April action

(Remember if you're viewing this by email, that it's better viewed directly on the blog - particularly the photographs - at http://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/)

There's been a gap of a couple of weeks again between posts, but I'm not losing enthusiasm for keeping my diary going - just been busy that's all.

My 3 consecutive days of golf when the clocks changed and the season started didn't work out too well - it was certainly one round too much for me, so I'll need to be careful next week in the Algarve when we're playing 4 days in a row - albeit in buggies. I squeezed in a couple of short cycles too, plus a coastal walk from Newburgh to Blackdog (see http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.co.uk/ for details and photos).

Dawn came up to Banchory on Saturday for a well-earned short break which finished yesterday when I took her back to Aberdeen to catch the Gold Megabus back home. Gary and Luca came over and joined us for a curry at the Derbar on Saturday night, then, on Sunday, Dawn and I went for a walk along the Deeside Way to Milton of Crathes, where we met Jo for a coffee and scones etc. Jo, still troubled with her hip - and back - caught the bus home from there, but Dawn and I walked up through Crathes for the long loop home.

On Monday, Jo, Dawn and I took a drive up Deeside, stopping first of all at Burn o' Vat -

The upper path was a little too precarious for Jo, so she had her own sit-in protest!

Looking over Loch Kinord

Next stop was Ballater for a spot of lunch in Rock, Salt and Snails before heading further up the valley to Balmoral where we decided to do the tour of the estate -

(Jo and Dawn aren't phoning home - they're listening in to the audio tour!)

We got back to Banchory in time to grab fish suppers just before Gary and Luca arrived. It's Easter school holiday fortnight and his parents are working, so Luca is with us until Friday night. On Tuesday morning, Dawn, Luca and I cycled out the Deeside Way to Buchanan's where Jo joined us for some lunch. Of course, being a creature of habit, Luca insisted we stop off at his favourite river bank at the Platties -

The slight gradient back up from the Way to the main road was a bit too tough for some -

After lunch at Buchanan's, the 3 cyclists headed back home via the Banchory Circular Paths. It's a pretty good trail, but there are a few bumps and, if you're not concentrating properly on the surface, it's easy to take a tumble - and that's exactly what poor Luca did. He wailed for a bit and we all walked the next 100 yards ot so, but soon we were all back in the saddle and made it all the way home, where Luca exhibited his war wounds -

On Wednesday morning, we all walked along to the village and this allowed Luca to climb up and slide down his favourite hill -

The video Luca insisted I took of him sliding down can be viewed at https://youtu.be/8Ncohq-4IjY. I then drove Dawn in to Aberdeen and came back to Banchory and took Luca up to the driving range to hit a few balls.

On Thursday morning, Luca and I went back to Inchmarlo driving range, but this time we cycled there. He hit about 80 balls and was pretty hot and tired - this was one of his better swings -

Tomorrow evening, Gary comes to pick Luca up. I'll be long gone by then - down to Glasgow to see The Who with Dick Taylor. It turns out Dick is a closet Who fan - he bought 2 tickets, thinking Theresa would come with him, but she wasn't interested so he asked me - and I was delighted to accept. Dick's driving and we're leaving at 1 pm and won't get home until nearly 2 am - a long day, but hopefully worth it.

Catching up again

It's been a while - over a fortnight. Probably one of the longest gaps between posts in this blog. I'll try hard to remember what's happened over the last couple of weeks.

We had Jayne Williamson's 60th birthday party at Finzean Town Hall on the Saturday after my birthday and, of course, there's been the usual rounds of cycling and golf, plus a CAMRA branch meeting and our biannual visit from our IFA to review our pension funds and do our ISA's for this year. Then there was Jo's birthday - Gary, Carole and Luca paid us a susprise visit - with cake - on Sunday night - and we got another one on Tuesday when we went over to Inverurie:

Not forgetting the flowers that arrived:

Before that, we'd been down to the Deeside Way to meet Gary at the halfway turn point in the D33 run:

Jo and I had a nice meal at the Derbar on Monday night - although we were the only people in the restaurant apart from those coming to pick up carry-outs. Last night (Wednesday) I attended the long overdue meeting of River Dee Radio helpers to try and sort out an organisation and iron out the technical hitches - many of them inevitable in a start-up community radio project.

I've also had to acquire another network drive to hold our data, photos, videos etc after discovering that the one we had (which had a 3 tb capacity) was apparently full - even although our files took up less than one-third of this space. It took some research to find out that the version I had didn't have a recycle bin that could be emptied, so every time we deleted a file, it didn't really disappear - it was just inaccessible! Grrrrr.

