Hogmanay

It's Hogmanay morning and it's still cold here. We're waiting for the gas service engineer to arrive - one of our radiator thermostats isn't working and they're going to do the annual service at the same time. It looks like the cold weather is going to be here for a while. The pavements are pretty icy but the forest trails are all clear - in fact, they're mostly soft, so we're still able to get out for some exercise. It's been an incredible winter so far - I can't remember one with so little wind. It's almost eerie - every day is calm and still. Even yesterday when we had a tiny bit of snow as Jo and I were coming to the end of our walk, the snowflakes were falling so gently and slowly down to the ground - it was like a Hollywood movie. We managed our international Xmas Eve/Xmas Day Zoom call OK, which was nice. It was our quietest Christmas dinner ever - just the two of us:

We drove over to Inverurie to deliver the presents to Gary, Carole and Luca, including Luca's 14th birthday present (30th December). We stood outside their back door and had a chat for 5 minutes before the cold set in and it was time to go - but not before Carole gave us 2 slices of her traditional Christmas desert - lime cheesecake. She hadn't had time to fully decorate it with chocolate sauce but Jo added some sprinkles - and it was as good as ever:

My presents from Gary and Carole were cycling related:

Boxing Day was our 48th anniversary but there were no special celebrations or gift exchanges. Our task was to reduce the pile of excess food left over from the previous day - and we made a pretty good fist of it. We had another go on Sunday as well, so when we awoke on a beautiful clear Monday morning, we decided we needed to get out early for some exercise, so I suggested we take a walk up Hill of Fare. Now Jo is well known for her dislike of any hills, but she had earlier asked me about a hill-walk me and my pals had done earlier this year - Tap o' Noth and the ancient Pictish fort at the top - did I think she could make it up there? So I thought - let's try an easy local hill first. The approach to Hill of Fare from the easterly side near Dunecht allows a relatively gentle spiral approach to the top and I was pretty sure this was well within Jo's capabilities - and so it transpired, despite her usual moans and groans. Here's a few of the photos I took:

Looking north towards Bennachie and south towards Clach-na Beinn:

We could see the snow-capped mountains to the west but my camera battery had expired and all I had was my phone camera which didn't have the necessary zoom capacity. The early start to our walk meant we were back home in good time for lunch. Since then, not a lot has changed to our daily and weekly routines. I had my fortnightly CAMRA social last night and tonight we have our regular Thursday evening session with Dawn, Barry and Helen, after which we are going to see the bells in - virtually, of course - with the Masons and the Kilgours, who we normally dine with at this time. Have a good time everyone - and take care.

Xmas Eve

It doesn't really feel Christmassy to me yet - despite the fact that we had a bit of snow overnight and there's a light covering outside which should hang around all day, given the low temperatures today. Historically, we normally play football today as part of Dave Williamson's birthday celebrations. Last year was our first ever "downgrade" to walking football, but this year we can't even do that due to the restrictions, so we've come up with an alternative - a few of us are going for a walk - from Banchory to Potarch, from where Jo's going to pick me up later on. Tonight's a busy night on Zoom - we have our usual weekly call with Dawn, Barry and Helen and we're going to follow that with a global call, when we're hoping to see the rest of the family (virtually). So - the latest on the observation stakes. On Monday morning, I shaved off the last of my face fungus, so how long would it be before Jo noticed? Answer - two and a half days. She spotted the change on Wednesday afternoon. I had given a hint of it with a photo I published on Instagram, taken halfway through the Monday morning shave:

That was for the record only - my Frank Zappa period. I didn't venture out of the en suite like this, but I emerged like this:

Here's my holiday reading:

A couple of photos of Avery that Dawn sent:

and the wallpaper in Dawn's hall, which she now calls "the library":

Hope to see everyone later - in person or virtually. Stay safe and enjoy.

