Saturday afternoon

Some of my birthday flowers - what with Lillies from Ian and these flowers from my buddy Sadie, the house has been smelling absolutely gorgeous!

Another week has passed by and I've no idea where the time has gone!

Monday? No brainer - swimming with the girls in the afternoon. Thirty six lengths followed by a cup of tea and a cinnamon iced bun at Costco. A guilt free treat :)

No walk to Woodend Barn on the Tuesday, I'm afraid - miserable weather :(
So it was a wee wander up to Raemoir Garden Centre who had sent me a birthday card with a voucher for free coffee and scones for two!
. . .  and no, I haven't had the free coffee or scone yet, forgot the voucher :(
Next time.

It was just Luca and I at teatime on Tuesday night - the boys were both out. Not quite in the same way of course seeing as Ross was out on a job and Ian was out of the country.

Still we managed fine . . .  tea for two :)

On the way home, as we slipped onto the dual carriageway, we found ourselves behind a car going quite slowly. My back seat driver says, "Overtake that car, Granny!"

Now I know that we are coming up to another slip road and I'm in two minds. If I overtake him as we go past the entry of the slip road, the car I'm overtaking wouldn't be able to move out if he needed to. Should I go or should I wait. My back seat driver pipes up again, "You can do it, Granny! Just go fast!"

I decide I'll be past him by the time we hit the entry so I go for it.
And as we pass the car in front, I get my verbal pat on the back, "Well done, Granny Jo! I knew you could do it!"

Whose the adult??

Luca's crocodiles made with stones :)

Ian arrived home on Thursday. Hurrah! I celebrated by eating six chocolates out of my birthday box :)

So we were a family again which was nice although I have to admit I was disappointed to have to move back to my own side of the bed :(

Ian did  very well. He'd been up all night but still managed to keep going all day. He'd had to endure a 5 hour flight to Glasgow leaving Turkey at about two in the morning and then he had a 3 hour drive back up the road to Banchory. Gruelling? I think so.

So today, I'm sitting in the back room blogging and watching 'A Hundred Years of Us' - it's a series the BBC have made probably because the  1911Census is being released on 5th April!!

We've just been talking to a woman who was one of the first folk in this country to get Streptomycene - is that how you spell it? - for TB! She was very interesting. She told us all about her time in the sanatorium. Her dad had taken her there and when he got her to the door, he took one last look at her, turned and walked away.

It's so good to see the daffodils in bloom again :)

Our wee daffodils just a.t the door

This host of golden daffodils - well they will be soon - at the Bellfield Park

And these daffodils are starting to bloom at the foot of Corsee Road

 This morning, I took a walk along the river to Morrisons - I needed to get out and and get some fresh air and the sun had come out. So I took my camera  and my rucksack and off I went -  got some good photos. I took some of the river which is still very high and flowing fast after the winter's snow.

The water has covered this path recently but just now it's just below!

Sunday evening 27th

Another day done. Time to hit the sack - I am so tired.
Too many late nights I'm afraid.

I've decided I'll be fine once Ian comes home and boots me out of his chair. You see I sit here every night with my laptop on the little swing table, watch multiple 'who dunnits' and surf the net - in particular Ancestry and Scotlandspeople. Oh yes!! Fun, fun, fun.

I know - not fun for everybody.

Poor Mary got wakened at midnight the other night by my text message. I was so excited about what I'd found in the 1901 census that I had to tell her straight away. I didn't know she hadn't put her phone off!! Crumbs :(

The clocks sprang forward last night and yes, I did know but I forgot didn't I which is  how I came to find myself sitting in my jammies staring at Perry Mason at 9.30am thinking I had loads of time before I had to get washed and dressed for church!

So what saved me? I flicked on my computer and caught site of 09.30 at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

The church was decidedly quiet this morning - I don't think I was the only person who forgot :)

Sunday lunch today was Morrocan lamb at Chez Inverurie. And very nice it was too :) Carole is going to send the recipe to me and I'm really keen to try it out!! I might even treat myself to a tagine - oh yes!!

No photos from today, sorry.
So here's a photo of Ian and Kelly at Maggie Beers shop and restaurant in the Barrossa Valley. Happy memory! You see Kelly's lunch? Novel idea huh?

Friday 25th March

Viburnum Nudiflorum growing in a garden beside the Burnett Park

I took  this photo the other day while I was out walking when the promise of Spring was in the air. . . and it's still there although today we've had quite a bit more cloud and a few spots of rain. 
Ah well never mind, it could be a lot worse.
I'm heading off to bed now and would have been there at least an hour ago had it not been for 'Embarrasing Bodies' - one of my current favourite TV programmes.
The presenter went round Llandudno asking folk to choose which activity wasn't advisable - picking your nose or cleaning out your ears.

What would you have chosen?
The answer? Cleaning out your ears can be dangerous - you can go deaf if you poke too much whereas picking your nose will do you no harm whatsoever and can actually do you some good as the crusty mucus can irritate the lining of the nose!
There you have it.


Of course, they obviously haven't heard the story of the man who was in a collision while driving his car and picking his nose at the same time, I'll wager.

Friday18th March

Snow falling on Saturday while I sat cosy in the bedroom finishing Jo Nesbo's The Devil's Star

 Well it was a lovely sunny day till about half an hour ago and it hasn't quite clouded over yet so there's still hope. . . the wee woman in the dry cleaners was full of joy this morning and it was just because the sun was shining in the window. Please let this be the start of spring this time and not another of Old Mother Nature's cruel jokes!!

I know that compared to the folk in Japan, we've absolutely nothing to complain about. God help them.

But we are tiny  little creatures in the great scheme of things and I guess we all live miniscule little lives so the awful weather we've been having has made 'us wee folk' up in the far north east corner of Scotland all feel quite down.

We've had a lot of rain. This plastic basket was empty two day's ago

On Tuesday, Anne and I set out for our marathon walk - to us that's a walk to the Woodend Barn and back which in total is about six miles, I think.
 Anyway dressed for the cold, wet we set off.
 Why did we do it? Whose crazy idea was it to keep going and not stop after about a mile and take our coffee break in the Raemoir garden centre?

I'll tell you who!
It was that Anne Mason, that's who it was. And she paid the price! Whilst I was wearing a 'rain' coat, hers was 'shower proof' and as we took off our coats in the coffee shop, it was quite obvious who was wearing the 'rain' coat and who had opted for 'shower proof' as sufficient protection from the elements!

I was dry apart from my trousers. Anne was soaked to the skin. The lining of her coat was as wet as the outside. Blouse, trousers and underwear were all soaking wet!

It was cosy and warm indoors so she wasn't too uncomfortable but the hard bit was putting the coat back on again to walk home. Just thinking about it makes me shudder in sympathy.
A hot shower as soon as she got home helped but she reckons it took her hands till teatime to get the feeling back, they'd been so numbed by the freezing cold and relentless rain! Brrr. At one point on the way back, she confessed that the water was running down her skin inside her clothes!

Took some photos of Luca on Tuesday night. We wanted to let Auntie Lucy see that her little puppy Abbie dog had arrived safely. Luca insisted on finding it a wee bed (ended up in a pudding bowl) and we took it home leaving it sleeping on a cushion near the bottom of Luca's bed.

Luca with puppy in it's pudding bowl bed.

Ian was home early on Tuesday and having plonked himself down in his chair, the conversation went something like this . . .
Granda Ian: I'm thirsty.
Luca: I'm thirsty too.
Granda Ian: I think I would like a cup of tea.
Luca: I think I'd like Ribena.
Granda Ian: Whose going to make it, then?
Luca: I imagine it'll be Granny Jo.

This was before our time playing with his pennies and yoghurt pots ( he likes to share the pennies out between the cups), I suggested he count the pennies to which he replied in a weary tone put on specially while slowly shaking his head, "You count them because it's not my job, it's yours."
I wonder where he got that from?

Luca with his yoghurt pots

To finish off the evening, he confided on the way home,
"Your hair looks like broccoli, Granny."
I'd like to know where that came from too!

I found a good birthday card for Johanne's sixtieth birthday. She's the week after me. It shows a photo of a smiling woman probably from the fifties by her clothesand hairstyle, holding up a glass of clear liquid. Underneath it reads:
Now she had reached sixty and recalling her doctor's advice to eat more fruit, she popped off to put some cherries in her gin.
It made me laugh, anyway :)

Ok time to go. Thought you might like a record of the demise of an old friend.

The sad sight we were greeted with the other morning. The garage is no more :(

 Sun's back out again :)

Saturday 12th March

I was just wondering how these wee crocuses were doing now that they are covered in snow again.

Big sister, Mary had texted me the other day from Elderslie to say that she had driven through a snow blizzard to get over to Houston to let Julie get out to work. We're fine up here I'd been able to reply but not now! According to the weather map snow is covering the whole of the north and the west of Scotland.

I stopped in the supermarket carpark this morning, just to admire the scene. Huge snowflakes the size of 50p pieces filled the air, the hills across the river shrouded in a fog of snow. It was like an impressionist painting :)  

In the short time I had been in the shop, my car had been covered in enough snow to make it necessary to clear it off before I could drive home.

It won't lie for long. The sun's too high in the sky at this time of year. This pronouncement is based on a gem passed on to me by an old local many years ago.

Well at least I'm at peace. Yes, I did find the enthusiasm somewhere yesterday and am now sitting in a nice clean house. I've also changed the arrangement of the furniture in our bedroom and we are now lying east west as opposed to north south. I wonder if this is good or bad.

Now I'm off to have a bath. . . I know it's rather decadent to bathe in the middle of the day, but whose going anywhere in this weather, anyway.

I think I might even light some candles!   :)

Friday 11th March

Exercise this week?
Walked on Monday and Tuesday
Swam on Monday and Thursday

Result at WW on Thursday night?
Well, bear in mind, we have just passed through a birthday celebration.
I've put on a pound. . . I am now only a pound and a half under my target weight. Oh no!! If I don't get a handle on this, they'll start charging me again to get weighed and there's no way, I'm going down that road!

My weight loss buddy remained the same as last week which is disappointing. She has a target date to get down to her target weight by the end of May and I dearly want her to make it - apart from the obvious reason you know - she succeeds, going out at six thirty on a Thursday night is not much fun. The now defunct Wednesday morning class - the one we originally joined - was infinitely preferable but of course it's not an option now :(

So can I have some positive thoughts eminating from you to her over this week end? Please!
. . . "You don't want to open that bottle of wine. . . you really don't want to open that bottle of wine!"

Thank you :)

The house is a tip and seems to have been forever - it's really starting to get to me so I'm trying just now to build up the enthusiasm to start cleaning!!

Wish me luck :)

No photos worth taking today so here's one I took in Adelaide, in a pub!

Thursday 10th March

YOUR PARCEL ARRIVED, LUCY!

Granda Ian with his Christmas card from Braeden

I took this photo of Granda Eein holding up his card. He was tickled pink, Braeden, when I gave it to him!

Would everybody like to see the cards that Braeden made? Very impressive, aren't they?

This  is the one that Braeden made for Granda - can you make out his name at the bottom?

And this is the one that Braeden made for me and you can just make out my name at the bottom of it!

My first personalised card!

Thank you very much, Braeden!    :)

Very neat writing, by the way :)

GINGERBREAD MARSHMALLOWS

Sent from Oregon because having been bought as a Christmas goody, nobody over there seemed to like them!

But we did, didn't we boys?

Oh yes, very yummy!!