I want a car as fast as this

A quiet week

I don't know how to describe it but it's been a really bad week - flat, dull. It's not that I've felt ill or there's something wrong - nothing like that. I'm not sure that it's even anything in particular. Just a general feeling of lethargy. The weather isn't helping. That's been dull and flat this week too. The clock change is probably what it's all about really, the dark nights and increasingly dark mornings. How SAD is that?

Mum and Dad's renovations!

Although we've been banned from the house due to the cold, I forced my way in today (Sunday) - well to be fair the central heating had been reattached on Friday! So I was finally allowed in. Better still, it was Uncle Ste's birthday so the plan was for a nice Birthday lunch!
I was SO amazed at the difference, it's hard to know where to start - the floor is superb - all one flooring makes the downstairs look HUGE.


Then there was the new door into the lounge - very spooky. Uncle Ste and I were thinking it was a bit like 'Through the Looking Glass' - there was a space there which definitely shouldn't be there - according to our minds anyway.









Finally there's the kitchen - wow! It's all very bright and sleek and the cooker is AMAZING - totally not like the kitchen, and then totally just right!!!
Some more pictures are ---> here

Boo hoo! Back home.

Well it couldn't last for ever could it? It was such a nice week away that it did feel like we were gone for more than a week. Good job really as I don't have any more holiday left until Easter. That's bad!
Our final day in Ballater was just a bit of a 'get up and get out' really. We had to be gone by 10am but by 9:15 we were packed and ready to go. We were going to stop in the village for a coffee but I guess in off-season, nothing opens much before 10. So off we drove thinking we'll catch something down the road in Braemar, which looks like a nice touristy place. Well, there were plenty of tourists , but although we drove round the place twice, NOTHING was open and this was around 9:45. Loads of nice looking shops (closed) but we couldn't even see a tea shop. Damn them. The road is pretty bleak. So on we went. The next form of anything we came accross was 'Spittal of Glenshee local services' we'll give em a try, we thought. Wooooah. How wierd. You dive through a bit of a village and then to the Spittal of Glenshee hotel (which *is* the services). First impression is of a bad mock up of Crossroads Motel - 1970s dark wood cladding. Going into the hotel you are met with a disturbing mixture of all that is bad in Scottish decor (tartan tie-backs) with all that is bad about a ski lodge (pine cladding). The staff are wearing kilts (oh yeah so it must be Scottish!) with polo shirts and green knee socks, most of the ones we encountered were Polish - although that's not unusual in today's hotel business. There were (several) signs on the bar which said

Glass of Tap Water 50p
Water with meal - f.o.c.
Water for medicinal purposes (small glass) f.o.c.

The whole thing left you feeling rather that you'd dropped into 'The Shining' or some bad 1970s horror movie hotel from which you'd never leave! Strangely I can't find any comments about it on TripAdvisor or similar websites - so maybe noone does ever leave, or the American tourists who stay there think it's twee. Who knows!? Anyway when we got back to Conrad & Michelle's and we told them we'd stopped for a coffee there, the 1st thing they said was, 'oh that weird hotel' so clearly not just us who thought it peculiar!

After a fabulous venison lunch (and a bit of a gamble on e-bay) we left for part 2 of the journey. Much better, we did it in 3 hours 45 which got us home just on 7 and gave us the whole of Saturday evening, and Sunday to re-acclimatise to "southern parts". Obviously southern in this context meaning in relation to Scotland, we do still live in Leeds aka "northern parts" in relation to most of the rest of the country!

