More November

November so far has seen a few anniversaries - on the 1st of the month, it was my metal knee's 8th birthday, and then on the 5th of November, it was the 50th anniversary of Jo and I getting engaged. No photos of the actual occasion but here we are round about that time, attending a friend's wedding:

Another "anniversary" coming up tomorrow - it's a week since I shaved off the beard again - and now I look like this:

I expected a few comments, but only one person appears to have noticed so far - and it's definitely not my wife! It was my pal Colin's first comment when he saw me on Thursday before we walked up Scolty, but not Jo - nor Dawn, Barry or Helen on Thursday's Zoom call, nor any of my other football friends as we watched Scotland play at the golf club on Friday. Uncanny. These were the stages I went through last Monday morning before deciding to remove it all:

The weather continues to be amazingly mild - we still haven't even had a frost yet. Normally the grass in the Dee Valley would at least have had some early morning white on it - but nothing so far. The walk up Scolty on Thursday with Colin was another still day that turned out to be milder than forecast. I'd layered up, expecting it to get cooler as we climbed and windy at the top - but it was neither:

It was another lovely morning today (Sunday) so I went out for a short cycle along the Deeside Way and to pick up rolls for lunch and the Sunday paper:

Barry's fine after the surgery on his nose the other week, but Helen is still suffering badly from her broken elbow. It's almost 3 weeks now since she came off her bike. She had the staples and the stitches removed on Thursday but is still in considerable pain. Her hands are swollen and sore too, which is making it difficult for her to do the exercises she needs to do to aid recovery. Jo was telling her about the lymphatic draining lessons she's had from Lucy over the years. We could see the pain in her eyes at Thursday's Zoom:

We had the gas service men out again this week - the pressure had dropped again in our system and the heat wasn't reaching the top floor of our house. They came and drained the system and showed us how to re-pressurise it ourselves should it happen again. We'd been watching umpteen You Tube videos on how to do this but none of them were set up anything like our system. It transpires that there's not just two, but three valves that need to be opened - one of which was hidden from view. Now we know - but let's hope it doesn't happen again. Not that we've needed much heating so far, but we know cold weather is just around the corner.

November travels

Having recovered from another 2-3 day adverse reaction to my Covid/Flu jags (the 3rd time I've suffered), I was good to go last Monday - as was Jo - on only our second trip away from home this year. We'd done a one-nighter at Nairn a couple of weeks' beforehand, but this was a 3 night stay. We left Banchory on Monday morning and drove over to Oban, with a brief stop at Tesco, Dundee on the way, arriving early afternoon. The most immediate problem was parking - Oban is a nightmare, unless your hotel has its own car park, which ours didn't. Eventually, we plumped for paid on-street parking and headed off for a walk round the town. Up the hill to McCaig's Folly - it had to be done. As we climbed up, it started to rain a little, but we still had fine views of the town below:

The rain soon relented as we walked around the inside of the Tower (no longer a Folly, apparently), with fine views across the water to Mull:

On the way back down to the town, we walked along a street running parallel to a burn, where a local resident had made an effort to pretty it up a little:

Another near neighbour still had their Hallowe'en decorations up:

We had a couple of nice Fyne Ales in the Oban Inn then looked for somewhere to eat - not many choices on a Monday night in November, so we ended up just eating in one of the local chippies. On Tuesday morning after breakfast we had a few hours before our noon ferry departed. It was a beautiful morning and we took a drive around the area, taking in the scenery:

The ferry across was as smooth as you like and soon we were on the road from Craignure to Tobermory - the inspiration for Balamory:

After parking up at our hotel, we walked back down the hill to the front and had a spot of (late) lunch at McGochan's, after which we headed out on the trail north towards the lighthouse. At that stage, we weren't quite sure how far it was and with dusk approaching we thought we'd better play it safe and head back to the hotel where we checked in and settled in to our room, which had a beautiful view over the town and the water. The hotel had a large, very welcoming fire at reception with a beautiful sheepdog lying peacefully beside it - idyllic. Dinner later then we settled down for the night. Breakfast in the beautiful conservatory dining room watching the sun coming up was delightful:

The morning walk up the hill to the local Isle of Mull Cheese farm shop got our lungs working:

Then it was back down the hill to the chocolate shop for hot chocolate drinks before heading over to the Tobermory Distillery for our planned 11:30 am gin tasting session, which was good fun - just us and an Irish couple in the small room:

We thought it wise to walk off the alcohol and headed along the trail towards the waterfalls and Aros Park. The Upper Falls are particularly impressive:

It was a lovely day but 20,000 steps had finished Jo off, so dinner in the evening was very early and very light. Another lovely breakfast in an otherwise empty dining room as the sun came up preceded our departure on Thursday morning. We had decided to forgo the large Craignure-Oban ferry and take a different route home, which meant two smaller ferries, the first of which took us from Fishnish across to the mainland, and the second was the very short journey on the Corran ferry leading us towards Fort William:

Back home in Banchory we had plenty time to unpack, have tea and relax prior to joining Barry, Helen and Dawn in our regular weekly Zoom call, where we got a bit of a shock when we saw Barry and Helen:

(Apologies to all for the lack of warning that I was about to take this screen shot). Barry had just returned from hospital where he'd had further work done on the cancerous cell on his nose, but Helen was the worst off of the two, having fallen off her bike 10 days' previously and broken her elbow. She won't get the stitches and staples out until Thursday this week and is still on painkillers. We hope they both get better soon.