The shortest day

It was on this day 100 years ago that Swanson Renshaw Stewart came in to the world that he departed just over 11 years ago. Here's one of our early times together:

Born not long after the Great War had ended, I can't imagine conditions were all that great then. Here we are at the end of 2020 and so many are complaining about going in to another near-lockdown, but really most of us don't appreciate how lucky we are by comparison with previous generations. Sure, there are many instances of genuine hard luck tales and people stuck in unfortunate situations, but most of us don't really have much to moan about - although that doesn't seem to stop the social media frenzy whenever additional restrictions are imposed by the various Governments. It's an economic tragedy for many businesses however, particularly in the hospitality and travel sectors. Many pubs and restaurants are going to close forever and I imagine quite a few airlines will go bust as well. From a purely personal point of view the main change to our retirement lifestyle is the current inability to travel. Who knows when we'll feel safe enough to fly to distant places to see family again? Perhaps by the time 2021 is over, enough of us will have been vaccinated, but progress is definitely slower than we were led to believe at the time of the announcement of approval of the Pfizer vaccine. It's difficult to look forwards - perhaps that's why I keep looking back. Why, I've even gone retro with my music collection and started buying vintage vinyl recordings again. My old collections have been digitised and are now sitting up in our loft, but the new pressings I've recently acquired needed somewhere to be stored and I thought, why not display them as well, so I bought a few wall mounted holders to display some of the wonderful covers:

They adorn the walls of our ground floor office, cum music studio and pilates room. Talking of pilates, Jo and I have been keeping up our sessions 4-5 times per week. It all started on the advice of my GP. I was having upper back pains and he prescribed some drugs and suggested I should try pilates. Well, the pains in my upper back seem to have gone, but I've now got pains lower down - just above my right hip. Jo reckons pilates caused them - we've been experimenting with different tutors and some of the sessions we did were a bit too advanced for us beginner seniors. Perhaps I'll have a few days off and see what happens. I'm going to pick Ross up on Wednesday - he's coming back to Banchory for a while until he can find some employment - pretty hard in the current climate. He'll be arriving at a house that is suitably modestly festive this year - not quite as many items on display as usual. We have however got a lovely wreath, courtesy of Lucy:

I think that's all for now. To close, another vintage Banchory photo that I picked up from the Banchory Heritage FB page. It shows the old railway bridge at Corsee road - the one that apparently wasn't quite high enough so they had to lower the road under the bridge to let the lorries through, but when it rained this used to fill up - note the vehicles having to drive on the wrong side of the road to try and avoid the deeper bits:

Mid-December report

It's Monday again and Jo and I are back from a walk round Scolty woods this morning - our first proper venture out since last Wednesday when we went round some of the trails at the back of our house and then back down the old railway line:

That was a nice sunny morning but we've had a fair bit of rain in the last few days and the Dee is starting to fill up - but it's pretty mild for the time of year - unlike Kelly and family in Oz where it's been hot at times - so much so that, on their video call on Saturday, Asher complained that it was too hot and he wanted to get on a plane to come to Scotland because it's cooler! It's even colder where Cade and Audrey have now moved to - up in the wilds of Klamath Falls where they had a good covering of snow last week. There's some tentative planning going on now for a wedding in April, when, in theory, we should be there - although, in practice that's now pretty unlikely - but you never know. I wonder how I'll look by then? Here's this week's latest:

The full feral look has gone and I'm back to the goatee again. I did it a week ago when I buzzed my hair again. So far, Jo hasn't even noticed - reading this will be the first time she realises what I've done. We had a brief conversation about observation this morning. Incidentally, our gourmet dine at home meal was excellent - very well presented, including a bottle of wine:

We have the Christmas decorations up now - a bit lower key than in previous years. Specifically, for the first time, no real tree - just the artificial one that used to sit in our back (TV) room but has now been promoted to the front room. Barry and Helen have got their tree up too:

The figures on the outbreak of coronavirus at Inchmarlo House have increased in the last week and there's now over 100 who have it, and, in addition, there's been a similar outbreak at another care home in Cults - 50 + there as well. We're being careful - hope you are too - stay safe.

