Supersensitive Christmas trees

December arrived and disappeared just as quickly in a blur of visitors, bottles, baubles and disappointing television.
Never before has my life changed so much in such a short space of time following the arrival of baby Sophie Reid on the 19th November. Life as I knew it was turned upside down, spun sideways and then given a hefty slap from an overgrown halibut and sent flailing into a nearby canal.
Sophie has now been here for 6 weeks and we're just about getting used to it all now. I don't just mean the feeding, the nappy changing, the crying, the taking half an hour to leave the house, the boxing (yes, boxing) and the now seeming inability to watch television or read a book in peace and quiet. I also mean the simple fact that there's now a third person living in our house. A very small, occasionally noisy, occasionally troublesome, but always perfect, third person.
Sometimes I get up in the morning and wonder where the extra snoring is coming from. I'm used to Ka's snoring, but when I wake up on a morning and hear the quieter, more sniffly snoring from the moses basket, at the side of the bed, it sometimes takes me a few seconds to register.
Sleeping. One of those things I used to completely take for granted. If I had a mere six hours I would consider myself half asleep and incapable of having a fully conscious day. Now six hours is something I crave. The only hindrance to my potential beauty sleep used to be Ka's snoring, but now I have Sophie's snoring, not to mention her waking up at half past four in the morning demanding nourishment by way of a heavy shuffling from the innards of the afore mentioned moses basket before the wailing and squawking from inside it.
Why she can't wait another couple of hours or so until breakfast time I don't know? It's not as if she'll fade away! (I hope nobody from the RSPCC is reading..?) Hopefully she'll catch on eventually.
My two weeks paternity started on the morning of Sophie's birth, those first two sleepless weeks followed by another two weeks off on holiday, to 'enjoy the arrival' of the new baby in the household, apparently. Ka also required a decent couple of weeks help to recover as Sophie had been born via caesarean section which meant Ka had to relax for six weeks. No exercise, no lifting heavy objects, no sudden movements, no tidying, no polishing and no hoovering. I think the latter was enough to break her out into a cold sweat on more than one occasion especially after I bought a slightly cheaper Christmas tree this year.
The first Christmas tree in a good couple of years that didn't cost over £30 but which also, unfortunately, did not have the word 'needlelast' in it's title. As a result the tree now showers the living room floor with a barrage of needles when someone so much as walks past it.
Last week, on my first week back at work, I arrived home to find our Christmas tree half bald.
Now that Ka has recovered enough to get back to her usual hoovering routine she'd been doing some housework. Apparently, at some point, whilst hoovering around the Christmas tree, (one of those great traditions Kim Wilde never sang about), Ka managed to drop the hoover into the tree, thus completely shedding it of a large portion of needles up one side. The tree now looks balder than me after a trip to Shaky Shugs in the Village.
I'm sure Ka's telling the truth though and wasn't at all getting carried away with her reacquainted hoovering abilities. You just have to adjust a bauble and a whole pile of needles will shower to the ground underneath.
The fact we've had one of our busiest Decembers for visitors also didn't help matters. Visitors are great. They're brilliant. I love visitors popping by. Especially when they bring presents.
However, when there's a highly sensitive Christmas tree in the room things get a bit tiresome.
A good proportion of the family members and friends that dropped by to say hello, to give us their wonderful wishes and presents and see our precious new bundle of joy, all managed to give the tree a good inadvertent shake while they were in. Some would sweep their jackets from their backs, swinging them round their bodies, in the general direction of the dining table chairs, apparently not noticing the Christmas tree standing proudly at their back and the needle carnage they were causing behind them as their large coats and jackets attacked the baubled branches. As soon as the guests were out the front door and on their way home, after perhaps commenting on the needle loss of our tree, it would be another trip to the cupboard under the stairs for the J. Edgar.
Still, it's New Year now, so it doesn't have long to go.
In fact as soon as the bells finish striking twelve tonight both Ka and myself will be fighting the urge to immediately disassemble the whole thing.