Last week in October

Good morning all - Jo and I have just returned from our booster and flu vaccinations. I wonder if we'll get any reactions? The booster was Pfizer this time (having had AZ the first two) so I asked them to put it in my right arm for a change, with the flu jag going in the left. I've now got a busy day in front of me - soon I have to drive in to Aberdeen and take my car in for its annual service. The last time I took it to Arnold Clark (for some non-routine work) was when I had my little incident with my bike - so will I take my bike with me today? Probably not, erring on the side of caution, but there's nowhere to walk round there so what am I going to do for 3 hours or so? We've got Luca with us for a few days and I'm taking him to his football training in Kemnay tonight. I watched his match on Saturday against his old team Colony Park (lost 1-3) and then brought him over to Banchory after a quick lunch at Inverurie Garden Centre. He's getting big - here's a photo Gary sent me from his previous match:

Our weekly Zoom calls with Barry, Helen and Dawn continue. Last week Dawn was heading to bed as soon as we finished as she had an early morning start on the Friday as she was accompanying Lauren down to London for another check-up on her dental work. Dawn had to miss the week before as she was out with Lauren, Malcolm and Jordon on the eve of the latter's birthday:

Jo and I had our first night away for over a year when we drove up to Nairn for the Bandstand Hotel's beer festival. We bumped in to CAMRA colleague Richard Jones and his wife, Donna and joined them in the nearby Havelock Hotel for a couple of beers:

The view from our hotel dining room and bedroom:

Jo's been working on our rockery at the front of the house recently:

We're really pleased that Australia appears to be catching up on their vaccination programme and are planning to open up their borders gradually, but as cases are still rising in the UK we have to remain cautious, although thankfully our triple vaccinations will hopefully save us from some of the worst effects should we be unfortunate enough to contract the virus. There's still a fair amount of hassle (and cost) with international travel which will hopefully ease in 2022 and allow us to return to Australia - and USA, where we still have our Air Miles bookings for May next year - although we've already had to cancel these flights 4 times - September, 2020 then March, 2021 followed by June and then September, 2021. Fingers crossed for 5th time lucky!

Autumnal October

After some excellent weather in September, we are definitely starting to get a bit more autumnal now - at least in temperature. The leaves are, however, still on the trees and the experts are saying this is primarily due to the sunshine and higher than expected late summer temperatures. We're sitting here at home now with no heating or hot water - our boiler seems to have broken down - possibly the pump. We had a plumber out last Monday and he had to turn all the water off. Since then, the system has been gurgling away and no matter how often I tried to bleed radiators, it didn't seem to have much affect, so finally yesterday, I gave in and have called in a Scottish Gas engineer, who's due to arrive tomorrow (Tuesday). I walked up Scolty last Friday with Colin and, on the return trip we noted a field of wild flowers, which I couldn't quite get the right angle on to show nice it was:

Also spotted one of the lighthouse exhibits down beside the Dee bridge:

Other "arty" things going on in Banchory are the violin trail (now finished) and some interesting knitted tops on postboxes:

By the way, my leg has finally healed up after my mid-August tumble from my bike. Last week I spotted a writing desk/bureau on the Banchory Buy/Swap/Sell Facebook page and I knew Jo had always wanted one, so we went for it:

It needs some care and attention but generally it seems to be in good nick. Any restoration advice appreciated. Barry and Helen recently ordered some coffee from the shop that Ross now works at and they got a nice little note back from him - hope the coffee's OK as well! Barry recently sent me a photo of a Scout trip to Lindisfarne half a century ago - he's easy to spot:

That's it.

Update to mid- September

A month on and my bust nose is pretty much healed up - nice stitching job - but my leg is still an open wound - and not a pretty one. I'll spare you the photos I take every time we dress the wound but it still needs to be kept covered. We've had a couple of trips to Edinburgh with Ross' stuff from his Aberdeen flat. It was quite an effort for two old fogeys, repeatedly climbing up 3 flights of 19 steps each armed with as much as we could carry each time. This is halfway up the last flight with the door to Ross' flat on the left:

When we've stayed there, Ross has gone to work so we're last to leave his flat and Jo likes to ensure we leave it a little tidier than before, including making up his bed:

On our last trip down to Edinburgh we took a slight detour and went to see the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel. We'd arranged to meet Barry, Helen and Dawn for a spot of lunch - kindly provided by Barry and Helen - Glasgow rolls, a treat for us! Here's Jo and I at the Wheel:

Apart from all that, it's pretty much been business as usual. For me, the golf season is slowly drawing towards its close so the last few weeks have been pretty busy with outings etc as we try and cram in as much as we can before the weather turns. I stopped doing winter golf a number of years ago and don't intend to go back to it. I don't mind doing a bit of hill-walking or cycling as long as it's not horrendous weather, but golf - no. I'll finish with a few photos that haven't been on FB or Instagram. First, Lauren, who's been having major dental surgery:

Meghan was over recently on a flying visit to catch up with Dawn and her siblings. From Scott's recent hunting trip with his Dad:

That's it for now.

