to Shelby, who has grown enormously in the last year. Poor old Holly is getting greyer by the day - and Tina is now indeed a (very) fat cat!

It's Wednesday morning now and I'm feeling a little delicate, so I don't think we'll be going anywhere today - not until this evening anyway, when we're heading over to Medford and a meal at Kaleidoscope.

Tomorrow, I go back to the dentist to have my temporary crown removed and the new one fitted. I'm still suffering pain in my gums and struggling to open my jaw wide enough to eat properly - a result, I suspect, of all of the injections I had to have in my 3 sessions there.

On Friday, Jo and I head to Portland and the Oregon Brewers' Festival. Then we overnight there and catch the plane to Maui on Saturday. Hope there's no smoke there! The weather there looks fine for next week:

 The big difference from here in Oregon is the range of temperatures. There it only seems to vary 12/13 degrees day to overnight, whereas here we can awaken to temperatures as low as the 50's, before peaking mid-afternoon almost 50 degrees higher!

Fire season!

Yes, it's that time of year again, when the West Coast fire season is in full swing - forest fires all through California and Oregon. The primary danger here in Grants Pass is smoke - and that totally depends on the wind direction. We'd managed to avoid it all until the last few days. The sudden thunderstorm last Sunday morning, when there were over 1,000 lightning strikes locally, started 67 separate forest fires in this area of Southern Oregon and the smoke now surrounds Grants Pass, where visibility has substantially diminished, but thankfully, the air quality is not critical yet - although you can see, smell and taste the smoke in the air.

The other threat from the forest fires is transportation - roads being closed by the fires and the firefighters' attempts to douse them. Last week, the I5 - the huge freeway that passes through here on its long journey all the way from Mexico to Canada - was closed for a while. Lucy just posted this extract from the local radio station:

"Riverbanks Road is now closed to everyone except for residents and emergency vehicles. Blockades have been set up on Riverbanks at Redwood Highway and at Robertson Bridge. Please see previous post for upgraded evacuation notices. West Pickett Creek, Shan Creek and Limpy Creek roads are now on Level 3 "Go" evacuation notices. Dutcher Creek Road has been upgraded to a Level 2 "Be Set" evacuation notice. Shelters are available at Grants Pass High School and Redwood Christian Church. Please share this info with family and friends immediately."

(Robertson Bridge is one of my cycling loops and it's where we launched the Englands' boat last Saturday.) Hope everything's OK for our trip to Portland on Friday.

We've had a fairly quiet time this last week after our trip to the coast on Monday, judging by the few photos on my camera. The most exciting time was when Jo and I went trail walking the other day. It's not far from here and I've been walking and cycling these trails in previous years, but my memory must be failing me because I thought that one of the trails we did was a circular one that went up the hill at the end of Elk Lane and came back round to where we started. Well, we got lost, didn't we, and ended up on the other side of the hill/mountain, where thankfully we met a guy laying chuckies on the trail. He told us the only way back to our car was to retrace our steps and climb the hill again and go back down the other side. Of course, by now, we'd already been walking for a couple of hours and had used up all of our water. He came to our rescue and gave us a couple of bottles of water he had in his road-roller. This was a huge help, but Jo was still distressed about having to climb up the trail again in the mid-day heat.

Of course, we did eventually make it, but that was the second major dehydration episode for Jo this holiday. I doubt if she'll ever go back trail walking with me again. Anyway, this was the view from the top of the hill:

Scott travelled over to Crescent City for a family commemoration ceremony this weekend, so Lucy took Jo and I round a couple of wineries just outside Medford - and very nice they were too. We had lunch at the second one - Paschal:

So that's all for now. More adventures to follow this week, no doubt.

Dog days of summer

In more ways than one .... it's been triple digit temperatures here in Southern Oregon the last few days and it's forecast to remain high for a while yet - and this houseful of dogs - Holly, Buster and Shelby - has been suffering too. We had a surprise thunderstorm on Sunday morning while Scott, Lucy and Jo were over in Medford doing the big weekly shop at Costco. I had just returned from an early morning bike ride, so opted to stay at home. When the thunder started rumbling, Holly dashed over to me and absolutely insisted on jumping up on my knee. She trembled her way through the next hour until the rumbles finally stopped.

Bringing my blog up to date, I got my temporary crown fitted, as planned, on Thursday, but not before suffering another hour and a half of drilling to get my tooth in to shape. that's 7 hours in the chair so far. The final crown will be delivered a week on Thursday - the day before Jo and I head to Portland, and 2 days before we go to Hawaii - and hopefully that will be that.

After my crown fitting last Thursday, Jo and I decided we had to get out and do some exercise, so we drove south west towards Cave Junction and the nature interpretive trail and boardwalk there. It was very short but we spotted other trails just across the road and decided to try them out. They, in turn, led to the "Little Falls Trail", so we decided to follow that. We had fluids with us but it was very hot and the falls didn't seem to be getting any nearer, so we thought it best to head back. Parts of the trail were a little precarious and Jo was a bit fearful of taking another tumble:

Jo struggled on the way back - I think she was dehydrated and suffering from a bit of heatstroke. It took her quite a while to get back up the hill where I could drive her to Cave Junction to get some food and fluids in to her.

Despite this fright, we liked the area and decided to make a quick return the following day - suitably armed this time with a picnic lunch. We attacked the Little Falls trail again from a different approach, but were disappointed that the trail didn't afford very good views of the falls, so we moved on to another spot beside a bridge over the Illinois for lunch:

On Saturday, it was back to the water again - this time, the Rogue River. Scott and Lucy's friends, the Englands, had invited us to join them on their boat for a short ride up the river and a picnic and some beers. The ride itself had to be curtailed a little, as the Rogue, like the Dee back home, is running very low and the channels are narrowing daily.

The flat-bottomed jetboats that do the Hellgate ride can go a lot further and they passed our picnic spot a few times. In between, it was like a scene from Deliverance. I swear if I'd heard any banjos, I was off! It did feel like we were in the wilderness but it was wonderful to see some of the large birds around - buzzards and ospreys in particular, and one spectacular viewing of a golden eagle chasing an osprey back to its nest.

I must have applied sunscreen 5 or 6 times that afternoon as the scorching sun beat down on us. The only way to keep cool was to go in the river - even our chairs were parked there so we could wallow in the cool(er) water:

On Sunday afternoon, we were "despatched" by Lucy to the new local "Double Taps" bar on the pretext of using up a $2 voucher she had, thus also giving her a chance to clean the floors.

With my dental work mostly finished - it took up 3 days of last week - Jo and I took the opportunity yesterday (Monday) to make our long-promised escape to the coast. We drove over the mountains through Northern California (briefly) - we lied again when we were asked if we had any produce at the border - then back in to the port of Brookings in Oregon.

Spotting some short coastal trails leading down to the beach, we parked up the car just north of the town and wandered along the beach for a while. We couldn't believe how much debris there was - huge, bleached timber logs had been washed up everywhere:

The offshore rocks and mini islands are very attractive visually, although they are mostly seabird colonies and you're not meant to climb on them unfortunately. The whole of that coastline is like that - especially between Brookings and Gold Beach, which was our next stop.

At the Gold Beach Visitors Centre, one of the maps showed that the Arch Rock Brewery was very close at hand, so we headed there. As it happened, they only had a Tap Room and it is closed on Mondays anyway, but the adjacent "Tav" had food and stocked Arch Rock's beers so we lunched there, after which we took a look around the small town before heading for the beach for a quick kip:

Our car thermostat still only read 62 F, but it seemed much warmer than that in the blazing sun - how else would we have fallen asleep on the beach?

On our return journey, we stopped off at the Arch Rock viewpoint and took a few photos there:

We stopped off in Brookings again, this time heading to the lovely port area where we feasted on ice creams in the evening sun.

The lady at the Gold Beach Visitors Centre, on hearing that we were returning to Grants Pass, advised us to try a small detour through Crescent City and up through what she described as a beautiful drive - a place where they had filmed the Return of the Jedi. We found the road OK but it was very narrow and windy and after a few hundred yards it changed from a tarmac surface to a rough road covered in chippings and holes, so we decided to turn back. No - we didn't see any EWOKs, but Jo described the dark, dense trees as "needing a good dusting"!

So today (Tuesday) is a down day - I've done the morning runs to and from football training for Braeden and I've just listened to my fellow Headbangers' new show on River Dee Radio - and now I'm updating my blog. Time for lunch, I think.

Dental days

It's Wednesday morning here in Oregon - on the brink of the England - Croatia World Cup semi-final, but all I can think of is my poor teeth and gums which have been taking a pounding the last two days. My toothache was reviewed by Lucy's dentist on Monday morning and his analysis of the situation was that, to relieve the pain I was experiencing, either extraction or root canal work was required.

Extraction would create difficulties given where the problem tooth is and its key role in chewing and the fact that it would leave the adjacent tooth exposed and unsupported, so I opted for his recommendation of root canal work.

The dentist re-organised his daily schedule and started work later on Monday morning. He had to have three attempts at numbing me up and then I spent another couple of hours in his chair as he worked away on the root canals. He put in a temporary filling overnight and I was to come back first thing on Tuesday morning to have the rest done.

Tuesday brought more of the same - this time it took him 4 attempts to get my mouth sufficiently numb for him to start work. By now, I reckoned he must have injected me with Novocaine (or equivalent) more than 30 times in all. My gums must have seemed like a pin cushion.

Anyway, the root canal work was finished on Tuesday but I have to go back tomorrow (Thursday) morning to have the fitting for a crown. The results will then go to the lab and the completed crown should be back in a week or so.

Goodness knows what all this is going to cost - and our travel insurer has already refused to pay for it all - apparently all I'm entitled to is emergency pain relief. I'll keep arguing my case.

With all this going on, our plans to have some away days this week have been scuppered for the time being. I'm still popping Tylenol for pain relief, but hope to be better by the end of the week.

Sorry - nothing much else to report for now.

First full week at GP

It's Sunday morning here in Grants Pass and I'm feeling sorry for myself - I've got toothache and it looks like I'll have to go to the local dentist in the morning - bummer.

Anyway, here's what we've been up to since my last blog post:

Did I forget to show you the Lesinas' new BBQ - a Traeger?

It got its first serious outing on Wednesday - US Independence Day. It operates more like an oven and cooks using wood pellets, creating smoke. Scott's Mum and Dad, and sister Laramie and her partner Rick all came over for dinner, but we had to wait a bit for our pulled pork as it was a huge portion and took 10 hours to cook, but it was well worth the wait.

Once it was dark, we went to the front of the house and the boys let off the fireworks in the middle of the street:

It looks like the neighbourhood was aflame in this photo - but it was all under control.

On Wednesday morning, Jo and I had taken a short walk in Reinhart Volunteer Park, and on Thursday, with everyone back at work, we took a longer one, driving down to Rogue River to try out the relatively recently completed stretch of the Rogue River Greenway, which eventually is planned to go all the way from Grants Pass to Medford. This section is 4 miles long and it was out and back for us, so 8 miles in all - not bad in the heat of the midday sun. Here we are at the start, crossing the Rogue River bridge:

Friday was a quiet day for us - just some local shopping - but on Saturday we all went to the Farmers' market and then climbed up Dollar Mountain. Despite her fears, Jo managed fine:

We went to Judy's to pick blueberries after this and we now have 6 pounds of them in the fridge!

Temperatures picking up this week:

GP, Or

Greetings from Grants Pass, Oregon. All went well with the series of events prior to our departure to USA last Wednesday (as recorded in my last blog posting)  - including Jo's Endoscopy. Nothing was seen on the camera so apparently the next stage is an ultrasound scan. I have to say though, that Jo seems to be getting better - not quite back to her normal eating/drinking diet - still no coffee, for instance - but she's quite happy to have a glass - or two - of wine again.

Our journey over to USA went pretty well really, but it's always tricky when you have to go through Heathrow if you have to change terminals - as we did, from 5 to 3. We got off the Aberdeen plane and walked for maybe 10 minutes to get to the departure point for the transit buses that take you to T3, but there was a seething mass of people waiting there when we arrived, We had to wait for 5 or 6 busloads before we managed to get on one - and then it's about a 15 minute ride, so that's an hour gone already since we got off the plane in T5.

Stress levels were rising - particularly when we saw the lines at T3 security. Another half hour passed. The moral is simple - never arrange a tight connection at Heathrow unless you're arriving at and departing from the same terminal.

There was a bit of a delay in the plane departing as well - technical problem with one of the door's automatic locking systems apparently, but, apart from that, the flight went well. It was our first return to cattle class for many years and I have to say it wasn't too unpleasant at all. The service was very good - lots of regular food and drinks supplied, although it's all very cramped for eating and drinking as we had booked seats at the front of the cabin next to the emergency doors - it meant nobody was sitting beside us and we had tons of legroom, but the pop-up tray table is tiny.

