You could be forgiven for asking the above question because it has been a long, long time since the last blog. We've been busy enjoying a great summer and a fantastic spell of weather, getting out a bit more, socializing a bit more and becoming minor television celebrities.
No coincidence that our month away from blogging corresponded well with the running time of the World Cup. We enjoyed quite a few games. We really liked watching the US play, and Uruguay, and Holland, of course. Watching the English fail so miserably and the collective gnashing of teeth and navel gazing that followed each lackluster performance while surrounded by a half dozen English guys at work was almost as entertaining. We hosted a party to watch the Final. It was a blast even though the result went the other way. Good friends and good (mostly orange) food makes even a World Cup loss to a phenomenally low scoring Spanish side bearable.
We've had a couple of other things on the go as well. We got all dressed up and hosted a small wedding reception for our friends the day before the big game. It was great fun. Fiona is generally acknowledged as the Hostess with the Most-est, and she laid out quite the spread to accompany a champagne bar.
We've also done some walking, getting out onto Bennachie's little sister, the Millstone. As we so often do, we took a wrong turn and ended up adding an extra hour to our walk, but the weather was gorgeous, the views were magnificent and our hiking dog was good company. We may not be ready for Ben Nevis in a couple of weeks, but we'll give it a shot and see what happens.
In between all this awesomeness we had to throw in a little drama, so we decided to put my passport in the wash. I had been up at 4:30am the day before for a day trip to London, and when I got back later that night I just took off my shirt and threw it in the laundry hamper and went to bed. A load of hot whites later I was holding the tattered remnants of my passport, a mere 6 weeks before we are due to travel to Houston. After taking my 50 lashes we got on the ball and submitted a new passport application - thanks to all those that agreed to act as references! Hopefully the passport will come in soon so we can take a day trip to Glasgow and get my UK work permit transferred. I imagine it will all be sorted just the day before we travel.
The blog title actually has a double meaning. One of the pictures is of BBC TV footage of a crowd walking the Old Course at St. Andrews during last weekend's British Open. Can you spot us? We went with a friend by train early in the morning and had a pretty good time. We followed Mr. John Daly and his loud American flag trousers for part of the morning, and somehow kept bumping into Steve Stricker and Zane Scotland, who had his own groupies. We grabbed some lunch and spent the afternoon just off the 17th green (the Road Hole) watching the players chip out of bunkers and miss putts. It was a great experience, but I'm not sure that I'd go again. You really have to be prepared for how much golf you don't see when you go see it live. If you're at a tee box or off a green you get to see the stars up close, but it's hard to track the ball off of any shot and the time between groups coming through is longer than you think. But it is definitely worth it to go at least once ... if only just to learn how many of your favorite stars are smoking like chimneys during their round.