So, for the past couple of days, I've been setting up the new one and trying to make sure that everything is properly backed up - a tedious job.

Another "project" we now have is completing a 1,000 piece jigsaw that Colin Kilgour gave us. He got it as a Christmas present and recently completed it and has now passed the challenge on to us:

I dumped the recent brew - the 3rd in a row to fail. Don't know what I'm doing wrong - although this batch was past its sell-by date. I'll try and summon up the courage to try again some time.

The clocks spring forward this weekend, so signalling for me the start of the golf season proper - and I'm planning to play a bit more this year prior to heading off to USA July/August - always assuming my left knee stands up to the challenge. I'm hoping my daily exercise regime will pay dividends. The first test starts tomorrow - 3 consecutive days of golf. Wish me luck.

Post birthday post

(If you're receiving this by email, always remember it's better viewed directly on the blog at http://ianrstewart.blogspot.co.uk/).

Apart from our first Headbang of the year last Friday, there's not too many diary entries since my last blog post until my birthday on Monday this week.

Gary and Luca paid us a quick visit on Saturday afternoon - after Luca had been at his judo - hence the attire in this photo:

On Sunday I headed in to Pittodrie to see Thistle play Aberdeen in the cup quarter final. What a disappointment - the game was rubbish and Thistle lost. Double whammy.

Monday was the day I entered my 69th year and the day started with a FaceTime call from Down Under. We missed Kelly's first call, so she sent a couple of photos through:

We did get to speak to them in the end, however, which was a nice start to the day. Then, at 6 pm, Gary showed up unexpectedly - bearing gifts too - chocolate and beer, of course. It was just a quick visit, but he took us up to the Tor-na-Coille for a quick drink before disappearing, leaving Jo and I to have our planned meal.

The hotel is under new ownership but they've not changed much yet so it was pretty much as before - a bit dead, although the food itself was OK. When we got home, we had another FaceTime call - this time from Oregon - all four of the Lesinas were home early and wished me a happy birthday.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had another physiotherapist appointment. By now, my groin strain was much less painful, although I still couldn't do some of the exercises the physio had prescribed for my knee. Despite this, she said my knee appeared to be in good shape with the surrounding muscle built up a bit more. She gave me some more exercises to do but basically felt she didn't need to see me again. I agreed with her, but said that I hadn't really tested the knee out with many lateral movements - as in golf - and what would happen if my knee regressed again when the golf season starts? She left the appointment open until the end of April, by which time I should have a good idea of whether matters had improved or not.

One additional quirk I raised with her was the note on the pack of K-tape I bought on the internet, which advised not to use it if I was on blood thinners. She - and all of her colleagues - had never heard of this being a problem. Strange.

Over at Rae Circle, Gary had baked a lovely chocolate cake and we lit the candles and sang the song - if you want to hear it, try here - http://youtu.be/gGY6jjuiy0o. Now the photos

Typical camera shy Carole

All Inverurie photos copyright Luca Stewart.

Week 2 back home

Two weeks on and still no jet lag - amazing. Jo's not been quite as lucky - she's still tired a lot of the time and waking at earlier hours than normal.

The weather in the first 10 days after our return from Oz has been excellent - so much so that I played golf on both Sunday and Monday. We didn't have to go to Inverurie on Tuesday as Luca was away on a ski-ing trip with his school.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent in the Central Belt. We spent Wednesday afternoon at Dawn's. She looks after Kieran and Julie's Mara in the morning and we arrived just in time to see her before she went off to Nursery in the afternoon:

Barry and Helen had been down at the MG Owners' Club and the Caravan Club Show in the Midlands, but they drove back early and we took them to the Three Craws for a meal before spending the night at theirs.

On Thursday morning we drove over to Elderslie to see Mary, who's been suffering a bit recently with high blood pressure. She seems to be recovering now, however. In the afternoon we drove over to Edinburgh to see Ross and Lizzie. Storm Doris was forecast to wreak havoc over the North of England and South and Central Scotland but, although the M8 was very wet, we didn't have much difficulty with our travel.

Ross has had a terrible start to life in the capital. The job he was promised by his pal Harris has come to nothing and Harris is now winding up his business and has taken on a salaried job, leaving Ross to scrabble around looking for odd bits and bobs of work anywhere he could find it - but it's not the best time of year for this and he's struggled to get more than a few hours a week of low paid work.

Thankfully, just before we arrived at their flat, Ross got some better news with a couple of offers of more regular work, so we hope that's a corner turned now. With little or no money between the two of them and bills to pay, it's been almost impossible for them to have any kind of social life until now, so Lizzie's first impressions of life in Edinburgh have not been positive. We'll see what happens when their current lease ends in October, but we wouldn't be too surprised if they came back to Banchory.

On Friday, Jo went swimming with her pals in the afternoon, whilst I joined up with 4 of mine to go for a walk on Hill of Fare from Echt to Raemoir. I hadn't appreciated there would be so much snow this far north and the underfoot conditions at the top were very tricky, which led to me straining my groin and having to hobble for most of the second half of the walk, which turned out to be a little longer than planned at 15 kms:

A hot bath eased the pain a little last night, but today (Saturday) it's worse and I'm pretty immobile - no golf for me tomorrow. I had actually planned to go in to Aberdeen this afternoon for a CAMRA meeting - the annual one where our branch decides which pubs in our area should go in to next year's Good Beer Guide - but the bus I had planned to catch didn't show up and the next one would have been too late, so I'm sitting here watching the Scotland - Wales rugby international and listening in to the football scores. Come 5:30 pm, I'll need some liquid medication - although how I'll get to the pub, I don't know.

I've checked online as to what to do with a groin strain and they say I should ice it and strap it up - and take Ibuprofen. I'll start tonight.

To close - a photo of Jo on holiday wearing the new top she bought whilst we were away:

Back home again

It's Thursday afternoon - I'm at home, catching up with paperwork etc and Jo has just popped round to Anne's for a coffee. It's now 4 days since we got back on Sunday afternoon and I'm still waiting for the jet-lag to kick in. I can't believe it - I haven't really suffered so far. Of course, there's occasional bits of tiredness, but there would be anyway whether we had travelled long haul or not.

I think Jo has found it a little harder and certainly we have been going to bed a little earlier in the evening - the average so far has been 9 pm, but we're still getting up at 6 am. I even joined the Freewheelers on Monday's cycle and coped OK.

Tuesday was my second physio appointment in Inverurie - I've been given a new exercise and she applied some kinetic tape and has told me to go and play some golf and try it out. We had coffee with Carole afterwards - Luca was on half-term break/in-service day, so we weren't needed for the usual shuffling around. It was nice to see them again, however.

Jo was back at her swimming on Wednesday and I went out for another short cycle before attending the CAMRA branch meeting in the evening.

Our journey back from Australia went like clockwork - at least until we got to Fettercairn. Our driver, who I don't think had ever left the Central Belt, couldn't believe it when he saw the "Road Closed - Snow Gates Shut" sign. We had to re-direct him through Stonehaven and over the Slug road.

We miss Australia and everyone down there - and the sunshine - but it's also nice to be home again and we've been very fortunate with the weather, which has felt almost spring-like and it's only mid-February. I fear there must be further shocks to come.

Our house took ages to heat up after the heating being on a very low peep for 6 weeks, but it's fine and cosy now.

We haven't seen Gary yet, but we'll catch up with him on Tuesday. We need to catch up with Ross and Lizzie soon as well, but not sure when we'll be able to do that - and we're also due FaceTime calls with Kelly and Lucy too.

Queensland (2)

Carrying on where I left off, Wednesday was a local day - the hire car wasn't coming out of the garage. We walked over to the beach and along until we came to the centre of Surfer's Paradise, where we left the sand behind and jumped on a tram heading south to Broadbeach.

We found a fabulous, huge, upmarket shopping mall there and wandered around it for a while before heading back to the beach to wander back up north to SP. We'd seen the earlier warnings about no swimming in the sea due to the high wind and tides and also the warning about "marine stingers", several of which had been washed up on the sand. They were fairly small, albeit with long tentacles, but the ones we saw at Broadbeach were substantial plump things and we certainly wouldn't mess with them:

It was hot - time for a beer and a bite. We had spotted the House of Brews earlier, so we headed there and did the usual paddle of samplers:

The pool back at our resort was our next stop and we returned to House of Brews for dinner in the evening - after an aborted trip to Southport.