We smoothed our way through US Immigration at Denver and it didn't take too long for our bags to arrive and then we jumped on our (free) hotel shuttle and very soon we had checked in to the Residence Inn - in a lovely big suite. There was a full service Marriott across the road so we popped over there for a couple of local beers and shared a cheese and meat platter. By now, it was nearing 10 pm local time but our body clocks were at 5 am the following morning so it was time for some shut-eye.

We could have flown directly to Medford from Denver but it would have meant a fairly early start in the morning so we had elected instead to take our time and leave at lunchtime, going via Seattle, but it meant we arrived in Oregon in the early evening and Lucy was there waiting to take us to Grants Pass - and she'd managed a full day's work and hadn't had to take any time off to pick up her old folks.

Lucy and Scott were working on Friday of course, so Jo and I decided we needed to stretch our legs a bit. We took the Jeep and headed up to the familiar territory of the Cathedral Hills trail system and chose a couple of trails that would give us, roughly, a 5 mile loop. It's well shaded and it wasn't ridiculously hot so we coped OK - well, I did anyway - but it may have been too soon after the journey for Jo, who said the undulations nearly killed her!

On Saturday, it was Open Day at Solero Winery, a lovely little place in the Applegate Valley that we had visited last year - Scott and Lucy were now Wine Club members there. Early afternoon wine drinking in the sun seems lovely at the time, but it has a hugely soporific effect later on - particularly as Scott took us to a new brewpub afterwards - via a coffee and cake stop at Pennington Farms. We managed some takeaway pizza in the evening but were happy to tumble in to bed fairly early on.

On Sunday morning, I felt sufficiently revived to venture out on a short bike ride around the town - nothing substantial and certainly no hills - it had been a while since I'd been in the saddle, so I took it very easy. Braeden was staying at a friend's house, but Cade had two of his buddies at home with him and they wanted to go boating/surfing on the lake so Scott, being the only duly licensed adult available, took them to Galesville reservoir, whilst Lucy, Jo and I drove over to Medford to do the Costco weekly food shop - plus a visit to Barnes & Noble's excellent book store.

One of the upshots of our trip is that the Lesinas now have a brand new, super-duper BBQ/grille - or they will have when Scott has finished assembling it. The old one had served them well, but it's now time to move on. Food quality reports will follow over the next few weeks.

Now you may be wondering why all this narrative and no photos? Well, most of them have already appeared on Facebook, but I've kept a couple back for this blog. I have two new pairs of swim shorts - Lucy bought me one with a definite Hawaii'an theme in mind, in view of our trip there in a few weeks' time:

To continue with my modelling of the Stewart range of swimshorts, here's what Jo bought me in M & S before we left:

The last photo was taken on my cycle ride this morning (Sunday). Every year, Grants Pass erects in the downtown area several bears, each with a different theme - here's one of them:

(New top also supplied by Lucy)

That's all for now folks.

Midsummer approaches

Just a couple of days now until the longest day - and just 10 days until we depart for USA. It's been a busy time recently and the next 10 days are no different.

Thankfully, the painters are now finished and we're slowly bringing each room in the house back to a semblance of normality. The Magpies charity shop has benefited from the reams of books and CD's we've disposed of - and the tip/recycle centre has had several visits, including our old shelving system in our downstairs office/studio. We've now ordered a new bookcase from Myakka:

This is due to arrive in the next week and we can then empty the garage of all the lever arch folders etc.

Since my last blog I've been to the dentist for a filling, attended a CAMRA tasting afternoon, been to Edinburgh for the wonderful Scotland cricket team's victory over England, then survived 3 days' golf in the Borders.

Coming up, I've got another radio show tonight, followed by a Seniors golf match at Aboyne tomorrow afternoon, then it's Jo's Endoscopy at ARI on Tuesday, another radio show after golf on Wednesday, then I'm off to Durham for another cricket match on Thursday. On Saturday there's a CAMRA meeting in Braemar then a meal out with the Masons and Kilgours. Monday is our annual Balmoral outing. On the eve of our departure we'll be back in Inverurie and, of course, amidst all this, there's some World Cup watching to be done!

Blazing June

We're well in to June now and the weather continues to be brilliant. I can't recall such a long period of dry, settled weather here - not quite the summers of 1975 & 1976 yet (when we were in SE England), but they say last month was the warmest and driest May for nearly 100 years. I could well believe it. I played golf yesterday - a relatively rare event for me nowadays - and the course was hard and dry and there were several areas where the ground was cracking up.