Holidays 7

Friday - oh no - second to last morning in The Stables - can it all be coming to an end? It feels like we've been here for weeks! Today we got ourselves up quite early (7:30) after a good night's sleep on both parts, but after coffee both collapsed back into bed - Dan for further sleep and me to update the blog and more piccies popped up onto picassa.
Dan then suggested we go and have a look at a waterfall - good thought! So we checked out the map and found a loch with a waterfall really near to Ballater - called Loch Muich (pronounced "Mick") off we drove - Dan was delighted because about 6 miles of the road were single track and we could see very clearly what was coming along the road so a small 'T.M.' ensued. (T.M.= turbo moment) So off we bimbled down this track....and parked in the car park. There were warning notcies on the pay & display information saying not to go down to the lake without being properly kitted out! There was a 'short-ish' walk round to the end of the lake and back - about 3k - so we decided to do that. Fortunately we both do 'gear' so we did have all the gear this time. Good job! It was WILD out there. The loch sits in a wide flat bottomed valley and the wind must have been whilsting down there at 100mph! Some bits we could hardly take a step! Mega! Talk about blowing the cobwebs away. It took us about an hour and a quarter to walk around and at the bottom of the valley it was like being on the surface of the moon! Really beautiful. On the way home we drove to Balmoral throught the back roads, really gorgeous countryside. I can see why queenie likes it up here. The seclusion must be a relief.
When we got home we went for a cuppa and a scone in another nice local tea shop. The couple who run it are from Devon (22 years in Ballater tho') and were dead chatty, talking about the difference between life up here to down there. Very friendly!

Holidays 6

Thursday - well I know it doesn't sound like we've been doing too much but with Dan's sore neck and then the cough and sore throat, I'm conscious that we don't do too much to tire him out so we decided that Thursday was going to be a day at home. We got up about 10 and I made sausage, bacon and egg for brekkie. Then I tidied up the fire 'doins' from last night and Dan reset it. We read books and magazines and then went to get some more fuel for the fire. We mooched around a bit more then popped to the Balmoral Bar for a game of cards and a couple of pints of Guinness extra cold. Then it started to snow! Just a little bit....but it was nice. There were a few old chaps in the bar dressed in suits and black ties - there had been a funeral in the church - and it was lovely to watch them getting excited at the snow - '...ach isn't it lovely?' one said as he turned to the window. To be fair it was about the only thing they said that I could actually understand! Their accents were very strong. I wish I could have brought Dad here for a listen to see what he'd have made of it.
To round our lazy day off, we popped to the local Chinese so we didn't have to cook any tea! Now, there's a nice day!
(PS Picture is the 'surprising castle' mentioned in prvious post!)

Holidays 5

Wednesday - today was our 'longer' journey away from Ballater - we decided to drive through the National Park on the one road through the middle, accross to Aviemore. So, after a bit of toast and jam, we got en route. It was only 50 miles but, partly because we were enjoying the scenery, and partly because it's a mad wiggly road, it actually took us about an hour and a half! We came through some little towns in the middle of nowhere and came through some amazing scenery and the beginnings of the ski area.
For lunch we went to JJ's in Grantown on Spey - a bizarre little place in a bizarre little town. It took them 45 minutes to churn out some soup and a sarnie. 'New chef' was the excuse. I'm thinking how come you need a 'chef' to make soup and a sarnie? Never mind, we then did a bit of a nice tour round the smaller roads behand Aviemore - Loch Garten is the place where the Ospreys were that we wanted to see - only problem is - they're migratory and had gone for the season (they leave at the end of August) but we stopped there anyway - and I'm so glad we did - it was stunningly beautiful (see the pics) not a big loch, but still clear water lapping up against pine and various other trees....amazing place. I knew Dan was starting to feel better when I heard him say '...and the next time I see you, you'll be in my fire...'! 'Who are you talking to?' I said. 'The logs' he replied.
There wasn't really a circular route option for coming back so it was the same way again - nice to see it from the other angle though - including a most surprising castle which seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Gorgeous. Most of the drive was through scenery you'd invent for a movie! Honestly this place is stunning! I was pleased we made it back in daylight though as some of the single track roads were a bit 'challenging'!
For tea we went to 'La Mangiatoia' - a nice little Italian place in Ballater - the pizzas were fantastic and definitely the best I've tasted for some time. Another fab day!
PS oooh forgot to mention that we saw 2 red squiggles at the lake - they were too quick to snap but they were gorgeous!

