Chief coat taker

Preperations are under way in our kitchen for the arrival of our dinner guests arriving tonight. Ka is once more Little Miss Organisation, striving as always to be the hostess with the mostess. As Ka cooks, I'll sit and eat pretzels until my mostly lowlier role of coat taker, barman and then dishwasher will come into play. I've pretty much had the same role in all house parties. When Mum and Dad hosted the Boxing Night parties for the extended family, for instance, I was always chief coat taker, until later, when Kenny and Lynsey were deemed worthy enough to take on the mantle. A thoroughly complex job, that involved a lot of trust, come to think of it. An untrustworthy coat taker could have easily rifled through anyones pockets!
The coat taker greeted guests upon arrival and helped take their coats and jackets off before then ferrying them to Mum and Dad's bedroom upstairs where they would be laid out in a tidy pile over the bed (the coats that is!). Then late night would arrive and relatives would be shouting at you to deliver their coat and you'd have to use your memory skills to remember who had which jacket. If your memory failed you, it would be down to your deductive skills to sort it out as in what coat would go with whose outfit. This train of thought did not always work out as I'll always remember some of the looks of incredulity when a drunk uncle was accidentally given someone elses coat to wear for their trip home. After some complaint they'd sometimes even measure it up for size. All the while my Gran watching from the the corner in too deep an arguement with someone else to interupt and ask why her coat was being passed around.
Fortunately there is only going to be five of us tonight. Maybe six, depending if Chaz turns up with his new partner. Ka and myself thought we'd better invite her in an effort to get to know her as we've only met her twice, (once in Ka's case). It would be a chance to test the water and suss out if she's good enough for the man from the Merc. What does she do for a living? Where does she come from? What films she's seen or books she's read recently? Does she have any kids? If she's thinking of a date yet? And any other questions you ask at dinner parties to folk you've don't know. If she does not seem very forthcoming a quick rifle through her coat pockets wouldn't go amiss.

Just a branch of science

Now we're on the countdown to the New Year. Wednesday night will be another hogmanay and another new year will dawn. We'll be spending ours in Glasgow at a nice Chinese restaurant and then a night at a hotel on Charing Cross. Makes a change from Paris I suppose.
Boxing night was good fun with the majority of the family gathering in Chapelton. The Reids, Sloans and Taylors came together with a few other friends and family to play, eat, drink and generally be merry. Playing involved a game called Partini which Ka and myself had bought Patricia and Tommy for Chrimbo. Patricia and Tommy immediately got the game open on receival and ran through the rules, sussing it out the best they could. The whole room was then put through an introductory game which was only getting warmed up when the winners were announced an hour or so later after reshaping play-doe, humming pop tunes to team mates, throwing balls at cups and listening to complicated sounding riddles. We then had a less complicated general knowledge quiz comprising of six rounds organised by my good self but only read directly from a giant quiz book. This was the best I could manage at short notice. I should know by now to turn up at these parties with a quiz set aside, just in case. The Boxing night quiz was mostly always my job when I was younger, from about the age of ten (or earlier maybe - I'm not sure). Half the assembled then made their way home leaving the stragglers to to gather around the stone table in the centre of the living room as Lynsey Ann fell asleep on the couch and James talked to his friends on Facebook via my Mum and Dad's PC for a couple of games of cards, Chaz acting as the main dealer. After someone else won (I wasn't paying enough attention) we made our way home in a hackney cab, my Dad, unsurprisingly, realising he knew the cab driver just as we were about to set off. My Dad must know approximately a quarter of East Kilbride's taxi driving population. He seem's to have played football with a good number of them. Some of them recognising myself and other members of the family on other occasions, knowing a Reid when they see one. I'm not sure whether it's the high foreheads, the silver/grey hair, the nose, the chin or a combination of them all. The Reid gene. Unfortunately I never really inherited the football side of the gene. The taxi drivers seem to nod knowingly when you jump into a taxi and introduce themselves as a football field position and a story about my Dad, an Uncle or my Granpa and are usually disappointed when I can barely hold a conversation on football together.
Woke up the next morning and was surprised to discover I had the Setanta channel until the 29th. Quite handy considering it was the Old Firm game. Sat and watched the second half of the match, seeing McDonald score for the celts. I doubted Rangers would be eating fast food that night. Afterwards we headed to the gym to run off some of the beer comsumed the night before. Ka and myself then relaxed for the rest of the day, taking a short break from Christmas get togethers by catching up on some chrimbo tv before heading back over to Uddingston on Sunday afternoon for another family meal, this time to meet Colin's new girlfriend, Gillian and two of the family friends, Roy and Tom. Roy, a jolly little fellow whom Dougie worked with up until he retired a few months back and Tom, a retired plumber with an exquisitely combed head of hair. Too exquisite, if you get my meaning. It was the first time Ka and myself met Colin's new girlfriend and she turned out to be very nice, friendly and, Ka was relieved to say, good enough to go out with oor Colin. I know what it's like to be the outsider in the McGarva household so I sympathised with the girl. Kidding aside, I had no need to, of course, as Dougie and Grace are always the most welcoming and generous of people, always going out of their way to make you feel at home. Except when it comes to scooshy cream. Dougie does not like you using his scooshy cream. On one of my first visits to the McGarva household for dinner, my cards were marked when I overstepped the mark with the scooshy cream when it came to dessert time. Ever since that day, at the third course, I've had the strange feeling of being watched, like a hawk, eyes boring into me, as I've made a move for the whipped cream.