As I said, I don't play nearly as much golf as I used to, but the next couple of weeks before we head off to USA will see the most action for a while - June is always the busiest golf month of the year for me. It's likely Jo and I won't see much of each other before we get on the plane on 27th June!

Jo's away today - a day out in Edinburgh with her pal Anne. I drove them to Stonehaven early this morning. Ordinarily, this would have meant I was home alone today, but I'm afraid that's far from the situation. We have the painters in just now - they've been here since Monday and they're blitzing the whole house - inside and out. The house is like a war zone - there's no room where we can sit down and relax - all the furniture is piled up and shrouded with old bedsheets and polythene. They also sanded down a couple of our Artex ceilings, so every surface in the house now has a layer of dust on it. It's going to be quite a tidy-up job once they're finished. One side benefit has been the fact that we've had to clear space for them and this gave us a chance to have a major clear-out of some of the old files, books and CD's that had been overspilling some of our shelves and wardrobes. Lucy's and Kelly's old university course books and papers were part of that - and, Kelly - I have to tell you that we came across an old diary of yours!

I'm off to Edinburgh on Sunday to watch the Scotland v England cricket match. Brother-in-law Brian is joining us, as is Leslie Mason (Anne's husband). From there, it's then down to Peebles for 3 days' golf, so it'll be Thursday next week when we go to Inverurie for our usual weekly "babysitting" duties.

Jo's appointment to get her cataracts done hasn't come through yet, but she has now got a date for her endoscopy - Tuesday 19th June.

Sorry - no photos today - not even one of Luca after I took him for a haircut on Tuesday. You probably wouldn't notice the difference anyway!

West Coast Wanders

Our long promised trip to the other side of the country took place in a superb weather window. It was only a short break - just 2 nights - and we were just planning to have a little look around.

We left Banchory fairly promptly on Tuesday morning. There was a little bit of mist on Deeside but it was lifting as we headed further inland - at least until we approached Inverness, where there was a fairly thick Moray Firth haar. After crossing the Kessock Bridge we figured it was time for a short break, so we pulled in to the mart on the outskirts of Dingwall, where a cafe was advertised. It was very much a mart workers cafe - very functional, but it hit the spot as far as we were concerned. Jo thought it would be nice to take a photo beside the mart's signature statues:

Jo insisted on doing it again as she had stood in front of the dog:

The drive from there through to Plockton was fairly straight-forward, apart from the last few miles which were along a very narrow winding single track road - a small taste of things to come. The haar around Inverness had turned in to brilliant sunshine and the thermometer steadily rose to 26 C as we ventured further west.

We were booked in to the Plockton Inn - the Hotel was full. It was lunchtime when we arrived and the place was heaving so we decided to take a walk around the village and then head off to get some fuel.

The tide was out so we were able to walk across to the mini island where there were a number of seats conveniently located:

We completed a mini loop round the village, starting with the beach and coming back via the main street:

Thirsty work needed a quick pint on the decking of Plockton Hotel and then we jumped in the car and headed for the nearest fuel station at Kyle of Lochalsh - not exactly the cheapest fuel in Scotland. We couldn't then pass up the opportunity of crossing the adjacent bridge over to Skye and popped in to Kyleakin for a quick ice cream and a photo of the bridge:

Back in Plockton, our room was ready and soon it was time for dinner in their fine, but casual, seafood restaurant. A band was playing in the bar that night and we listened for a while before retiring.

Our next overnight stay was in Torridon but we planned to go there on a fairly circuitous route via Applecross, accessing it over the Bealloch na Ba hill route. The weather was stunning again as we crawled up the hill behind a brave team from the Cairngorm Cycling Club - we could only get past each of the riders as they pulled in to the passing places - but if there was traffic coming the other way - and there were plenty of tourists about - then you had to miss a turn. It took an eternity to get to the top of the road where there was a fairly large car park full of cars decamping their contents to get the obligatory photos of the jawdropping scenery looking across to Skye and Raasay:

We needed to do some leg stretching so I persuaded Jo to take the fairly short, but steepish in places, hike up here:

Jo took it nice and steady and made it fairly comfortably to the cairn where I was waiting:

We made it back down to the car then tackled the slow drive down the hill to Applecross. The Inn was mobbed - inside and out - so we decided on a nearby cafe instead for lunch, after which we took another stroll around before heading off to Torridon - the long way via the Wester Ross Coastal Trail.

Most of the journey went well, despite the narrow roads but, towards the end, we had a couple of near scrapes with a couple of less than friendly drivers coming in the opposite direction.

We arrived at the Torridon - we were staying in the Inn as the Hotel was full - late afternoon and, after a welcoming cup of tea and Tunnock's Caramel Wafer, we took the short walk down to the Boat House and Loch Torridon before dinner. A quick bath then out for a pre-dinner beer:

The Torridon resort is lovely and the rooms were a far cry from the tight but adequate ones we'd had at the Plockton Inn.

Our short break over, we had to now go to Inverurie to pick up Luca from school, stopping off on the way for coffee and a scone at the harbour in Nairn.

Back in Banchory today (Friday), it's been fairly busy - Jo's car had to be taken in for MoT and service and we also had the glaziers calling to measure the front door pane that recently shattered. We're also clearing the rooms to prepare for the arrival of the painters on Monday - an opportunity also to ditch a lot of the excess stuff built up over the years.

Second half of May

A lot to catch up on - 2 weeks with no blog reports. Funny how things have changed - I was posting virtually daily when I was working but now that I'm retired the posts seem to be getting less and less frequent. Retirement is a busy business.

Cade's graduation details arrived in the post:

Not something we do in the UK - strictly an American thing just now, but, then again, we never used to have fancy senior proms here - and we do now. Watch this space then.

A strange thing happened the other day - and we've no idea how or when it occurred. We - or, rather, Jo - noticed that one of the side panels at our front door was shattered:

Strange, eh?

On to matters Luca now. He's in his final year at primary now and will be starting at secondary school in August. He collected his new school tie the other day:

Luca's football season with Colony Park is coming to an end. I went along to his penultimate match at Oldmeldrum with Gary. Luca did well and scored a penalty. His "reward", which Gary treats him to after every match - win, lose or draw - is to go out for lunch - this time to Inverurie Garden Centre, where he scoffed down a day's worth of calories in one sitting.

The following weekend I did a double sitting with Luca. Carole was away eventing and Gary was taking part in the Oldmeldrum Hill Race, so I took Luca to his kickboxing class on Saturday morning. His reward this time was lunch in the small cafe/restaurant just 100 yards from their back door - the Scone and Yon. It's a former private house conversion - although very little internally has changed. It's still very obvious which room is which. The former living room was full so we were taken upstairs to what had been a small bedroom with a dormer window. It felt seriously weird:

The food was OK however.

On Sunday, Luca's final match was out at Millbank, near Alford. It was another glorious day and we all turned up to watch him play - me, Gary, Carole and Jo. Here's Jo and Gary having a seat and a chat at half time:

After every match has finished, the teams line up for each player to take a penalty. Exactly as he did the week before, Luca despatched his with ease:

Luca played well and his team won again. We celebrated with lunch at a nice cafe in Alford.

The weather had been brilliant and forecast to continue that way for at least another week, so it was time for Jo and I to make our long promised visit over to the west coast. Plockton, Applecross and Torridon were on our radar. Due to other commitments, the earliest we could travel was Tuesday this week. We're now back home and will report back on our trip in my next post.

Another end of week update

It's Friday afternoon and Jo's away swimming with her pals and I'm about to head out on my bike to take advantage of the sunshine, so I'll make this a quick one.

Our walk in the Cairngorms last week went OK - eventually. Check my hill-walking blog - https://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/. Jo and I also went a 5 kms forest walk last Saturday at Potarch.

Jo's been busy in the garden - front and back and I've been doing the consequent runs to the tip. The front was getting a bit overgrown but it's a lot tidier now:

It was my Boat of Garten weekend last Sunday/Monday and we struck it lucky with the weather again, as we did at golf again on Wednesday and cycling yesterday. More please.

Want to see what Ross is up to now? Check https://www.jacscoffeevan.co.uk/

Tonight I've got another live Headbangers show on River Dee Radio - don't forget to tune in at 8 pm - www.tunein.com/radio/River-Dee-Radio-s274232 - or listen to the podcast tomorrow on Mixcloud.

Busy time golfing next week but not long until we head off to USA - just 6 weeks now. Hope the Hawaiian volcano settles down soon.