We'll keep the tree up for the families visitation tomorrow afternoon for our New Year's Day gathering but we have no doubt the last of it's super sensitive needles won't last long during that onslaught.
Still, it had been a nice tree.
Sophie's first Christmas tree.
Up until Tuesday morning Sophie had a hefty pile of presents underneath, even though she has no idea what Christmas Day even is.
In fact she probably doesn't even have a clear idea what a day is, come to think of it.
Since Sophie has, as yet, no idea of the concept of Christmas, Santa, presents, the birth of Jesus Christ, getting up at a reasonable time in the morning, (etc, etc), there was no need to buy her anything this year so Ka and myself enjoyed one last year of buying for each other. We couldn't let Christmas go buy without buying our new born daughter anything, of course, so we did buy her a few toys and books which, again, were all vaguely pointless as she can barely rattle a rattle yet. So on Christmas morning Ka started unwrapping presents with one hand, presents that 'she only just wrapped not twelve hours before, holding a permanently disinterested Sophie in the other arm, who seemed to be more interested on where the milk was coming from.

Sophie's day consists of eating, sitting, greeting and then sleeping on an ever spinning cycle. A bit like some of the folk I used to work with.
The only activity Sophie gets up to at the moment is a little bit of foot kicking in her bathtub and the boxing. She will sit on her bouncer quite happily following a feed, for around half an hour at the most, and then start to get bored. Her arms will then start moving, then the legs will kick until the moaning then commences. The arms' movements will take on a more determined movement until it look as if Sophie's boxing a small, invisible opponent, from the comfort of her sloping chair.
The quietest, and the longest time she's lasted in her bouncy chair, had to be Boxing day when we watched a whole seven hours of animation. Pixar's Cars, followed by the dancing penguins of Happy Feet, swiftly followed by Dreamwork's How to train your Dragon. Okay, by the time the dragons were on she was boxing again, and I think it was myself that was watching Cars more than Sophie, but the dancing penguins certainly kept her eyes on the tv. Again, she's no idea what a penguin is, and I'm not even sure she can focus on the tv properly yet, but the movement and singing was obviously keeping her interested.
More than I was anyway. I lost interest in Happy Feet. Dancing penguins singing Prince songs? Give me a break.
Talking cars, now that's fare more sensible.
It's been quite an eventful year really.
Outside my own little life there's been some pretty major and spectacular events this year. The Olympics is the most obvious event which pretty much blew everything else out of the park. Bradley Wiggins became the first Brit to win the Tour de France. The Queen's Jubilee was commemorated with a procession down the Thames in the miserable pouring rain. Gary Barlow gifted the Queen a large concert on the doorstep of Buckingham Palace with varying degrees of quality acts from the past 60 years including the crazy skeletal dance of Cliff Richard and the spinning hula hoops of Grace Jones (thanks for that Gary). The re-election of Obama turned out easier than predicted, the death of Rangers caused Scottish football to begin its slow, painful death, Whitney Houston, Frank Carson, Jack Duckworth, JR, Neil Armstrong and the Gamesmaster himself, Patrick Moore also died (to name but a few). On the edge of space, Felix Baumgartner jumped down to Earth from 24 miles high. James Bond's 50th anniversary dominated the cinema. Chris Moyles left the Breakfast show, finally. A dog won a British Television talent contest. A shoddily written book made lots of Britain's middle aged women go a bit faint and unintentionally admit how desperate they all are. Another two nutjobs in America decided to go on a shooting spree making lots of other Americans rush out and buy more guns. Jimmy Saville was suddenly exposed as a child molester but escaped conviction on account of the fact he's long dead and nobody actually said anything when he was around. A loony dance from South Korea dominated the youtube channels and became a big hit at kids parties even though the dance moves are more than highly inappropriate. All hell broke out in Syria, the Euro collapsed a little more, and the Levenson Enquiry finally came to an end with some kind of result that nobody is now paying the least of attention to.
