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!:

August update

This blog seems to be taking a bit of a back seat - I've just managed to skip the whole month of July. I used to be able to keep this blog diary up to date - virtually daily when I was working but it seems it is getting less and less frequent. I suppose the rise of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have something to do with it - as has the time I spend putting programmes together every week for River Dee Radio. Anyway, let me attempt to fill in a few gaps in the story with photos that haven't appeared on other social media over the last few weeks. First, the coffee shop that Ross is now working at in Edinburgh - this was just prior to opening when they were painting the walls etc:

The next one is of the new furniture we got for the front balcony, having moved the previous stuff to the back:

Oh - did I tell you that we had put back our USA holiday again? We had originally naively thought it would be safe to go there last September (2020) as by then the pandemic should be over, shouldn't it? Wrong - so we re-booked for March, 2021 - that should be safe? Wrong again. We then tried June, then September - and now it's May next year. On every occasion we thought it would be OK to travel by then, but how wrong we were. I do sincerely hope we can go there in May, 2022, but having already had to cancel 4 times, we can't be sure. Fingers crossed. Avery - Meghan's little girl in NYC - is growing up fast. Dawn regularly sends us photos at our Thursday Zoom meetings. Here's one from a few weeks ago:

Last Friday (23 July) a few of our cycling group rode out to the Deeside Activity Park at Dess and visited the new Lost Loch Distillery facility there. It was a really hot day and when we cycled back to Banchory, a few of us were ready for a quick beer so we headed to the balcony at the golf club. It was so nice that I got in touch with Jo to see if she fancied wandering over - and she did, and we ended up having our meal there:

Over the weekend the news came through from Ross that he was making a quick trip back from Edinburgh to pick up some stuff from his Aberdeen flat and try to clean it up a bit as well. Jo had previously offered to help clean the place and so, last Monday (26 July), after some of the clean-up had been done, 3 of us partially loaded up my car and we all headed down to Edinburgh. We arrived about 7:30 pm in the evening and it was still 26C then, which is pretty hot for that time of the evening in Scotland, and we still had to empty the car and take Ross' stuff up all the stairs to his top floor flat just off Gorgie Road, near the Hearts football ground. We certainly had earned a beer or two so we walked to the "Diggers", a pub we used to visit 40 years ago when we lived in Balerno:

On Tuesday morning, Jo and I packed our bags ready to return home, but first of all we had to pay a visit to Ross at work:

On Wednesday evening, I had arranged another virtual beer tasting with my CAMRA colleagues. This time the beers had come up from Nottingham - organised by one of our regular Zoomers. Some of the flavours were pretty exotic - check out the descriptions - and see our votes:

Meanwhile, I've been re-painting the garden bench that sits at the front of our house. Jo thought the previous colour was a bit drab, so she selected this bright colour:

Looks like we'll be taking another trip to Edinburgh soon.

June update

Two-thirds of the way through June and I've just realised I haven't done any blog diary updates yet, so let's try and put that right now. Weather-wise, the month has been good so far - lots of dry, sunny weather - nice temperatures - only occasionally have I heard the standard Scots complaint about the heat as it reaches a relatively modest 20C. We've now passed midsummer officially, so technically the days start to get a bit shorter - although not noticably for a while. We had our second meet-up with Ross fairly recently when we went in to Aberdeen and took a stroll round from his flat to Queen's Terrace for a spot of lunch in the gardens there in No.10's marquee:

There is now a possibility of Ross picking up some work with one of his old pals in Edinburgh - fingers crossed. Jo decided our duvet cover needed upgrading:

Jo liked a picture she saw so it's now above the double bed in one of our spare rooms:

Luca had his first course (since he was a toddler) of laser treatment on his face to help reduce the residual reddening birth marks. It was pretty painful and his face was heavily bruised. Naturally, being a teenager, he didn't want to go back to school and face endless questionning - or worse, ribbing - about it, so Carole and Gary arranged that he could be home schooled for what's left of the academic year - so Luca's been staying with us for the last week. Gary came over on Friday night and we watched the big England - Scotland clash in the Euros. We took Luca back over to Inverurie on Sunday afternoon as he wanted to take part in his old team's end of season celebrations, which included a match between the boys and their fathers, which the boys won for the first time - and Luca scored what he described as a great goal. Gary's description of it was a little less effusive - maybe a sore loser? The bruising on Luca's face had gone down a bit by Sunday and he covered up the worst bit with a plaster. After the match was over, Gary brought Luca back over to Banchory - together with some gifts for Father's Day. Lucy had sent food and a t-shirt:

Recently, STV have been screening an advert extolling Banchory's virtues - check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGsWG2jAP8s. That's it for now.

May no more

After pretty pathetic weather for most of the month, finally May has improved in the last few days, and it's time for me to do a quick blog update. There have been brief moments of fair weather - one of them was when Jo and I went for a walk and ended up at Banchory Lodge for coffee:

We returned to Banchory Lodge just a few days later to have dinner with the Kilgours and the Masons - the first time for about 18 months. I had booked us in to one of the new sheds at the Sitooterie:

We left the door of the shed open early on but closed it later as the evening chill came in - it was very cosy then with the overhead heater on! On Friday, Jo and I did another (virtual) wine and cheese tasting with the Strong Water Company. Earlier I had been out on my bike going past the Falls of Dess:

That's it for now - we're off in to the sun for a walk along the river.

May misery

After the driest and sunniest (albeit cool) April for decades, we've hit the buffers in May, which has been very disapponting so far - particularly given the Covid restrictions are now reducing and everyone was looking forward to things like sunny trips to beer gardens again. Jo and I have made do with a couple more virtual beer tastings via Zoom, although I've actually had one visit to a beer garden for some lovely real ale - my first this year. It followed my first group hill-walk this year so at least we had adequate clothing with us, but my goodness, it was cold. It's been a while since my last blog post so I'll catch up with a few photos, the first of which were back in April when it was sunny:

Jo was doing some weeding and general tidying-up of what she calls the "cavity wall". The next two were one morning when we took a walk along the river:

Jo likes the Uggs that she got for her birthday:

Cade's bun is no more, but, before it was cut off, a photo was taken as evidence:

Dawn bought a pair of Birkenstocks for Avery for her birthday, but the sizes got a bit confused:

The Tor-na-Coille has got its beer garden ready - all we need is some weather now:

The seagulls are still a problem in our street - so much so that our neighbours have now copied our bird scarer, making four in all at our end of Arbor Court - and there's more at the back:

Health-wise, Jo's had her beta blocker changed as the medics now suspect that was what was causing her very low pulse rate - and possibly her high blood pressure too. We are complete opposites in that respect - my pulse rate is almost twice as high as Jo's but her blood pressure is almost twice as high as mine. Anyway, the upshot is that Jo is going through another period of twice daily recording to be sent to her doctor. I got the all-clear after my recent repeat blood tests. This week it was the elections for our Scottish parliament and Ross came through to Banchory to vote (he's still registered here) so that was nice to see him again. He's applying for jobs but employers are getting so many applications they don't even have enough time to acknowledge applications, let alone interview all the applicants, so that's almost a year now that Ross has had no income other than Universal Credit. We really hope this situation changes soon but it's hard to know how things are going to pan out.

Sunny but cold

It's been beautifully sunny this week but cold starts to the day - the golf course has had to have a delayed start every day for the last week due to early morning frost on the ground. Talking about golf, I had to pull out of my game yesterday as I suffered a bit of a reaction to my 2nd AZ vaccination on Tuesday. I couldn't sleep on Tuesday night and felt under the weather but thankfully last night was much better and hopefully that's my reaction all over now - although my arm is still a bit stiff and sore. Jo's been fine - she didn't seem to have any reaction. While on matters medical, Jo's 24 hour monitor has resulted in her having to go to the surgery tomorrow (Friday) for an ECG. Seems that blood pressure medication may be on the way. I've got my follow-up blood tests next Wednesday. Otherwise, apart from the scar on my chest after the recent surgery - I call it my funky tattoo - all's well. A sight that hasn't been seen on our driveway for 18 months or so:

Yes - 2 cars are back again. It took the garage a few weeks to fix up Jo's car and get it through the MoT. We're just waiting for the bill now - I suspect it will be a fairly big one. We took our main car - the Volvo - for a drive on Monday and went for a nice walk on a beautiful morning round Loch Kinord:

Planning on a cycle this afternoon as well - and another one tomorrow, this time with 3 of us. With restrictions easing we can have up to 6 outdoors now, but we'll be taking baby steps. Our next beer tasting is this weekend, timed to coincide with what should have been CAMRA's annual members' conference in Sheffield in the year of the organisation's 50th anniversary. It's now been switched to Sunday to avoid a clash with the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral. All the football fixtures have been similarly re-arranged - it just seems a bit over the top, especially as we hear he didn't want a big fuss made - no official state funeral, but it seems the media didn't want to hear that. The coverage last Friday was absurd, but it was good to note that Channel 4's Gogglebox had record viewing figures as it was the only channel not doing mass coverage of the Duke's passing. To close, a lovely photo of Asher on his birthday this week:

Spring is here?

It certainly looks like - and occasionally feels like - spring, but we're told that an Arctic blast is on the way tomorrow with snow and ice forecast - even to lower levels. Not quite the end of hibernation yet then, although Covid restrictions are slowly easing over the next few weeks and with our second vaccinations not too far away now, perhaps we can look forward to a brighter year than 2020 was? I mentioned beore that we'd cancelled all our short trips and I'm guessing it will be nigh on impossible to get replacement bookings for several months as apparently there has been a huge surge in "staycation" bookings. We have also moved our flights to USA again. Originally we were booked to go last September but we then had to put this off until March, then move it to June and now it's September. We'll see how things progress. It would be nice to think it would be safe for us to travel later this year, but we've had so many false dawns that we have to remain sceptical - although hopeful too. Anyway, here's a couple of photos of Jo's 70th that I omitted to post earlier:

Today (Easter Sunday) we'll be popping over to Inverurie to drop off Luca's Easter Egg. Later on this afternoon, we've got another virtual CAMRA beer tasting - this time it's a beer and chocolate matching. Who would have thought of such a thing? We're intrigued - and it helps pass the lockdown days. Here's what we'll be sampling:

The golf season has now officially started but the first month at Banchory has been disrupted a bit by the long period of ice we had on the ground in January/February, as a result of which we only have 16 holes in play and over half of those are on temporary greens. Still, it was nice to get back out there again on a bright Thursday afternoon. When I was away golfing, Jo took the opportunity to spruce up the flower beds out back:

Now for the medical report. Jo's week of recording her blood pressure has resulted in the medical practice now asking her to wear a monitor for 24 hours, starting on Tuesday. She's done this before and they saw no problem then, so hopefully it'll be the same this time. I got my stitches out on Thursday and the wound in my chest looks good and clean and seems to have healed up nicely. I'm due to book another blood test this week, 6 weeks after the last one. Like Jo, fingers crossed that all will be well and there will be no need for any further follow-up. That's all for now.

Septuagenarians

Well, that's two of us in Arbor Court in our 70's now. Despite not being able to go anywhere just now, Jo had a fairly busy birthday yesterday. After her usual long Saturday video call with sister Mary, her friend and former neighbour Anne Mason showed up with flowers and an orchid, then our afternoon picnic box arrived from the Birdhouse:

We managed about half of it - and we've started on the other half today. We toasted Jo's birthday with some fizz - Prosecco this time. Today, Gary and Luca came round after Luca's (non-contact) football practice and we had a spot of lunch out back:

Last night, we sampled one of the cocktails Lucy sent - Pina Colada this time - but we've still to break in to Mary's gift of gin from the isle of Raasay:

Prior to all this we also had CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival Winter on Friday when we attended a (virtual) tutored tasting of pale ales and IPA's. Too much alcohol? Possibly. Back to Luca - his latest football top is Manchester United's away strip:

On medical matters, Jo has finished her week of recording her blood pressures and has submitted them to the local practice. As for me, I attended hospital this morning and had the basal cell carcinoma on my chest removed - a very simple procedure, but as I have stitches in now for the next 10 days, I've been advised not to play golf yet, which is a pity. Otherwise all seems well.

Mother's Day post

It's Mother's Day in the UK today - Jo got a "Slabb" of chocolate from Carole, who, thoughtfully added a lolly for me so I wouldn't feel left out! That's Mother's Day sorted, but what can we do for Jo's big birthday next Saturday? Two years ago, for my 70th, we went on an extravagant, extended holiday, which included a circumlocution of the globe and a cruise, but there's no chance of replicating that this time - we can't even do a short Staycation yet. In fact, we were due to have an overnight at the Hotel du Vin, St. Andrews at the start of this month, but obviously that had to be cancelled - as did our trip to Oban and Mull later this month - plus afternoon tea at Craigellachie. All of these were Itison deals, so they have been cancelled and our account is now in credit. Hopefully we'll be able to do these trips later on. All we can do just now is get out for regular walks - thankfully the weather's been kind to us, as witnessed by this shot of Jo at the former Inchmarlo golf course:

Gary's got a new (to him) car so he returned Jo's car last Saturday whilst delivering a chocolate cake to me for my birthday. We got to see Gary, Carole and Luca in the flesh for the first time in ages - albeit briefly. Of course, Jo's car's M.o.T. was out of date so I've booked it in for this and servicing this coming Friday, which I've since realised is the same day as the start of the Great British Beer Festival Winter (our beers for this arrived a few days ago). Coincidentally, my car was booked in for a product recall and MoT on 1st March, which meant heading in to Aberdeen, so I took the opportunity to take my bike with me and cycled round Aberdeen on what was a beautifully sunny day. I headed over to Nigg Bay first of all to check on progress on the major new harbour project. From there, round the main harbour, Footdee, coffee at Inversnecky, along the beach and out to Brig o' Balgownie again:

That was Monday. On Tuesday, I had my first game of golf this year, with the course finally open after two months of being under ice and snow. Wednesday, of course, was Cade and Audrey's wedding which we were unable to attend in person, but we got some live video and lots of photos as well, which was some compensation. That same day, I had my appointment for blood tests as part of my annual review. I've since been asked to do them again in 6 weeks' time as one of the results (kidney) was (just) outwith the recommended parameters. On Friday that week, we had arranged a Sicilian wine and cheese Zoom session, which we set up in the study/studio/office:

There were Italian meats and olives to nibble on as well, but the biggest hits with us were the white wine (which we've since bought more of) and the olive oil, which really surprised us at how nice it was. Spring feels like it's here already - certainly everywhere on our walks we increasingly notice crocuses, snowdrops and even daffodils are beginning to bloom:

One other, not so nice effect of the onset of better weather and longer days is the return of the gulls. The last two years when we returned from Australia, we found seagulls had invaded Arbor Court and set up nests for their young. This year we had the chance of taking some pre-emptive action before they were properly settled in:

Initial results of these bird scarers were pretty good but we notice the gulls are back again - perhaps not so many and not so close this time, but they're definitely around. It's not as noisy as before but we've had our first "dumps" on our cars as they fly overhead. What are they doing here anyway? I got a birthday box of food from the Milton, courtesy of Lucy:

That kept us going for a few days! Dawn sent us another photo of Avery - apparently it was Ellis who did her hair this day!:

Jo and I took another short drive to Crathes to go for a walk on Thursday and I took this slightly unusual view of the castle through the gardens:

Saturday (yesterday) is sports day for me - football, golf and rugby - and Mary day for Jo. The sisters' online chats often last 4-5 hours! As well as watching the sport in my "den", I took the opportunity for another indoor Wahoo cycle and chose Oregon again - Cow Creek this time:

I've now completed 4 of my new memory shows, which are currently available as podcasts which I provide for the Forget-Me-Not Club in Banchory, but one of my old school pals has also sent it to his local Dementia Support group in Dunblane. So far, I've done this week in 1971, 1963, 1981 and now 1990. I get through a lot of stuff in this 30 minute show - TV, radio, sport, music, books, film and local, national and international events. Here's the link for the 1990 show if anyone would like to listen - https://www.mixcloud.com/River_Dee_Radio/that-was-the-week-that-was-4-we-10-march-1990/