Round the World - part 1

Well that’s our first week – and our first continent – over now. I’ve started writing this in the lounge at Johannesburg airport as we await the long flight to Sydney followed by an onward flight to Auckland, where we have a couple of days to recover before boarding our cruise on Saturday.

South Africa was great – Franschhoek, Hermanus then Cape Town. Our first hotel in the wine valley was probably the best we’ve ever stayed in. Low rise, with a number of what appeared to be older houses upgraded to suites, all surrounding a little grass park and a lovely little private pool – it was a sheer delight.

The hotel – Le Quartier Francais – also had an in-house highly rated restaurant that we had booked  a meal in on Wednesday night (which incidentally was fantastic), but also there was an adjacent brewpub owned by the hotel. What more could we ask for?

The hotel also owns one of the local vineyards and we were shuttled there – and also 2 other non-related vineyards – on a slightly decadent Wednesday morning.

Two nights there gave us a lovely flavour of the area – and it’s one we wouldn’t hesitate returning to – but on Thursday morning we were off to the whale-watching coast and the pretty little seaside town of Hermanus. It was out of season, of course, for the whales, but our accommodation, which was basically an upmarket B & B, had a superb hillside location, ideal for winter viewing. The slight downside was that we were a few miles out of town but we discovered a lovely clifftop walk that could have taken us there. The problem was we stumbled upon it unprepared – no fluids and no sunscreen – so we only did about half of it before feeling the need to turn back and get the car.

The next bit was composed in Sydney and we pick up the story where I left off in Cape Town:

Friday arrived and that was when we drove in to Cape Town itself, returning our hired car and checking in to the upmarket Taj hotel. We walked down to the V & A waterfront and had a couple of beers in one of the two adjacent brewpubs I remembered from a previous golfing trip. They’re both apparently now owned by the same person and, if my memory isn’t failing me, the quality has dropped a bit.

The hotel did a 2 hour walking tour on Saturday morning and the morning mists cleared to leave Table Mountain looking resplendent, so we decided to alter our original plan to go up there on Sunday and instead took the cable car in the afternoon. We walked a fair bit at the top but we could have walked for days – some great hiking round there.

Afterwards we took an Uber out to visit a brewpub I had spotted online but when we got there it was closed, as was another nearby one. Our timing was bad so we just returned to the hotel.

Sunday was now free so we decided to have a fairly lazy day – we took a walk in the park in the morning and then returned to the hotel to ask the concierge for a recommendation for a nice outdoor space with good views and a choice of beers. “No problem, sir – head for Grand Africa Café on the beach – I’ll take you there myself”. Excellent recommendation.

We had booked tickets for Robben Island on our arrival on Friday – we had hoped to be able to go there a bit earlier than our last day in CT, but it’s a very busy attraction and the earliest we could get tickets was Monday afternoon. It was worth the wait, however. Our guide round the prison was an ex cell mate of Mandela. We’ll never forget his booming voice and his style of delivery which involved movement of his arms in tempo with his speech – a bit like an orchestra conductor.

When our tour was over, we stumbled across a nice brewpub overlooking the waterfront and ate there. We walked back to our hotel – it was nearly 6:30 pm but there was still plenty of daylight. About halfway there, I became aware of a group of locals following us a bit too closely for comfort. I had my backpack on – I really should have shifted it to my front, but it was a little too late for that so I decided we should just up the pace a bit and weave across the streets. We did eventually shake them off but discovered that they had managed to unzip my backpack but fortunately hadn’t taken anything. There was little of value there anyway but it was still a slightly unnerving experience.

I’d been aware of an earlier (failed) attempt to pickpocket me and our other exciting misadventure in Cape Town was when we first arrived at the airport and I took a wrong turn in our hired car, taking us through one of the townships. It was the middle of the day and the place was buzzing – street stalls, kids coming out of school etc – all very innocent it transpired, but it was somewhere that European tourists in a hired car shouldn’t really have been. Nothing happened but our senses were now extremely alert.

The last incident of note was a bit of a personal faux pas. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve banged my head in recent times. I seem to have developed a bit of a lack of spatial awareness and this time was a classic example. I’ll spare you all the intimate details other than to say it all happened in our hotel bathroom – I speared my head on the acute corner of a towel rail. Blood was gushing everywhere and I had to call Jo for help. The flow was eventually stemmed and I got duly plastered as you can see below but it was still seeping a few days later and it’s very tender still. What a numpty.

Now for the photos. Facebook has recorded our movements pretty well but I’ve tried to pick a few shots that haven’t appeared yet on social media, starting with Jo having a dip in the pool at our hotel in Franschhoek:

The photo above was taken outside our suite on our way to the gourmand dinner at La Petite Colombe and here is the menu:

Here’s a few from our Hermanus cliff walk:

On our walking tour of Cape Town, we were shown a couple of the benches left as a reminder of the iniquities of the days of apartheid – one for “whites” and one for “non-whites”:

We didn’t know the German Government had donated a black of the Berlin Wall to the city, but we did expect to see some ceremonial dancing for the tourists:

Here’s the “head shot”:

 

Finally posted this from our hotel in Auckland. We managed about 3 hours sleep so we're now about to hit the town.

Has Erik gone already?

(If receiving this by email, please remember it's better viewed directly on the blog at https://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/)

We were given dire warnings about a new storm arriving over North Scotland - Storm Erik - and certainly yesterday (Friday) afternoon was pretty wet round here and they were only allowing cars on the Tay Road Bridge when we travelled back from St Andrews, but last evening and this morning so far look relatively calm. Have we already passed the worst? I had tentatively planned to travel south again to Methil this afternoon to see Thistle play in the Scottish Cup against the (not so) mighty East Fife, but I changed my plans last night when I saw the weather forecast, and decided to settle down on the settee and watch Scotland against Ireland in the Six Nations.

So, we had a nice stay in St Andrews although we had a mini drama after breakfast yesterday when we couldn't get back in to our room - the door lock wouldn't respond to anybody's keys - not ours nor any of the staff. We went down to reception and reported it and the duty manager told the maintenance man and then off he went - we thought to immediately attend to the matter. However, half an hour came and went and there was no news - it transpired that the maintenance man thought we were merely advising him about the problem as we were leaving the hotel and he didn't realise all our belongings were still in the room and he had merely added it to his list of things to do that day!

When we managed to track him down again, I followed the engineer up to our room, but even he had problems getting in to our room - new keys were cut, the master key was tried and eventually the lock reset mechanism was used, but none of them worked. We had begun discussing having to break the door down when, in a last desperate effort, he wrenched the lock up and down violently and eventually it gave way and we were in!

As it happened, the delay of an hour and a half in our departure actually helped us as the early morning rain storm had now passed and the skies cleared and the sun came out, so we could, after all, revert to our original plan to take a walk round the Auld Grey Toon. We had thought we would have to stay indoors and our Plan B was to go to Dundee and do the new V & A (https://www.vam.ac.uk/dundee) instead. That will now have to wait for another day.

Enough narrative, time for some photos. After a nice lunch with Barry, Helen and Dawn at Forgan's (https://www.forgans.co.uk/st-andrews/) on Thursday, we went back to our hotel and sat in the lounge with wonderful views of the Old Course and the beach and sea, watching the sun go down. It was twilight before I remembered to take a team photo. I had to have 2 attempts at it:

The remaining photos were taken on our Friday morning walk:

The castle

At East Sands with the caravan site where Barry, Dawn and I went with Mum and Dad many years ago in the background.

Outside our hotel with the R & A clubhouse in the background

Freezing February

At last some kind of winter has descended on the North East - we've had a couple of small drops of snow, but the main issue this last week has been the reduction in temperatures, which have meant the ground has been frozen and is showing no signs of thawing yet. No cycling for me then - but we've had beautiful crisp, blue sky days. The most unusual - and very welcome - feature of this winter, however, has been the virtual lack of wind. Almost uncanny and slightly eerie at times.

We - that is, Jo primarily - have now fully recovered from the trauma of Jo's cataract operation 10 days ago, but the first 36 hours were difficult to say the least. Jo was alarmed by the shutter effect/flashing she experienced immediately after the op. They say the worst thing you can do with any medical symptoms is Google them because you'll soon find all the horrible things that could possibly have gone wrong. Well, of course, Jo did exactly that and quickly became convinced that she might have a detached retina and require another operation.

So, on Friday morning, Jo steeled herself to do the thing she hates doing - using the phone. Of course, you have to go through the horrible multitude of menus on the hospital phone system and, after doing all that, the final message was to go and see your local optician - which she did. That was the breakthrough - she got a full examination and the optician reassured her that the operation was a complete success and there was no question of a detached retina or any other problem for that matter. Breathe.

While at the optician, Jo ordered a new pair of glasses - light sensitive so she can use them as sunglasses when we're on holiday - and she has started to use them to watch TV too - although she doesn't really need to as her vision has improved so much now. What do we think of the new look?:

Jo got further re-assurance on Saturday night when we went round to Nigel Meany's 60th birthday party (yes, we still have friends as young as 60!) and she got talking to Ian Sharp who went through the same experience last year and is absolutely fine.

This week was fairly quiet early on, but, on Thursday, I travelled down to Dundee to meet up with a couple of my old school pals from the early 1960's:

I got back just in time to head to the Legion for our weekly live show on River Dee Radio. Then yesterday (Friday) was our first Headbang this year:

Next week, we're staying overnight in St. Andrews on Thursday and Barry, Helen and Dawn are coming over to join us for lunch. When we come back we'll need to start getting our packing properly organised for our big trip, which is only just over 2 weeks away now.

Winter is here

The first snows of winter arrived yesterday - nothing much on the ground so far, but the temperature has plummeted - overnight it went down to -11C in nearby Aboyne. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, it looks like it's baking in Oz - which reminds me, we still haven't spoken to Kelly this year. Put that on the to do list.

We've been planning and organising our trip which begins one month today - i.e. 4 weeks on Monday. We've booked a few excursions when the boat docks - Jo surprised me by choosing this one on our first stop:

Incidentally, we've been watching the ITV series The Cruise, which features the Majestic Princess - the vessel we'll be on. The series is still running on ITV and the first 3 episodes are available on catch-up, but you can see a glimpse of the first show here - https://youtu.be/_PdUF0Ma-XE

That apart, nothing much else been going on - usual Tuesday visits to Inverurie and a number of fairly shortish cycles for me, taking advantage of the fairly mild and still weather we've been experiencing this winter - but things may be changing now weather-wise.

Next Wednesday is Jo's cataract appointment at ARI. She'll need a few days to recover fully but should be back driving pretty soon after that. Ironically, Jo's now got another chauffeur in the shape of Ross to take her around - he's still looking for work around here. It's not a great time of year for recruitment in the hospitality sector, but we discovered that Duncan's of Banchory, one of the two High St furniture stores, is relocating to larger premises a bit further east in the town, and they're opening some kind of eating facility, including a coffee shop. Fingers crossed.

Visions of Jo(hanna)

The title of this post refers to a famous song by Bob Dylan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_of_Johanna) but more appropriately now to Jo, who has finally got her appointment for her cataract operation - it's Wednesday 23rd January at ARI. She's looking forward to being able to drive again.

We've been remiss in talking to Lucy and Kelly since the New Year - must make amends soon. Jo and I were out yesterday (Sunday) when we took a trip down to Crieff to meet up with Barry and Helen, who are having a 3 night break there. We had a long mid-afternoon meal with them (which, for the record, Barry paid for - we'll get the next one) in the Brasserie there, and we took a quick team photo just as we were leaving:

I was wearing a bulky body-warmer - that's not all me - honest! I know it's been a gluttonous holiday period, but I didn't put on as much weight as this photo implies.

So, just 6 weeks today till we set off on our round the world adventure. I've been able to print our boarding passes and luggage labels this morning for our cruise down the east coast of New Zealand, but we've yet to decide which restaurants we're going to eat in each night and which organised excursions we want to join. The vessel we'll be on is the Majestic Princess and the web site shows this view of roughly what our cabin should look like:

Schools are back so it's back to the old routine for us this week - Inverurie tomorrow.

2019

It's my first blog posting of 2019 - let's start where the last one ended with photos of Gary running a race - the Lumphanan 10K on January 2nd:

Gary and Luca came over to Banchory on January 1st and all 5 of us had Jo's traditional steak pie dinner and we also belatedly celebrated Luca's 12th birthday last Sunday:

It had been a slow day for Jo and I as we had been entertaining the Kilgours and the Masons in to the wee small hours. As per usual, I had taken a team photo - it has to be one of the worst ever - so bad, I took it twice, without any visible improvement:

To be fair, I think they were all mid-song when the camera timer kicked in.

Unusually, we're 3 days in to our New Year and we still haven't spoken to Kelly or Lucy - or, for that matter, Dawn or Barry. We must make amends soon. We might get a chance to catch up with Barry and Helen in the next few days as they're taking a short break at the Crieff Hydro, so we might pop down to see them there.

After all the excesses of Hogmanay, I had to give my liver a rest on January 1st and I was then able to go out for a decent cycle on the 2nd - although my phone battery let me down mid-trip, so my Strava stats haven't made a good start to the year. Given that it's winter and we live in the North East of Scotland - 57 N, the same latitude as south Alaska - the weather has been great for getting out and about. It's been moderately cold (-5C early this morning, the coldest yet this winter) but it's been dry and sunny with very little wind - excellent cycling weather.

Strava collates my hill-walking and cycling stats and then sends summaries at the year end:

In addition to that lot, I get my daily steps on the i-Phone and I was having a really good year, keeping my daily average over the 10,000 steps mark until the latter end of the year when my activity dropped off noticeably:

A valiant effort, I think - must try harder in 2019 - a year which I hope will also see better things for Partick Thistle who are in grave danger of dropping down yet another league, so I'm planning to take a trip to Dundee on Saturday to lend them my support. Fingers crossed.

That's all for now - have a good new year everyone!

Boxing Day

It's the day of turkey toasties, the festive "fun" run (for Gary) and the resumption of the festive football season on TV - Gary is actually going to Pittodrie this afternoon to watch some proper live football - Aberdeen v Celtic - and, of course, it's our anniversary - our 46th.

After my 4 cycles last week, this week's indolence is the payback. Must make an effort to get out tomorrow. It's gone all mild again - we had a lovely crisp, clear Xmas Day - perfect for a nice long walk, one that we didn't have. Jo and I managed as far as Dee Street and then just circled back. That was it as far as fresh air and exercise was concerned yesterday.

My excuse? - feeling a little stiff and sore after our first ever Xmas Eve walking football match. I hadn't dared go near a football since my replacement knee operation just over 5 years ago, but this sounded like a bit of fun and something that I thought I could manage to cope with OK - and, by and large, I did. It was a slightly weird feeling looking out my old sports bag and then hunting for my trainers. There they were, lying untouched and unloved in the cupboard under the stairs.

Gary and Luca surprised us by arriving a little earlier than anticipated for Xmas dinner, but we still waited until after 3 pm to sit down and eat. We were hoping that Jo's swimming buddy, Elizabeth, who lives alone, would come and join us, but she sent an apology message later that evening.

Ross was pretty much in charge of proceedings in the kitchen, with Jo taking a bit of a step back after doing all the prep work. Gary contributed too - in the shape of a couple of cheesecakes he put together.

We Facetimed with Kelly early in the morning and with Lucy later on, and Barry called too, although I never got a chance to speak to Dawn on the day.

The tree was back in its rightful position and fully powered up this time:

The Christmas/Anniversary flowers were also on display:

After dinner, it was the Luca show - aka the opening of the presents, one of which was a combination of his two current obsessions - Fortnite Monopoly. Mass participation was manadatory, but I did manage to get them all to spare a minute for a team photo:

Progress on my mini "projects" - the en suite woodwork is finished - just in time for Christmas - and so is the beer - I had to dump it as it didn't clear. As I suspected, it got contaminated when I overdid the yeast and had to deal with a virtual explosion of activity from the brew. I'll try again sometime.

To close, I took a wander down to see Gary in today's Fun Run. First of all at the Corsee Road crossing near the start:

Then, at the finish, Gary was coasting home when, all of a sudden, he was overtaken. Startled, he immediately burst in to a sprint finish in a vain attempt to catch the culprit:

Winter Solstice

We're at the deepest darkest hour, daylight-wise, today. In theory, from tomorrow, the days get a bit longer and the nights a bit shorter - although it's hardly noticeable until about March, it seems. Today would also have been my Dad's 98th birthday.

I wasn't feeling too good yesterday but Jo and I went in to Aberdeen early morning to do some shopping and we got things done pretty quickly - we were home by lunchtime. While I went for a bit of a rest, Jo started on the Xmas decorations, including the tree:

It's drying out now after 4 nights on our balcony and it'll be moved in to its proper position later on and the lights will then be powered up.

I even pulled out of our show on River Dee Radio last night, but I feel a bit better today so I'm planning a short cycle this afternoon after Jo's gone to her swimming. Right now (Friday morning), I'm uploading last night's show in podcast form to the various platforms I use - Mixcloud, Soundcloud, Spreaker, Stitcher, i-Tunes etc.

Tonight, we're off to Keith and Annette Gray's for dinner with Archie & Eileen Cook, so it could be a slower start tomorrow morning, although we'll have to keep popping back and forward to Tesco over the weekend to keep topping up the fresh, in-date food.

Our en suite is my next destination- that's where the beer is brewing and also where I'm working on the wood surrounds and the grouting. Happy days.

It's beginning to look a lot like ....

Yes - just a week to go now. We've got our tree - Jo and I drove down to Dess on Sunday and got it. It now sits on our balcony, unadorned and seemingly unloved. We need to unfetter it and bring it in to the warmth of the house soon.

Today (Tuesday) is Inverurie/Luca day and we're at Rae Circle for a change as Gary's not feeling too well, so we took Luca back to his Mum's. Talking of Luca, Jo's going in to panic mode as we still haven't got him a proper Xmas present. Perhaps we need to take a trip in to the city soon.

I've got 4 mini "projects" on the go just now. We got the old carpet removed from our en suite and had vinyl fitted instead. The issue I now have is with the wooden ledge that the shower tray sits on. The original plan was to paint it the same colour as the skirting boards, but Jo then suggested we could just treat/varnish the wood and leave it as is. OK - the only problem is the dark water staining. I've tried everything to remove the marks - sanding, even resorting to the dreaded Cillit Bang, which managed to bleach the wood but not remove the heaviest stains. Still a work in progress:

Project number two will probably have to wait until the spring - or at least a prolonged spell of dry weather. The summerhouse/hut is now complete but we want to reinforce and treat the floor to avoid rising damp. The external wood will need treated as well.

The 3rd job is replacing the broken shaver light above the mirror in our en suite. I've searched in vain for a similar sized replacement - it looks like manufacturers' built-in obsolescence at work again. Anyone got a spare one of these?:

The last job on the go is one I've made a bit of a mess of - again. I decided to have another stab at brewing some beer for Christmas. The materials I got this time were better quality and everything was properly sterilised beforehand and the temperature control was good - it's brewing in our en suite. My error was much more fundamental - I had materials to brew 40 pints, but my fermenting vessel only has capacity for less than half of this. I realised this half way through the process, by which time I'd used all the malt. Even at this stage, I probably could have retrieved something but I then went ahead and added all of the yeast, which naturally brought about a huge over-reaction in the too small fermenting vessel. I had to break the airtight seal umpteen times to avert the brew blowing the top off, thus probably allowing the brew to become contaminated. Nonetheless, I'm ploughing on until the hydrometer tells me the SG is low enough.

That's my trials and tribulations just now. The Xmas cards have all been written and posted in good time - just - so that crisis at least was averted.

We're still working our way through the Wine Advent calendar. We do have a few non-alcohol days during the week, so we always have a bit of catching up to do at the weekend!

Looking ahead, we're out for dinner on Friday night at Keith and Annette Gray's - that should be nice - and, on Monday, it's the annual get-together of our old football crowd with a match to celebrate Dave Williamson's Xmas Eve birthday. Of course, I stopped playing in this when I got my metal knee 5 years ago - as did a few others in a similar plight - but this year we're experimenting with something new - Walking Football - and it's indoors! We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get as much cycling in as the weather allows before the excesses of the next couple of weeks.

This time of year tends to be when families get together. I can remember when I was young I never quite understood exactly who was who when distant cousins, uncles, aunts etc all gathered - I wish somebody had drawn up something like this for us all:

Sunday Post

Third blog post in a row on a Sunday. It's derby day in the English Premier league, so it's been football, football, football all afternoon - none of it Scottish, even though Aberdeen are playing Celtic in the League Cup Final - but it's on BT Sport and we don't have that - only Sky.

It's all very much a consolation because my first love, Partick Thistle, are now bottom of the Championship, having just been relegated from the Premiership last season. Gary even went to the trouble of blaming me and shaming me on Facebook for passing on this peculiar inheritance. Well, I blame my Dad too.

None of this will be of any great interest to most of the rest of my family, but I thought you should all know that it still leaves scars on my psyche.

On to other matters - it was a pretty wet week last week and we were housebound for a few days, although I did manage a couple of cycles at the start and end of the week when the sun did actually shine. I was also over in Inverurie 3 days in a row, starting with the usual Tuesday Luca visit. Gary's hot water broke down so I arranged to come back on Wednesday morning to house-sit until the engineer arrived - he discovered that it was a broken diaphragm - but he would have to order one - could I come back tomorrow?

So, Thursday morning, I set off for Inverurie once more. Just as I was leaving Banchory at 7:30 am, my phone rang - it was Luca. "Granda, I can't do up the top button of my school shirt and I normally leave to walk to school at 7:55 am". Don't worry son - Granda will get there by 8 am, fix your top button and drive you to school. Crisis averted.

So all good so far, but, sod's law, when the engineer did arrive, it was with an apology - the part hadn't arrived - could I come again (yet again!) tomorrow? "Sorry - no - we're getting our flu jabs on Friday". I could come back Monday, but Gary couldn't wait that long, and, in the end, Gary had to take a couple of hours off work - he couldn't survive all weekend without hot water.

So, today, two new frames arrived for the posters we've had hidden in our cupboards for years. I fitted them up and put one in the study/studio downstairs:

The other one has temporarily gone up in our bedroom, but I'm pretty sure it won't survive the evening there - Jo has plans for that space. Still, it fills a gap, doesn't it?:

Well, we're two days in to Advent now and that's two bottles down. All good so far - can we keep it up for the month?

To close, another plug for our Headbangers show on River Dee Radio - now available as a podcast on a number of platforms - Mixcloud, Soundcloud, Spreaker, Stitcher and you can find it in i-Tunes too. The RSS feed is https://www.spreaker.com/show/3251191/episodes/feed

Déjà vu

It's Sunday night and Jo and I are sitting here in the back room , variously knitting, blogging, reading the Sunday Times and watching the last episode of Dark Heart on catch-up. Who says we can't multi-task? The second bottle of wine is now open and that helps of course.

Nothing too exceptional took place last week. Tuesday was Luca day of course, but this time we went to Rae Circle as Gary was down in London. It was the day after Carole's 50th as well.

The final fitting of the doors on our hut/summerhouse was postponed again by a couple of days, but hopefully it's all done now. We have to watch out for a bit of rising damp. The last 4-5 days have been the wettest and gloomiest for a while, but we can't really complain - it's been a good year for weather generally.

Ross and I drove back down to Edinburgh on a miserable Thursday to pick up the last of his stuff from his flat. We left at 8 am and were back here at 2 pm, after a spot of brunch and some humping and loading. Adaptive cruise control certainly makes driving a bit easier. Ross is now fully ensconsed back in Banchory - and looking for work.

Friday night was our 3rd Headbang this year - good fun. The team photo is on Facebook so I won't repeat it here.

A bit of cabin fever has been setting in so I'm hoping to get out on my bike again tomorrow - need to get some exercise.

Our first Xmas gift arrived last week - from Oregon, of course - and , guess what? - it's alcohol - an advent "calendar" of 24 bottles of wine - not full-sized ones thankfully! I guess there's no chance of any dry days in December then?

One month from today - the hype has already started and it's impossible to escape. If I have to think about my Christmas list, then I know I need a new electric shaver and some recent CD's that may be of interest are those from Paul Weller and Elvis Costello - maybe even Paul McCartney at a push. As far as books are concerned, I can't think of any offhand. I guess the e-bike is more of a 70th birthday thing, but that's not going to stop me from looking just now.

Now that Ross is here, a few changes have been made - especially electronically and IT-wise. We now have access to his Netflix account on all platforms throughout the house. Jo's been an addict for a while, but I've now latched on to Narcos, a series about the Mexican drug barons - pretty addictive it is too.

To close, another holiday tale. Yet another airline schedule change - all sorted now, but there's always a cost to bear. Makes you wonder about booking well in advance. We now leave Adelaide and arrive in LA a day later, but, thankfully, Scott and Lucy are coming to pick us up and drive us out to Palm Desert, taking some of the pain out of our journey.

November update

It's Sunday evening and Jo and I are sitting in the back room with our tablets in front of us, with the Chase Celebrity Special on in the background. We are not completely alone, however - Ross is downstairs in what used to be my exclusive office/studio, which is now shared with him. The plan was that I would use it in the mornings and he could have the afternoons and evenings, but I don't know if it's going to work out that way or not - we'll see.

I drove down to Edinburgh first thing on Thursday morning to pick up Ross and all his gear. He'd packed up everything in bags, cases and boxes. All we had to do was carry it down four half flights of stairs - 38 steps in all - and try to load it all in to the back of my car - not as easy as it sounds. It's a very old tenement building and the steps are all severely worn and sloping downwards - especially tricky when the two of you are are trying to safely manipulate a giant, heavy plasma TV screen and you can't even see your feet.

We managed to get all the essential stuff in and the two of us were back in Banchory by 3 pm after a lunch stop at the Horn. There remains a few of Ross' items in the flat, some of which he's trying to sell, so it's likely we'll be going back again later this week.

Earlier in the month, Jo and I were down in Edinburgh with our friends the Kilgours and the Masons, paying our annual visit to the Festival of Wine, which is run by Anne Mason's brother, Tom Cannavan. We travelled by train on Friday morning, had lunch at Tom Kitchin's gastropub, the Scran and Scallie in Stockbridge, then dinner at Anne's favourite Chinese restaurant, the Loon Fung in Canonmills. On Saturday morning, we went to the National Museum of Scotland to attend Rip It Up - The Story of Scottish Pop, which was good fun. Then it was the afternoon at the Festival of Wine, followed by a slightly disappointing - and expensive - dinner at the Cafe Royal:

Meanwhile, the saga of our hut/summerhouse goes on. We've had another set of doors delivered, wrapped in polythene, so there should be no question of them being swollen and mis-shapen this time. The fitters arrive again - for the 4th time - on Tuesday - fingers crossed.

It was our local branch of CAMRA's AGM yesterday and guess what? I was re-elected as Membership Secretary, a job I'm likely to have for life, given the low numbers of active participants locally. We have 400 members in our branch but we've got the widest spread geographically - all the way up to Orkney and Shetland. Our branch numbers have dropped every year since I've been on the committee, mostly occasioned by the slump in the oil industry over the last few years - a situation that contrasts dramatically with the national picture, where membership now stands at over 190,000 and CAMRA remains the largest and most successful consumer campaigning group ever - much larger even than any of the political parties in the UK, with the sole exception of the Labour Party, which, in recent years, totally changed its membership rules and fees to (artificially) swell its numbers.

I paid what I hope is my last visit to the local Dermatology Clinic on Friday. The two growths on the bridge of my nose have now almost completely gone - just a couple of minor spots remain and these were both treated again with frozen nitrogen, so hopefully that's that.

Incidentally, Jo's still waiting for her cataract operation - that's over 6 months now since she saw the consultant - and she's already on the "cancellations" list and will travel anywhere in Scotland to get it done. One apology letter after the initial national target of 12 weeks was exceeded and that's all.

I'll finish with another moan - this time about BA. Our big holiday in a few months' time for my 70th birthday involves a round the world ticket with BA and Qantas, their partners. We're flying Business Class again but BA have recently changed their policy re seat booking - even Business Class flights have to pay extra now to pre-book seats. There has been plenty of adverse comment recently on social media about this. Imagine having to pay a huge premium to upgrade and then finding out that you're not even sitting next to your partner - and that's what happens when you just leave it until check-in opens 24 hours before the flight. The cost of booking a seat is now £80-£100 per person per flight - outrageous. Thank goodness their codeshare partners, Qantas, haven't adopted this policy.

E & O E

Whoops - I forgot to finish the summerhouse story! The fitters did manage to get it erected yesterday, but the doors had become a little swollen - probably through lying in the rain in some yard somewhere - so they're coming back again next Tuesday to sort things out, but they said we can start to put stuff in it if we want:

Kelly FaceTimed this morning - from the hospital. Little Miller took unwell and the doctors initially thought he may have pneumonia, but they now believe it may be allergies/asthma/virus that is causing him breathing problems and also atrial fibrillation - which is my heart problem too. Kelly and Miller are staying overnight for observation etc but will hopefully be released in the morning.

Back to GMT

Yes British Summer Time is now officially over - the clocks went back here last weekend. I wonder how much difference it really makes - yes it's a bit lighter in the mornings for a wee while longer but the days are rapidly drawing in anyway and, for me, it's dark anyway when I get up and now it's dark even earlier in the evening/late afternoon.

I picked Ross up at Stonehaven on Wednesday and he spent a few days here before heading back down to Edinburgh on Monday, but he's coming back to Banchory next week. He's cleaning and clearing out his flat in Edinburgh just now and is giving notice of termination to his landlord today. Next week, I'll drive down and pick up Ross and his belongings and bring them back to Banchory. Ironically, Jo and I are down in Edinburgh this weekend for the annual Wine Fair, but we're booked on the train with the Masons and Kilgours.

On Saturday, I travelled down to Glasgow to watch Partick Thistle and meet up with my old school chums again. It was a fine day out, spoiled only by two things - Thistle lost (again) and it was a long day on public transport, leaving here at 8 am and not getting back home until after midnight:

Sunday was pretty quiet after that - as was Monday - but it was all happening on Tuesday. Normally our Inverurie day, but we had the added complication of the fitters scheduled to arrive in the morning to erect our new hut/summerhouse. Just one problem - the replacement hadn't arrived by Monday evening and I had to chase up the shipping company, who assured me that it would be delivered first thing on Tuesday morning - and it was. The fitters were also due to arrive first thing and be finished by lunchtime, but they never showed up until just after 12 pm.

Suddenly, we had to change the plans for Luca - Jo would stay at home whilst the fitters worked away and I would go over and pick up Luca from school and bring him back to Banchory. So far, so good, but then Gary got in touch - could I take Luca to buy a Hallowe'en outfit as he had a party arranged with his kickboxing group on Wednesday? Oh - and make sure he writes a birthday card for Carole's Mum.

The mission was accomplished successfully, but only after Luca getting a little stressed initially when he saw how few Hallowe'en outfits were left for sale - but he eventually spotted one he liked at another display in the store. Phew! We nipped back to Gary's place to pick up his jammies and clean underwear and then drove back to Banchory for the night.

Luca's big thing just now is Monopoly - Jo had bought a set when he was here during the school holidays and he wanted to play it non-stop - even before we'd had breakfast some days. Here's he and Jo playing at the kitchen table during the holidays:

This scene was repeated last night after tea - only there were 3 of us playing this time. Luca rejoiced in trouncing Jo and I - thankfully finishing not long before bedtime.

So this morning, I drove Luca to school and popped in to see Carole and to drop off his overnight bag and also his Hallowe'en outfit - he's staying at Rae Circle tonight.

Most of the wall decorations are now up in the office/study/studio. The canvas print and the frame arrived and I've now added them to the other pictures I'd put up:

The canvas is on the left - it comes from a photo I downloaded from the Weyermann's Maltings website after our recent visit to Bamberg, Bavaria. The intention is to put a bigger, longer picture between the canvas and the key-holder, but, for now, I just used this photo taken at Lucy and Scott's wedding.

Pity I didn't think to get non-reflective glass for this print.

The old golf club photos and the print of the Grand Canyon were formerly hanging on different floors in the hall.