Bits and bobs ...

A few items from a lovely spring weekend in Aberdeen:

We purchased our second car from friends that are heading back to Houston.  A nice little Honda Jazz.  Good car, reliable, comfortable and room for four.  It has a decent factory sound system as well, so that's cool.  It's also an automatic, which might be a little easier for any visitors to handle should they choose to be brave and drive off on their own.

And with the older Scenic starting to act up occasionally, it's nice to have a backup car.  

Had a nice dinner out with the Stubbs' yesterday, followed by the traditional game of back alley bridge.  The women kicked the men's butts again, this time even worse than before.  It's starting to get embarrassing.  Oh well.  I know I'll miss it once Bob and Vicki are gone in two weeks.

We spent the day today in the back yard, trying to get it ship shape.  It was looking quite pathetic next to neighbours fine, manicured garden, even though Mother Nature was trying her best to put some colour into it.  We bought some planters and plants, did some trimming and used the "lawnmower" to cut the grass back.   I had mower envy when we moved from Canada to Houston, where I was pushing a small electric and everyone else had these big gas powered machines.  Now I feel even worse, as I have to use a glorified vacuum to mow my lawn.  It's like a weed whacker, but with a skirt on the bottom that rides on top of the grass to give you a consistent cut.  Not cool, but gets the job done.  At the end of the day the yard looks great and we thoroughly enjoyed an entire day out in the sun.  

New rule:  always listen to people over 80.  We met the neighbour, Connie, this morning while unloading our plants.  She remarked on the day and the workload it looked like we had in front of us.  Then she told us to watch out for sunburn.  We kind of chuckled.  It was nice, but not that nice (we thought).  Now we're sitting here with our red faces, acknowledging the wisdom that comes with age - or the folly that comes with youth?

I'm also looking forward to another short week at work - I've got Thursday and Friday off because Hanneke and Jul will be coming into town on the back of their trip to Spain.  I'm glad that Aberdeen seems to be preparing to put on a good show for them.