Personally, my little life continued too. The work's move (finally!) from Hamilton to the Glasgow Clydeside has now seen S&UN officially merge with the rest of Scotland's Trinity Mirror meaning the integration and merging of teams under one roof. What this means in the long term still remains uncertain but I'm optimistic.
Ka and myself bought our first, and perhaps only, house in June/July. With Ka once more up the duff we bit the bullet and bought ourselves our new home, moving on up the property ladder, leaving Your 'Manoeuvre' to continue to come up with excuses regarding our wee beloved flat.
Ka and myself took part in more fun runs for Sands, myself taking part in my very first 10k (okay, I know it's only 10k, but I thought it was an achievement anyway) and we had the great Charity Hat Disco Night with DJ William Rae which ended up raising over £1000 for Sands and Cancer Research UK.
Ka and myself enjoyed a trip to London before the chaos of the Jubilee, to visit Auntie Ann around her 'big' birthday, and took Adventure Ted, from Ka's nursery, along for the ride. That was the last time I remember the sun being out and it was in April, and in England.
It was in London that we learnt of Sophie's existence, whilst standing in the middle of Charing Cross train station.
We enjoyed another trip to the Edinburgh Fringe where I ended up on stage with Tim Vine and gaining another wife.
There was a family reunion style picnic on Elie beach in August, at which the sun was out, (so I was wrong about the last time being in London), and I managed to burn my forehead a rather spectacular primrose red.
We flitted a few weeks later, enjoyed a giant bouncy castle and a few house warmings, and then settled down to prepare for the imminent arrival of a certain Sophie Reid.
Blog writing time became suddenly scarce, pint drinking time even more so and sleep became the new nightly goal.
Now, two years after the birth and passing of our first daughter Lucy, things are perilously close to becoming a little brighter again.
What will 2013 hold in store?
There's only one way to find out...
Happy New Year to you all.

Googling garden sheds

At half past nine last Saturday morning I was standing in a very quiet Argos. Yes, Argos. The shop for lazy people. The shop for folk who can’t be bothered going looking for something but can be bothered standing and flicking through a gargantuan catalogue, writing out a number from the big book, handing it over the till and then proceeding to a waiting area where they then go on to another desk but only after your number has been called. Surely the only shop that still operates with not only catalogues but also pencils. Short, neatly sharpened pencils.
Whatever happened to the bookie pens? They must have been too expensive. Maybe they were too old fashioned? We are now back to the lead and wood.
That Saturday morning had been dry since we awoke so I had decided, since it was the day of the grand house warming, to run up to the retail park and purchase a lawnmower and get the lawns cut, just in time for the visitors arriving at three in the afternoon.
Along with having our own staircase, we now have our own gardens. Something else that is currently a novelty.
Unfortunately we haven’t yet been gifted with good enough weather to enjoy the gardens but as the grass had needed a cut and there was a distinct lack of rain in the air for a change I zoomed straight up to the local catalogue shop after having spotted the lawnmower at a good price on one of my web meanderings during the week's lunch hours in work.
Due to the busy workload of recent weeks I've found my break times changing from day to day so have completely lost track with everyone else's tea times and have found myself eating my sandwiches at the desk, all alone. Spending my lunchbreaks googling lawnmowers is not how I'd imagined things to change after my move to the Glasgow offices.
The other day I found myself googling Garden Sheds!
Is this how it all starts? Middle age? Googling garden sheds?
Surely it's too soon for all of that... but then I do need somewhere to put a lawnmower now. The garden shed idea has been temporarily knocked on the head anyway as they seem to be far more expensive than I'd first envisioned. Even in our trusty local catalogue store.
Ka and myself had visited the same Argos the previous weekend after seeing a baby bouncer chair online for a good price. We’d went along to investigate and found the item unavailable. The helpful, slightly over enthusiastic, wee woman behind the desk that served us asked if there was any way we’d been interested in a store card. We turned the opportunity down. The Argos lady then asked if there was any particular time we could accept its delivery from another store further afield. We decided against it after finding that the bouncy chair would have to be delivered on a work day. The Argos lady wandered whether we’d consider travelling to pick the item up. We shrugged and then told her it didn’t matter that much, we would pick up another bouncy chair elsewhere.