Holidays 4

Tuesday - the days are starting to all feel the same and as I'm writing this on Wednesday night it's actually quite difficult to remember what we actually did! I'm pretty sure we got up....and had brekkie, oh yes I remember now, Dan had had a rubbish night with the coughing and when I woke up he wasn't in the bed - I heard him coughing from the next room. Poor him. We had a brief chat about plans and looking at the weather we weren't sure whether it was fit for wandering about (or whether we were, for that matter) so we decided to have a bit of a drive over to Banchory - a town about 25 miles from Ballater. Conrad and Michelle had recommended a nice place for tea and scones and we spotted it as we were driving through the town. We drove down a long path and this nice hotel came in to view at the end of the drive. The River Dee ran by the side of the hotel, it was a very picturesque spot. We had a nice lunch (omlettes & chips) then went for a very brief walk along the river during which we spotted a pair of herons chilling out by the river bank! We wandered back through the town and we went to the pharmacist for something to sort Dan's cough out. I was thinking along the lines of a chainsaw, she offered a cough suppressant. Ho Hum. We went to the pub for a swift pint of Guinness. We then meandered on home and got the fire lit - 10 out of 10 for the fire this time! Roaring within about 5 minutes! We've been talking about getting a real fire at home - how nice would that be?

Portrush 1

I know we're in the Cairngorms, but that's *this* week! *Last* weekend we were in Portrush for a nice weekend up there with Scotty, Michele, Sarah & Steve.
On the Friday it was touch and go as to who was actually going to make it to Ireland at all - 3 couples, converging on Portrush, from diferent starting points....Sarah and Steve flying from Heathrow to Dublin, Liza & Dan flying from Leeds Bradford to Belfast City, and Scotty & Michele, flying from Southampton to Belfast International. The logistics were...initeresting.
Spanner in the works no 1
Sarah phoned on Thursday to tell me that Steve had sent his passport off to the Aussie Embassy to get his Visa - this *would* have been good news (Visa finally sent) apart from the fact that he didn't have a picture driving licence and therefore no other photo ID. Damn.
Spanner in the works no 2
On Friday at about 11:20 I got a call from S&M saying they were stuck on the M27 and could I check them in online...yup, no problem I said. What time is your flight leaving at....11.50! Onine check-in closes at 45 minutes before departure and even though the flight was aledgedly delayed a bit, there was nothing doing.
Oh My God, I thought....are Dan and I going to be kipping on the floor in the Harbour Bar tonight!????
It all came together though - I got a text from S&M saying that they were on the flight, and one from S&S saying that Steve had got through security OK (noone even checked his ID) and we got on our flight knowing that the guys were all en-route. S&S had hired a car down in Dublin and were driving up to Belfast (Sounds convoluted but the cheapest flights from Heathrow to Belfast were over £200 each!) to pick us up on the way to the north coast. Even with the airport restrictions (no stopping in front of the building) we managed to effect the smoothest pickup without (a) having to pay for car parking and (b) stopping...well nearly...and we were soon on our way to Portrush - after a relatively uneventful hour, were were pulling up the driveway and S&M were pouring the wine and serving up the pies (nice one Michele!) which were our tea. Fantastic welcome.

Cute Dan

We stayed over at Conrad & Michelle's in Errol on our way up to Ballter, and just as we were getting ready to leave I was looking at the piccies on the wall of their hallway. Some nice old photos of family members past and present, and, I noticed for the 1st time, a child's drawing of the family. The time it was drawn must have been before Marina was born because Irv is depicted as a baby in the pram, but the others are all there....Vanora, Wilma, Conrad, Michele and of course Dan. Or 'Daniel' as Wilma has identified him, for it is she who drew the pic. It's the cutest little picture of him, and, I think, still a good likeness....what do you think???? It's a must for facebook!

Holidays 3

Monday - this is the 1st day (I think) that your holiday starts to feel like a *proper* holiday. No work, no hassle! Yesterday we had spotted the cute little station tea rooms which is in the old Ballater station building alongside the tourist information (it's a little museum with statues of Queen Vic herself getting off the train which she used to do on her way to Balmoral). So at 10 am sharp we were up and about ready for the big Scottish brekkie promised on the menu. When we got to the door there was NO sign of life! How disappointing. We concluded it must have only been Sunday morning that they did brekkie. So, we wandered round the village again (5 minutes) bought some bread and cheese from the posh little deli, got dominoes, a map and some cards from the paper shop and wandered back home to make our own brekkie. I looked at my watch, 10:35. Hmmmm, I wonder? I said to D, 'I'm just popping out to see if they open at 10:30'....and right enough the door was open! 'Wahoooo', I said as I walked back in 'what's that mean?', 'It's open' I said. 'Lets go'. it's a good job we went as quickly as we did, as we got the 2nd to last table in the place. During the time we were there they must have turned away 8 tables! I'm not surprised, the smoked salmon scrambled egg was DELICIOUS and at £4.25 amazing value for money as they seemed to have dropped at least a tenner's worth of smoked salmon on it! Really delicious!
After brekkie we came back to the cottage and lit the fire. D is getting pretty good at this now. He sat and read whilst I wrote a couple of letters. What bliss, it's such a luxury to hand write notes to people - I just never get the time normally! We decided to go out and post the letters then, as the post office is less athan 100 yards from the house. Continuing the stroll round the village, we popped into the The Glenaden Arms for a swift pint of G. Dan was very impressed by the Dyson hand dryers in the loos! We continued round the village and I bought a camera USB cable from the internet shop, and then some jogging pants for lounging around the house in (I've forgotten to bring PJs). After that strenuous day, we had to come back to the house for some of Dan's mum's apple pie, freshly made for us on Saturday morning. YUMMEEEEEEEE! Needless to say, I needed a nap after all that, so retired to bed for half an hour.
When I got up, Dan was...reading the paper in front of the fire. It's all getting very relaxed round here. We planned some TV to watch (a couple of documentaries we wanted to see) and made a nice tea from the leftovers and lovely fresh bread and cheese!
It's such a hard life being on hols.

One lump or 2?

Poor Dan, he's had a lump on the back of his neck the size of an egg for the last couple of weeks. The doctor says it's a cyst which has got infected, and in fact he's had this afliction a couple of times before, once about 4 years ago that I can remember and once on another occasion a few years before that which was, as they say 'before my time'. When we were in Portrush *last* weekend (more blogging on that here) we could see he was getting uncomfortble by the way he was holding his head a little to one side, and in fact it looked like he had a back problem, you know, when people turn their body instead of their head so as to avoid the pain, so I knew it was getting bad. Fortunately he'd already been to the docs and got 2 doses of antibiotic (because it took 2 lots to get rid of it last time) so it was a matter of taking the tablets, and waiting for them to take effect.
The lump got bigger and bigger and he was in increasing pain as the pressure got higher (see the 1st three pictures on the link below) it totally took over the back of his neck and goes up into the hairline - in fact you can see he didn't really have a neck - it sticks out rather than in when you look at it in profile.
The beginning of the end happened on Thursday morning. 'Something's happened to my neck' he said, and showed me the pillow which had blood on it. Euwghhh.
There was scar there from when it popped last time (which you can see on the 'before' pics) and it would seem that he'd managed to catch this somehow and it started to bleed. I washed it with antiseptic and gave it a blast of dettol spray and re-dressed it with a nice melolin dressing.
The next night it was clear that there was going to be an eruption as the pressure was building still (no let-up in the pain) and it had stopped feeling rock hard and had started to feel a bit squidgy.
D-Day (or rather I should say t-time) came at 5:30am Friday morning - 'It's splurged' he said - and as I took of the dressing, a stream of lava-like green and yellow stuff erupted from it. 'Phew that feels a bit better' he said. I was too busy running for the camera to feel too grossed out - and after taking the pics, I cleaned it up with some nice antiseptic wipes and re-dressed it. The next couple of days it's got better and better, still some rock-hardness in there but deflating more and more every day as the goo comes out of it. He's not been taking painkillers since the 1st eruption as the pressure started to reduce from that point.
Pictures (not for the fainthearted) ---> here.

Holidays 2

Waking up bright and early on our 1st full day's holiday, Dan got the kettle on and we settled into bed to read the papers. We mooched about a bit at home - I cleared out the fire and re-laid it - Dan faffed about a bit with my thinkpad to see if we could get connected. We wandered out into the village again at about 1:30 and settled on lunch in 'The Rowan Tree' a nice place on the main street with a 'tea room' feel about it. I had cock-a-leekie and D had the roast lamb shank. Simple tasty food, served beatifully with veg, massive portions, and at the amazing price of £7 each! We were very impressed and we'll deffo go back. We then did a little tour of the village again (it only takes 5 minutes) and stocked up on missing items in the COOP. The lady serving us was a bit mental so we got in quite well and chatted for about 10 minutes! It seems that all the shop-keepers are willing to spend a minute chatting to each customer. I think people have a bit more time here!
We got home and I, being in holiday mode, went for a nap, Dan was reading the paper and just chilling out by the fire. I came down after about an hour and a half to find him watching TV and being very relaxed. Papers EVERYWHERE. Ahhh yes that's what Sundays are for. Earlier we'd been to get some logs, kindling, coal and peat (yes, peat) from the local garage so Dan was waiting for me to put the peat on the fire. What a smell! It's wonderful.
After having decided to settle in for the night, we had just started watching "Charlie's Angels:Full throttle" when we heard a few fireworks go off. Damn, we were going to go to the town display. Quickly we made ourselves decent, and legged it out of the house. We followed some well wrapped up people who looked the part, through some side roads. Then Dan spotted the flames though the trees! A MASSIVE bonfire in the park! Excellent. You could feel the heat from about 200 yards away! Just as we arrived, the firework diplay began. We had a good 20 minutes of 'ooooh'-ing and 'ahhhh'-ing. They were great. When they were done we were just about to head back to the cottage when we realised there was a stall selling hot pork sarnies from a hog roast. YUM! Crackling and apple sauce to boot! On the way home we happened to fall into a pub and 2 pints of Guinness extra cold just seemed to find their way to the bar in front of us. It'd have been rude not to! Just as we were finishing up, Top Gear came on the pub's tv screen, so we legged it home to watch the boys having a bit of fun with clapped out cars accross Namibia. We were going to watch the dance-off part of Strictly Come Dancing, but Dan was so clueless as to who anybody was; that's Sam Fox isn't it - no it's Leiticia Dean, isn't that John Curry - err no I think he's dead (he meant Brendan Cole anyway!) that we gave up before anyone set foot on the dancefloor! Another chilled out day in the holiday zone!

Holidays

Well, I know it's been a couple of weeks since we last wrote anything on the blog but it's been a busy time! This week however we're on our hols and so hopefully we'll be able to get a few more notes onto the blog as well as catch up on in-between events!
So where are we? Currently we're in a lovely village in Scotland called Ballater - it's north of Perth and east of Aberdeen. Apparently it's where the queenie comes to church when she's at Balmoral (which is only round the corner). We're staying in a lovely little cottage right in the centre of the village which we managed to find on 'Cottages4you'. The basic search criteria were (1) a real fire (2) a pub nearby and that's exactly what we have got. Another advantage was that we could use Dan's Mum and Dad's place in Errol as a jumping off point - we did look at places which were much further west, but this seemed to suit us fine. 2 hours drive from Errol - it's only 70 miles!!! Wiggly roads and lovely views. We are actually in the Cairngorms National Park so great views wherever you look!
After leaving work on Friday night we drove up to Errol arriving just before midnight - we spent the morning with Conrad & Michele, and then at about 2pm on Saturday we headed on up here. The lady who owns the cottage was just leaving after having made sure we had loads of logs for the fire, and so we settled in to 'The Stables'. A quick unloading of possessions was followed by a run around the town to get some provisions. With this place being so close to Balmoral, quite a few of the shops bear the royal crest saying that they are providers of their produce to HRH Prince of Wales or Queenie herself. The crest things they have over their shops are quite impressive - about 3 foot high and all decorated in bright colours! I'll attach a picture at some point. So the town has a rather swanky old fashioned butcher from whom we purchased some lovely sausages & eggs. Then we were going to go to the equally swanky deli, but stumbled upon the COOP which we raided with a vengeance for goodies.
So that was us for the night - we got the wine open, and the fire lit - I roasted the sausages & we chopped them up and ate them like party food dipped in tomato sauce, alongside some potato wedgies I made! A perfect evening.