Thursday was a day for the car again - we headed inland up the steep drive to Tamborine Mountain - a lovely place in the rainforest with lots of things to look at and do. Our first walk was down to Curtis Creek to see the falls there:

Next stop was the glowworm caves, after which we strolled down Gallery Walk. Jo liked the German cuckoo/grandfather clock shop:

Finally, time for a beer - and there was a lovely brewpub, adjacent to a cheese factory and bistro:

The main event of the day was to do the rainforest Skywalk:

That was great - and we managed one more short sightseeing walk before leaving the area - Cedar Creek Falls, where there are rock pools for swimming - and jumping from the rocks if you're young and foolish enough:

Back at the resort, we resorted to room service for dinner.

Friday was going to be another non-driving day, but we didn't just laze about - we took a short morning cruise along the river, then did some quick shopping and went back to our room for lunch, using the cheese that we had bought in Tamborine. The afternoon was then spent poolside before our final night's dinner at the teppanyaki table at the Marriott Misono restaurant. Great way to spend an evening - memories of Benihana all those years ago in Florida with Jim Cowie and his family. Excellent Mojitos to finish off a fine day.

Saturday morning and it was time to finish the packing. Our flight wasn't until 20:45 so we decided to spend the day looking at the city of Brisbane. We parked our car up and headed for one of the hop-on, hop-off bus tours. It was another steaming hot day and we got stuck in a traffic jam caused by a road accident, but finally hopped off at the South Bank - as recommended by Chris. After a spot of lunch, we headed for one of the local brewpubs, only to discover that there were two of them virtually next door to each other. It would have been rude to have only gone to one of them.

We picked up the tour bus again eventually and then went to find our car - where did we park it again? No Sat Nav, so finding our way to the airport had to be done old school, but we got there safely in good time.

I'm finishing this blog after dinner on our flight on the huge Airbus 380 - upstairs of course. The internet is intermittent so I don't know if this post will make it or not - I'll find out when we get to Dubai.

Queensland

It's Friday morning on the Gold Coast and today's our last full day here. Tomorrow we drive back to Brisbane where we intend to spend the day in the city before catching our flight home at night.

Bringing the blog up to date again, last Friday afternoon Kelly, Jo and I decided to take the short trip to Port Adelaide for a couple of beers and to listen in to the Laneways Festival that was on from noon onwards. Our first beer was at the Birkenhead, where I took this photo of the view across the water:

Saturday, of course, was Chris' birthday bash at Sweet Amber Brew and that went well, despite the occasional shower. There was more rain on Sunday when we said our farewells to David, Lorene and Matt after brunch at Pilgrim cafe.

Kelly had taken Monday morning off and drove us to the airport for our flight to Brisbane. Sad farewells.

We picked up a hire car on arrival and drove south to Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast and checked in to the Marriott resort. Our first full day there was Tuesday and we decided to drive south to Byron Bay, which was Australia's hippy hang-out, but has now been gentrified as the middle classes and tourists moved in.

Our first stop was out at the point where Cape Byron lighthouse is situated. It's a beautiful spot and we walked down from the lighhouse to the beach and rocks, then back up again, which proved to be a bit of a struggle in the heat:

After a refreshing drink, we headed for one of the local microbreweries and had a lovely lunch there, after which we spotted this strange sculpture adjacent to a funky backpackers' hostel:

So that was Tuesday. Got to go now, so more about our Queensland trip later.

Friday afternoon

(If you're receiving this by email, remember it's much easier - and better - to view it directly on the blog - http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com.au/ - particularly when there's as many photos as this post.)

It's now lunchtime on Friday and we're waiting on Kelly coming home from work - she thinks she'll get away early today, and, if so, she might take us out to 50sixone (https://www.50sixone.com/), which describes itself as a Kitchen and Dessert Bar - sounds interesting.

On Wednesday afternoon, I retrieved my glasses from the cinema, then Jo and I walked out to Port Adelaide to do the short Kaurna Trail, which was punctuated by these educational signs:

It was a nice day for walking - not too hot - and we needed the 14,000 steps exercise.

On Thursday morning, I got back in the saddle and went for a 32 kms ride round the Port, returning to the scene of the emus - what was this one up to?:

We decided to take the trip down to Brighton to see Sculptures by the Sea. Train from Peterhead to Adelaide, then another out to Brighton:

I put a collage of some of the sculptures on Facebook, but here's a few more:

After a quick sandwich stop, Jo and I then walked the 5 kms along the beach from Brighton up to Glenelg, where we caught the tram back to the city, stopping for a quick beer at Lady Burra (http://ladyburrabrewhouse.com.au/) before catching the train back to Peterhead.

To close, a quick one of Miller and Asher last night: