USA weeks 2 & 3

This week - on Wednesday - saw our highest temperature yet when it hit 90 F - warm enough for Jo and I to hit the pool - the first time it's been used this year. This coming weekend brings Memorial Day - traditionally the start of summer. There are celebrations planned in Grants Pass - Boatnik (https://www.boatnik.com/) - but the weather forecast isn't particularly good. There's a front passing through and we're expecting some rain and temperatures dropping down, maybe to the 60's, before it begins to heat up again at the start of the week.

Hard to remember everything we've done these last 2 weeks - I've been a couple of short cycles and we've played a few short rounds of golf - plus one of pickleball (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqLRRNOpe8U). Those on Facebook will have seen photos of much of what we've been up to but I've kept a few back for this blog. Here's a few from our day at the ghost town of Golden:

USA - week one (part 2) - Grants Pass

Nice easy taxi ride to the airport and baggage check-in and security were a breeze so we had tons of time to spare - more than enough for a pretty full breakfast. The flight was on time - in fact, a little early, almost catching out Lucy and Scott who were picking us up. Back at Delsie Drive, we met Audrey for the first time and saw Cade and Braeden, like their parents, for the first time in 3 years.

It was Braeden's 18th birthday so he had the job of blowing out the candles on his cake:

Incidentally, the glass of red wine is mine - 21 is the age when alcohol is permitted in USA. Lucy had kept a bottle of Black & White for the occasion, so we toasted Swanson Renshaw - father, father-in-law, grandfather, grandfather-in-law, great grandfather and great grandfather-in-law to all present:

Incidentally, to get to his birthday cash, Braeden had to punch his way through these:

Tina, the "fat cat", doesn't normally come near anyone, but she made a beeline for me and then Jo:

Of course, we saw the dogs as well - puppy Philly for the first time, Buster, looking his age, and sturdy Shelby. 

USA - week one

 All went well in the run up to our flights - Covid tests passed and all paperwork completed. The following morning, we were all packed and ready for our 4.45 am taxi to the airport. Checking in and security etc were no problem and the flight to London was fine - and punctual.

We had time at Terminal 5 to visit the BA lounge which allowed us to catch up with breakfast. The new Business Class cabins on board the 777 were smart, the food - and drinks - were good and the flight smooth and timely. We even managed a few hours' sleep - making up a bit for the early rise.

Holiday preparations

Just over a week to go until our scheduled flights to USA - trying to get everything in order to try to make sure that we don't stumble over a missing piece of paperwork etc. We've booked our Covid tests for next Thursday so we're now trying to steer clear of people as much as we can - a kind of self-imposed isolation. Sometimes it can't be avoided - for instance, Jo has a hospital appointment next Tuesday and I'm trying to get an appointment for ear wax micro suction. I think I had an ear infection a couple of weeks ago and that was followed by a build up of wax blocking the ears. I've been self treating it but only been partly successful so I've now reverted to the medical professionals. I don't fancy taking a long haul flight with ear problems.

April update

It's been a long time since my last post, so here goes now with some photos from the last month or so. Jo and I made our long-planned trip to Peebles - this time for more pleasant reasons than our emergency trip following Barry's collapse. We had been booked in to the Tontine Hotel, where Helen and Barry had stayed on that fateful weekend. It's a nice hotel in a great location, right in the centre of Peebles High St, with the River Tweed just behind. Here's a night photo of the hotel:

We had driven to Peebles in lashing rain from Glasgow onwards - we had taken a slight detour to go and see Barry in hospital in Clydebank after his triple bypass. There was some pretty bad flooding in the Borders but we got there safely and had a very nice meal in the hotel restaurant that evening.

Fortunately, it was dry when we awoke on Tuesday morning so our plans for a short walk before lunch could go ahead. We made the short trip out to Eddlestone, parked the car and walked in to the grounds of Barony Hall Hotel:

There are a number of woodland walks around there and we wandered along some of the trails and then back to the hotel to have a look at the Polish map of Scotland. It's a large relief map created by a former Polish prisoner of war as a thank you to his Scottish hosts:

After a walk round the grounds there we headed back down the long driveway to the village for lunch in the Horseshoe Inn, a lovely gastropub. Later, back in Peebles, we took a river walk, crossing the bridges over the Tweed. Jo was taking her own photos by now:

Then it was time for our afternoon Prosecco cream tea in the hotel. In the evening, we paid a quick visit to a former CAMRA Pub of the Year, the Bridge Inn, then it was back over to the Crown Hotel for something to eat.

It was raining again on Wednesday morning, but we took a stroll along the High St. before we left Peebles, going past the County offices and a local mural:

We had arranged to have lunch with Ross in Edinburgh on our way home, but we took a slight detour and went to have a quick look outside Rosslyn Chapel, famously featured in the Da Vinci Code film:

For lunch with Ross, we drove to the Gyle, where we could find somewhere to eat with easy parking.The it was home again.

Barry's been making good progress on the longish return to full fitness.

Gary and Luca came over for Jo's birthday and we all went to Luca's favourite restaurant, the Derbar:

Lucy sent Jo a warm top to snuggle in to - it'll be very useful when we can no longer afford to heat the house:

Banchory's town centre postbox is again bedecked with a knitted top - this time the theme is Easter:

Spring?

February has come and gone and we're now in to what they call meteorological spring. Despite the short-lived storms and consequent power cuts, we've had a very mild winter - so far, at least. One constant reminder of the storms will be the devastation to the forests - the debris will remain there for years - there's no way they have the time nor manpower to clear them all. The focus has been on clearing the main walking/cycling/riding trails and the rest of the fallen trees will just lie there to rot.

Stormzy

We've just emerged again after another weekend of power cuts. First there was storm Malik which came to us from Denmark, closely followed by storm Corrie. We lost all power and communications at 9 am on Saturday morning and the early indications were that SSE would manage to restore it by lunchtime Sunday, but as we got nearer to that target, it moved dramatically further away to midnight on Tuesday. We decided it might be best if we just went away for a while so I booked us a room at a Holiday Inn in Edinburgh for tonight (Monday).

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.