Xmas Eve - Dave's 69th

For the second year in a row, group indoor activities like walking football weren't possible but some of us still managed to get a little bit of exercise prior to again enjoying Dave's hospitality chez Chapel House's carport. Last year, 4 of us walked from Banchory out to Dave's but this year the walk was just half last year's length - a fairly gentle stroll round the Capercaillie circular trail on Ballogie Estate. Jeb and I caught the bus and Dave (+ Ruby of course) and Ken met us at Potarch. The first bit of the walk is on good forestry track - occasionally a little icy in the middle, but there was always a safe track to take. When we took the turn uphill towards the trig point, things changed a bit as we were now in the middle of the forest and it was a bit like the Land of Fallen trees, several of which we had to detour round, over or under:

On reaching the cairn at the top, Dave produced a bottle of fine malt:

Here's our route and the stats:

The plan had been to get back to Dave's by 1:30 pm and we were almost exactly on budget, but we still weren't first to arrive at Dave's festive carport - Andy had caught the bus after ours and was sitting there awaiting our arrival. We had just started to get stuck in to the mini-kegs of Burnside beers when John and Ian arrived on their bikes. They'd had a bit of an ordeal getting through all the fallen trees in Slewdrum Forest, as evidenced by the photos Ian sent me:

There was now a large enough audience for Jeb to stand up and recite some poetry to us:

Jeb's step-daughter Becky works in the NHS and she has been jointly responsible for producing the poetry booklet "Smile with your eyes" which is being sold to raise funds for VaccinAID - a very worthy cause - check out https://www.vaccinaid.org/smile-with-your-eyes if you would like to help out - we all did. Poetry readings eh? Whatever next? Nigel drove in just after this, having had family driving duties to perform - this gave us the opportunity for a team photo, with Jayne doing the honours:

Later, Dave brought out a selection of malts, so it was time for us all to toast Dave on entering his 70th year. This time, I set the camera up at the back of the carport to take the smoke out of the picture:

With dusk not far away, John and Ian decided they should set off on their return journey - this time via the safer tarmac roads via Craiglash. Nigel offered me, Jeb and Andy a lift back to Banchory which we gratefully accepted. On the way, I phoned Colin, who had been unable to make it along to Dave's as he had too much to do at home. "Fancy a beer or two?" - "certainly" was the reply, so we met up with him at the Douglas for a couple of pints of Trade Winds before eventually all heading homewards. What a lovely day - many thanks again to Dave for his hospitality. Next year, he'll be 70 - that should signal a fine celebration.