Mid-August update

Interesting times. No doubt everyone is fed up of seeing my damaged face after last Thursday's over the handlebar incident, but I thought I'd show some of the photos I took that morning. My car was in Arnold Clark at 8 am sharp for some work and, as usual, I took my (ordinary) bike in with me and went for a cycle while they worked on the car. Down along the River Dee, back to Duthie Park:

From there, I headed downriver and over the old suspension bridge where I came across my first sighting of one of the mini lighthouses in the LIGHT THE NORTH art exhibition going on across the North East just now:

From there, along to Torry and up the coastal path past Nigg Bag golf course and up towards Torry Battery and eventually I would have made it to (the real) Girdleness lighthouse. I was tootling along, taking photos and sending them to Jo at home:

The last one was taken inside the disused Torry Battery and just after I took it I walked up the short slope there with my bike to get a view of the harbour. Coming down, it looked a bit steep so I was sensible and walked my bike down there until it levelled off to what was a much gentler slope, so I jumped up on the bike and had barely settled in the saddle when I came to an indentation in the grassy trail where the front wheel got stuck, and with the forward momentum from the slope the bike reared up and I went straight over the handlebars. It was so sudden I never even got my hands off the handlebars and up to protect my face. The first thing that hit the ground was my nose and there was an explosion of blood everywhere. It's a fairly quiet area so I was fortunate that a couple were out dog-walking nearby and rushed over to see if I was OK. I could tell from the looks on their faces that my nose was busted up pretty bad and I could see my right leg had taken a hit too - probably from the pedal. The couple suggested walking over towards the golf clubhouse and they got me some dressings to clean me up a little and put a temporary bandage on to soak up the still streaming blood:

The girl did the bandaging whilst the man walked the dogs home to collect his car to take me to A & E. We tried the nearby Torry Medical Centre first but they wouldn't take me, so I was driven by my Good Samaritan over to ARI for treatment. He even phoned one of his clients (he's a personal trainer) to put back their appointment whilst he took me to hospital. The wait in A & E wasn't too bad but I was amazed at how many people came to assess or treat me - there must have been 8 or 9 of them at different times. The priority was a CT scan as I'd had a head knock, but once that was done, the most senior of the doctors had a look at the wound on my nose and reckoned it would need 8 or 9 stitches, but when it came to the experienced member of the medical team who did the stitching she said she thought she could pull it together with just 4 stitches - and she did. This was the before and after look:

The leg was a different matter - the wound was right on the shin bone where the skin is so thin and there was nothing much left to stitch anyway, so they could only put butterfly stitches on, which means it will take longer to heal:

I had wondered about how to tell Jo and not cause a panic. In the end, I sent a photo and some messages which hopefully made it clear that I was still compos mentis. My plan was to ride my bike across the city to pick up my car, which was now ready, but Jo insisted on coming in to Aberdeen to fetch me. In the end it was a bit of both as Jo then drove me over to Arnold Clark and I drove my car home - but not before we had some fun with the one way system and newly pedestrianised part of Union St. We await the fine and the photo of us in the bus lane then reversing back up a one way street! Quite an adventure but I feel fine, if a little sore still, and tomorrow (Tuesday) the stitches in my nose come out. Two days before this, Jo and I went back to Ross' flat in Aberdeen and removed all his remaining possessions and cleaned up the flat. There were two items that had to go to the recycling centre - an amplifier and a huge speaker. I was very grateful that Gary and Luca were around to do the heavy lifting - I certainly couldn't have done it on my own. Luca's a big boy now - he and Carole have just been down to Lincoln for Luca's cousin's wedding and Carole sent us this lovely photo of them:

Mary and Brian are coming up this weekend which will be the first time we've seen them in the flesh for almost two years. Jo and Mary have been making up for it every Saturday with their video calls, however, which started out at 2-3 hours and have now extended to over 6 hours! They start at 11 am and when I left to go to the pub to watch the football on Saturday it was after 5:15 pm and they were still going! When we were on our Zoom call on Thursday with Dawn, Barry and Helen, Dawn sent us a couple of photos of her recent holiday in the Lake District with her friends, plus one of little Avery when Meghan and Ellis took her for a little holiday - apparently she didn't sleep at all!: