I can see that this is now going to be a very occasional blog indeed as we seem to be very busy - or at least the time seems to vanish very quickly. I have been getting up to speed with the membership side of the golf club, as I have to get this year's renewals in the post by mid February. We are changing the system we do this on, so I have been doing trial runs to ensure that it will all work.
November saw the Golf Club prize giving dinner - sorry about the photo - I had had a drink or two, having won a couple of prizes. The t-shirt was a present from the ladies section! Roz was over that weekend and our table ended up winning the quiz as well (Roz also won a bottle of wine in the Lifeboats raffle). Bronwen was away on Quaker business and visiting her mum in the Lakes for about 10 days. The following week we had a supper for those involved in building our house - apparently the first time in about 25 houses that they had ever been invited to such a thing. We also finally managed to get the solar panel fixed - so now we haven't had any sun for a few weeks! The weather has been much colder than usual so our electricity bills will be high (if we ever get one - we switched to B Gas on August 5th and have not had a bill since!). We are getting plenty of use from our multi-fuel stove though.
Last week saw our first "free" flight to Glasgow to take dad to a couple of hospital clinics. They are free in that the flight and (I hope) taxis are paid for, but nothing else - they do contribute to B&B if you have a receipt. However dad enjoyed staying a couple of nights with his brother in Milngavie and I stayed with Pam in Cardonald. The flights were very good - lucky with the weather, but killing several hours in Glasgow airport is not much fun.
We are now gearing up to our first Christmas on Islay, although things are very sad here with the recent terrible road accident (see BBC News) which happened about 2 miles from where we are. So far we have had the bridge club dinner, and this week sees the lunch club dinner(s) and Bronwen is at some ecumenical gathering for lunch today. Roz arrives on Saturday, Pam on Monday and then Ed and girlfriend Sue fly in from the States on the 27th. So I guess this will next be updated after the festivities. I had intended to produce Christmas cards using the photo below, but somehow it just never happened.
All the best for 2009
