Xmas

First of all, Jo's flowers for Christmas and our 49th anniversary:

For the second year in a row we didn't buy a real tree but Jo made a nice display of the various artificial ones we have, including the one for the front room:

The rest of the room was a little less decorated than usual - a reflection of the times we live in:

The Inverurie Stewarts arrived on Xmas afternoon and we had a lovely meal then opened the presents - Carole seemed very happy with her raspberry beret:

OK - let's try again Carole - this time with eyes open:

Here's an alternative angle on the family photo I posted on Facebook:

God forbid, but we may need another winter lockdown if we're to get through these jigsaws:

Boxing Day - Gary was all primed for the traditional Banchory Fun Run, but he hadn't told Luca he'd be doing it this year too. A few grumbles at first but he managed fine:

This week, there's Luca's 15th birthday on Thursday and on Friday (Hogmanay) we have Colin and Johanne Kilgour coming over for dinner. Normally Anne & Leslie Mason would be there too but they'll be with Anne's brother in Crail this year. That's about it for now. I'll close with an image of Banchory I saw on Facebook. It's not a perspective I've seen before:

Mid-December

Since my last post, we've had one more storm (Barra) which didn't really affect us, but we've also had two more, thankfully fairly short, power cuts. We took a brief trip down to Edinburgh to see Ross last week. We took the bus from Gorgie in to the city centre, which was mobbed - we discovered later that Deacon Blue were playing at the Usher Hall that night and it was the Edinburgh Xmas market too - no wonder there were so many people milling around. We walked the full length of Rose St and eventually settled for a couple of pints in the Abbotsford, which has a fine gantry and a colourful ceiling:

We ate at Wagamamma's on St. Andrew's Square again. The following morning, we drove Ross along to his work before Jo and I headed north again:

Changing subjects, somebody recently posted this on the Banchory Heritage site:

Golf club prizegiving 1990. I think it's been that long since I won anything! We did get a bit of snow one day recently, but it barely covered the ground:

Jo ordered a flatpack console which I eventually managed to put together - nearly 200 pieces in all:

At one of our recent Zoom sessions with Dawn, she sent us a photo of her new hat:

Saturday is match day for Luca but the weather last week wasn't very kind to him and he was drookit:

Our neighbours at numbers 1 & 2 have been brightening up the street a bit:

Kelly sent us a photo on Thursday:

Yes - it's the start of construction work on their pool! Wonder if we'll ever get to use it? I showed it to Dawn, Barry and Helen at our Zoom that evening. Here's some screen shots from then:

To close, those clever local knitters have been decorating the postbox on the High St again:

Winter has arrived

Perhaps I tempted fate in my previous posts about the exceptionally mild autumn, but we paid for it this weekend when Storm Arwen hit North East Scotland. We lost power at about 4 pm on Friday - just when it was getting dark - and never regained it until 8:25 am on Sunday morning. It wasn't a lot of fun but there are people in Aberdeenshire still waiting to be reconnected - some of them have been told it'll be Wednesday before this happens. This is what our energy distributor is currently displaying on their web site:

They may have reconnected 98,000 customers but there's still another 24,000 without power in what is the coldest spell by far since last winter. We were fairly fortunate - one little gem was Jo deciding recently that we should buy a little gas camping stove in case the Russians turned off supplies of gas to the West, as has been suggested in the media. This allowed us to have a hot meal - brisket and potatoes, washed down with lashings of wine - on Friday night, when, incidentally, I was due to host another Zoom Headbang. It was warm enough in bed overnight but pretty parky in the morning. No wireless, no internet and not even a mobile phone signal so we decided to walk over to the golf club for a coffee and to use their internet access. No such luck - they had some lights on but not enough power so we walked round the corner to the Douglas where coffees were available but like everywhere else in town, the internet was down, which also meant that card payments couldn't be accepted - only cash. Just one small problem - all the ATM's were out of action so unless you happened to be one of the few people who still carry cash (and we were) you were out of luck.

So back home we trudged. The next move was to jump in the car - nice and warm in there eventually - and drive to somewhere that might have a mobile phone signal to pick up any important messages, including updates from SSEN about when the power would be restored. We eventually found a spot at the highest point in Banchory at the top of Lawson Avenue. We were far from alone as other drivers with the same issue came and went. The news from SSEN was not great - it was going to be 10 pm before power was restored, so we just had to grin and bear it. We have a pretty looking gas fire in our front room but it hardly throws out any heat. We had to sit as close to it as we could and get blankets out to keep ourselves warm. Obviously, no TV to watch, but no radio either as none of our portables had batteries. During daylight, at least it's possible to read but once the gloom started to fall mid-afternoon, that was it. The next problem to hit Banchory was:

Fortunately, supplies to our house were not affected but we had decided to go out for a meal (and a heat) on Saturday evening, walking along to the Douglas where we were met with closed doors and a sign saying they had to close as they, like half of Banchory it seems, had no water supply. We then tried our local Indian restaurant:

Luck at last - it was open - and busy - and it had water - but again no card payments were possible. We counted what hard cash we had left between the two of us and figured we didn't have enough to sit in but we could manage a takeaway OK - so that's what we did. Back home - more wine as we cosied up to our little fire again:

We went to bed early again that night, hoping to be awakened at some point by the power coming back on - but it never did, so breakfast in the morning was quick cups of tea/coffee on the gas stove and back under the covers where we sat until, lo and behold, at 8:25 am the lights came on! I powered up our router and we were able to access the internet again. The first message I came across was another text apology from SSEN to say that they wouldn't be able to restore power again until 10 pm that evening - eh? Anyway all seems well now and we're (mostly) back to our daily routines. We are being told, however, to avoid all bar essential travel, so Jo had to miss out on her planned trip to Drumoak this morning for coffee with her pal Anne.

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.