Alarming news

Locally, the news has been seeping out for a few days - an outbreak of Covid-19 at nearby Inchmarlo Care Home (where Lucy used to work). The stories started that a handful of the staff had contracted it but the more recent news is that more than 70 now have it - that's very worrying in an area that until now has had low infection rates. Coming on top of last week's news of cases at a Portlethen food factory and continually disappointing results from the north of our shire, I fear it's almost inevitable that Aberdeenshire (and probably Aberdeen) will be moving out of Tier 2 this coming week - especially after the warning shots fired by the First Minister last week. On the other hand, news of an approval for one of the vaccines gives some hope that there is an end to all this. The priority lists have been publicised - I'll be in Level 4, it seems, with Jo in Level 5. We'll probably receive our first dose in January, but we'll have to wait until the whole population is innoculated before life becomes a bit more normal. After that, I wonder if they'll have to start issuing vaccination and test certificates to potential travellers? In other matters, we woke up yesterday (Friday) morning to our first snow of the winter:

It's gone now - replaced by rain - the drains out in the street are struggling to cope with the volume of water. Jo has, however, done her bit to help brighten up the street a little:

A nice photo of Cade and Audrey, publicising their recent engagement on FB:

I don't know what their plans are for getting married but I hope that, by then, we'll be able to travel and attend the ceremony. We had a nice meal - another curry - at the Jewel in the Crown with Ross on Tuesday. He's waiting to hear about a possible opportunity in Edinburgh but tells us he'll be with us before Christmas anyway. This afternoon (Saturday), we've got a beer tasting on Zoom with Burnside Brewery and, later on, our gourmet meal arrives from the Strong Water Company - Hand Dived Orkney Scallops, Venison Fillet, Salted Chocolate Fondant - Dine @ Home. Looking forward to it.

Plus ca change

Another couple of weeks pass by - 8 months now since we made a dash home from Australia. Realistic prospects now of vaccinations on the horizon but the practicalities and the logistics of the rollout to the population at large mean it's likely to be some time yet until we're out of this mess. Meanwhile, our routine life goes on. It's not really too bad for us - we're comfortable and careful here. The main thing we're missing out on is travel, of course. Who knows when we'll be able to go and see Kelly and Lucy again - we don't even see Gary and Ross very much, although we did travel through to Inverurie on Tuesday and had an Indian meal with Gary, Carole and Luca:

We're planning to do the same with Ross this week - and it looks like he will be coming back to Banchory soon, given the dire current employment prospects. Zoom/Facetime/Messenger video calls occupy a good bit of our days. Between me and Jo, a typical week will have 10-11 calls, including the odd remote wine or beer tasting, the latest of which was on Friday night - the Family Brewers of Britain. Very educational and entertaining, with 3 experts and another 45 ordinary CAMRA members from all over the UK joining in. This coming Saturday, I have arranged a smaller one with Burnside Brewery (Laurencekirk) for our local branch members. I'm also experimenting with a new technology in home brewing - the Pinter (https://thegreatergood.co.uk/). It's been brewing for the last 5 days and yesterday I removed the bottom part of the vessel containing the yeast, turned the remainder of the unit horizontal and put it in to the fridge for a few days' conditioning:

As a complete aside, the small tree/bush that stood in our rockery at the front of the house was cut back by Jo earlier this year. I had thought she intended to do a bit of judicious pruning on it, but Jo suprised me by how severe she was, leaving just this:

Do you think this is Jo's message to the world? Passing strangers must wonder. Not much else to say just now. Keep safe.

November update

The hot news from Arbor Court is that we have re-booked flights to USA next year. We had to cancel our September trip this year and were in danger of losing some of our air miles and a companion voucher whose expiry date was extended - but only to July. So we thought, why not book something in the hope that the outlook may be a little better come the spring? The news this week of a potential vaccine coming along underlined this. Anyway, we felt we had nothing to lose - if matters haven't improved by then, we just cancel again - we would be in no worse a position than if we did nothing now as we stand to lose the substantial benefit of the companion voucher. So it's San Francisco on April Fool's Day hopefully. We've also re-booked a week at the Marriott resort in Phoenix that we were due to go to in September. Fingers crossed. Other than that, it's just been business as usual here - the weather's been surprisingly good for the time of year so occasional walks and cycles are still possible. Jo and I went out on Monday afternoon, starting off on the forest tracks at the back of Burnett Park, then along the old abandoned railway line up to Brathens - it was so tranquil in there and we never saw any other walkers in our 2 hour, 11 kms hike. We did come across a small old building - a tiny former home, complete with chimney, next to the railway line. I'd never noticed it before on my cycles up there, but Jo spotted it:

The second photo is a particularly peaceful pastoral scene, we thought. Meanwhile, across the pond, on the west coast, Cade seems to be recovering pretty well from his recent medical traumas:

3,000 miles away on the east coast, little Avery is growing up fast:

On the eve of Aunt Nancy's 95th birthday last Thursday, Dawn, Barry, Helen, Jo and I were joined on our weekly Zoom call by cousins Sheila and Lesley - and their Mum, of course:

Nancy, although physically restricted nowadays, is still incredibly bright and alert. She's our oldest surviving relative (I'm next!) and has outlived her peers - many of them by decades.

Dunkeld and others

We've returned, apparently unscathed from our first venture out together since lockdown - one night in Dunkeld. It was all good - the protocols were well observed at our hotel and we felt safe. We left Banchory on Tuesday morning for the relatively short drive to Perthshire and got there before noon - a little too early for our room to be ready, but we parked the car and walked back a mile in to the village along the Tay river trail, taking a short wander round Dunkeld and across the bridge to Birnham, where we climbed up to the war memorial and took a photo looking back over the Tay bridge to Dunkeld:

We looked in to a couple of the hotels to get a bite of lunch, but they were either too busy or we didn't fancy them - until we came across the Royal Dunkeld, which was amazingly quiet. Noticing they had some real ale on, we took the opportunity of having a pint with our lunch, which of course meant we had to have it outside in a shelter in their beer garden. Walking back past the Cathedral to our hotel we spotted this:

It seemed to ring a bell with us, but we weren't quite sure why. When we walked past it again the following day, we were both finally convinced that we had, contrary to our initial thoughts, indeed been here before. (Subsequent research revealed it was on one of our Pitlochry trips back in 2014). The hotel is in a beautiful setting on the banks of the river, with an impressive approach:

From our room we had a good view of the river:

We had got back to the hotel just in time as, by now, the rain had started. Not to worry, we had booked a swim in the large leisure centre at the hotel. It wasn't hugely busy - numbers are restricted during these Covid times - but although Jo was wearing her swimsuit, she wasn't quite ready to share the pool with any strangers. That didn't stop me, however. Our dinner table was booked for 6:45 pm but we decided to have an aperitif first of all and wandered out to the marquee (which is deemed to be an "outdoor" venue and thus compliant with current coronavirus regulations) but there were no seats available, so we headed back to our room for our free glass of fizz, following it up with G & T's. Dinner was nice - wood pigeon for starters - and afterwards we headed back to the marquee where thankfully there were seats available this time. By Wednesday morning, the previous afternoon's rain had passed, so, after breakfast, we took a walk along the river trail - this time westwards. Reaching the A9 bridge we crossed under the road and walked back to Dunkeld on the opposite side of the river. It was a fair trek - over 16,000 steps, about 3,000 more than the day before - but it was a fine morning and we lapped up the Vitamin D. Here's a few photos from the walk:

Grabbing a quick coffee in the riverside beer garden of the Atholl Arms Hotel we then marched back to the hotel and jumped in the car to start our homeward journey, wandering up the A9, through Pitlochry and then over Spittal of Glenshee and down in to Braemar, by which time we were ready for something to eat. We chose the new Farquharson's Bar & Kitchen for our main meal of the day. A short break - but very nice. In other news, Cade's operation to remove his troublesome rib, (eventually) was successful and he's back home now recovering, thank goodness - with tattoos intact apparently! By the power of Facebook, we finally had our flu jabs last week, but we never did get our letters inviting us. Dentist check-ups are on the horizon now as well - it seems they are starting to catch up with the backlog of missed appointments. I've heard nothing, however, from ARI re my appointment to get a small former mole cut out. It was due to happen on our return from Australia, but events overtook us then. To close, a couple of photos from Dawn - first one of Avery, followed by a view of Jordon's newly decorated room:

and here's Miller, looking proud as punch with his award from school:

Autumn update

Just noticed it's been a month since I posted here - not sure why there's been such a gap this time. There's no way I'll remember everything that's happened since then - I guess I'll just have to mostly feature the events for which I have photographic evidence.

The one noticeable change has been in the weather. At the time of my last post, we were still enjoying warm, summery weather, but it's definitely gone autumnal now - the days are shorter and darker and the temperature has dropped. Jo and I wake up every day and look out at the bank of trees on Arbor Court and watch the leaves changing. Some of the colours are lovely:

All of these changes, however, do signal the end of the golf season. I don't do winter golf any more - unless on the rare occasion when there's a weather window and the sun is out - and I've got fed up staring at the inside of the house.

I took a rare trip in to Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago to get my car serviced. I knew it was going to take a few hours and the weather forecast for that day was very good, so I loaded my (analogue) bike in to the back of the car and went for a tourist wander round the city whilst my car was getting serviced. I've already posted most of the photos on Facebook etc, but here's a few I kept back:

Out at the point next to Torry Battery

 

Donmouth Nature Reserve

Swan & cygnets on the Don

Another one from Footdee - the preserved old fishing village in Aberdeen

This giant screw was rotating and churning the water from the Don

St Machar Cathedral from the other side of Seaton Park

King's College

I met Gary at lunchtime for a quick coffee

That's the photos all used up - now what else happened? Well, there's the almost daily Zoom calls, of course:

• Tuesday coffee morning chat
• Wednesday CAMRA (fortnightly) social
• Thursday Barry, Helen & Dawn
• Friday - Former Footballers' social

Plus occasional old school reunions (last Saturday), Headbangs every 6 weeks and monthly River Dee Radio meetings, not to forget weekly FaceTime calls with Kelly and Lucy.

Zoom and my radio shows have kept me sane throughout, but I feel it's been a lot easier during the lovely summer we had this year when outdoor activities like walking, cycling and golf have been easy to arrange. Winter could be more of a challenge. To that end, Jo and I are going to start venturing out a little - Government restrictions permitting. Since returning from Australia just as the UK was going in to lockdown in March, barring one night I spent at Grantown on a golf trip, Jo and I haven't stayed anywhere else but home, but next week, we're planning to take our first baby steps with a night away at a hotel in Dunkeld.

We've also booked an afternoon tea at a hotel on Speyside next month and a night in St. Andrews after Christmas. It's not a lot and certainly nowhere near the travel we would normally do each year, but it's a small start which will hopefully build up our confidence in the safety and security of select hospitality venues.

One other activity that now consumes a bit of time each day is Pilates. The recent results from my blood tests were satisfactory but I've been getting spasmodic sharp back pains for 9 months or so now. I filled in an online consultation with our local medical practice and one of the doctors phoned me back to discuss the issue. The conclusion he came to was that it was the ageing process that was causing the issue, suggesting that tiny bone spurs start to appear on your spine as you get older and, depending on which way you move, these spurs can pinch a nerve or two. He prescribed some pills but also suggested that Pilates might help, so Jo and I are now going online every day for about 45 mins or so of stretching and tightening our cores.

Continuing on the medical theme, we still haven't had our flu jabs this year and were getting concerned we had been overlooked somehow, as everybody else we knew had had them, but just this morning Jo spotted a post on Facebook from our local medical centre, commenting on the errors and omissions made by the NHS in arranging jabs for the over-65's, and advising all those with surnames beginning with S to head down to the practice tomorrow (Tuesday) to receive our inoculations - hooray!

The hot news from across the pond is that Cade is now engaged! That and an operation to remove a rib - a lot going on just now. That's about all I can remember for now. Cheers.