Obviously this was the wrong thing to say. The woman asked if there was any other bouncy chair of interest to us. We said no. She asked if there was any other item of interest to us. Anything at all in the massive catalogue. Again we insisted it was fine, there was nothing else. Now with a hint of desperation in her voice, the Argos lady asked if there was anything else she could look up for us, anything else she could do.
I had no idea Argos employees were on a commission. I wonder how much she would have got for a bouncy chair.
The same lady was behind the checkout desk when I bought the lawnmower on Saturday morning. A Flymo Easimo, complete with grass trimmer.
I have no idea about lawnmowers. This one had wheels, a blade and a collection box so it looked fine to me and my Dad also confirmed it seemed like a reasonable price when he phoned me up that morning. Being the green fingered expert my Dad is the guy to ask when any gardening advice.
Thankfully the lawnmower was available to pick up, there and then so half of the wee Argos lady’s questions from the previous week were not needed making her look a little disappointed as she started the payment procedure. The lady did try and talk me into some monthly cover payments but after some quick, fraudulent, consideration from myself, involving some unconvincing humming and hawing, I was off to the pick up point in the deserted store. It was obviously too early for all the usual Argos customers so I had the pick of the plastic blue/green seats at pick up point B. Clasping my massively long receipt, for my one item, I looked up at the television screen to see at which position my number stood at.
I was second. There was literally no other customer in the store so how I was second in the queue I don't know.
Still it was only a matter of minutes until the lawnmower was delivered. One of the young employees shouted my number out, even though I, the only person standing waiting on an item, was already making my way up to the pick up point.
And it was the wrong pick up point. The girl had planted the lawnmower down blatantly under the ‘A’ sign. My receipt told me I would be picking my lawnmower up under the ‘B’ sign.
Obviously I couldn't be bothered hanging around any longer than I had to so let them off with this, grabbed the large box and ran for the car, ready to cut up some serious greenery.
After a quick unpacking of various orange and black metal pieces and a short ten minutes or so of construction, a quick cup of tea, a piece and sausage and a conversation with Dad over the phone who was now warning me of the dangers of cutting wet grass. I’d never really heard of anyone electrocuting themselves whilst mowing a wet lawn but Dad insisted it happens quite often. Surely there’d be health warning about cutting lawns then? Would lawnmowers come with safety gear or a license if they were that dangerous?
Whilst Ka prepared the food for the housewarming guests I tackled the back lawn only pausing to empty the collection box hitched on to the mower’s back and to talk to the wee neighbour whose head appeared over the hedge at one point. Betty chatted away for around five minutes, introducing herself and eventually her husband, Malcy, (not sure of the spelling there!) who ventured out into their garden when he heard his name mentioned. Ka introduced herself from the back door, still in her pyjamas and polka dot dressing gown. After the giving us the lowdown on the surrounding neighbourhood Betty and Malky disappeared back indoors and let me finish the back lawn before I headed out to the front. Dad turned up halfway through my frontal assault to either find out if I needed a hand or to make sure I wasn’t electrocuting myself.
Whilst cutting the front I met the neighbour on the other side. An smartly dressed old gent by the name of Leslie whose getting his windows replaced by the council shortly, has a son and a daughter and an alsation dog whose getting a bit long in the tooth and will have to be put down. I didn’t quite understand everything the old guy said but managed to translate most of it. Ka introduced herself from the front door, still moaning about being in her pyjamas and polka dot dressing gown.
After Leslie had gone back inside I quickly finished the front lawn, neatly strimming the edges, Dad disappeared off to get on with his various gardening jobs dotted around East Kilbride and Ka got herself ready after finishing her work in the kitchen, finally taking of her polka dot dressing gown.
Before long everybody started arriving. Cherly and Roslyn were the first to arrive, with Cherly’s two kids, Eilidh and Orla. Orla, being a small baby, was immediately dumped into my arms, for practice.
Around half an hour later the front door didn’t seem to close. Coats were taken, drinks were given out and the washing hanging out on the lines in the back garden, which included my space invader boxing shorts, quickly taken in. There were more babies and kids than predicted and soon babies were being tripped over, wiped up after, kept entertained, fed or generally watched like a hawk and all within the confines of the living room and kitchen.
Nobody went outside.
The rain was off, I kept telling everyone, it’s not rained all day, let’s go out and sit in the garden. I’d spent half the day mowing the lawns and making the gardens acceptable for guests so it was the perfect opportunity to show them off, not to mention my hard graft from behind the spinning blade.
“It’s too cold” David, the nursery teacher from Ka’s work, shook his head, to which everyone else seemed to silently agree and chat on among themselves. All the hard work had been for nothing.
Tony and Suzanne could see my plight but after Milo got his boots a little muddy from running over the grass, they decided against it.
At least Milo appreciated the freshly cut lawns.
Resigning myself to the fact that no one was going to be sitting out on the lawn anytime soon I went into the fridge and got out another beer.
Around ten or eleven hours later, and more than ten or eleven beers later, Ka and myself seen off the last of the evening guests. Chaz and Pauline sauntered out into the street to jump into their taxi and we shut the front door for the last time and got to our bed.

A grand total for a grand night

I’d forgotten my raffle tickets. Once I finally got a chance to sit down on Saturday at DJ William Rae’s Charity Hat Disco Night, after around two hours of organising and tearing up raffle tickets, I realised I’d left my own raffle tickets at home so would have no chance of getting a prize.
The raffle tickets were selling well. A little too well, I thought, as I stood separating out the individual raffle tickets whilst people still arrived, queuing up behind us to get through the doors and into the busy, outside the Salmon Leap’s bustling, music filled function room in the hallway with Ka, Morgan and some of the girls.
Ka and myself had been down earlier in the afternoon and met up with Claire, Helen (Claire’s Mum), and Maureen (Claire’s Auntie). We spent a few hours blowing up balloons, tying ribbons, unloading all the raffle prizes from the boot and delivering Subway sandwiches kindly donated by the Bellshill branch. Now things were really kicking off as a seemingly non stop flow of people arrived for around quarter past seven onwards, some wearing hats and some seemingly too cool to wear a hat but forgiven anyway just for coming along to the Charity Hat Disco Night in aid of Sands, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society, and Cancer Research UK.
On the blisteringly hot Thursday morning I had went up my Mum and Dad’s loft and pulled down an old Mad hatter’s style felt top hat that I’d bought in a crazy moment in Prague when I was there on a field trip with the Art School. Perfect for the occasion. Dad came along with a black and white checkered trilby. Craig came along with a policeman’s helmet with a flashing blue light protruding from it’s top. Uncle Ian attended with his big Texan cowboy hat. Aunt Anne was adorned with a large Easter bonnet. Mark had a World War II M1 Helmet. Sparkling, glittering, hats in various forms were in abundance along with many wicker sun hats probably usually kept for BBQ’s in the garden. In the end it was our neice, Morgan who took the ‘best hat’ prize home with her large white, fluffy, big eared, googly eyed, bunny rabbit hat.
As we continued to work on the raffle tickets everyone else enjoyed the the rock ‘n’ roll bingo a game DJ Rae had came up with in his time abroad. Basically a bits ‘n’ pieces with cards, bought to participate, each card with it’s own table of songs which you had to cross out as a short clip of the tune was played.
As we worked out in the hallway outside, ripping and tearing, a loud bellow suddenly echoed throughout the hall, after a good number of music clips. Colin had won, along with Elspeth, a friend of Grace’s whose bellow for some reason didn’t seem to echo quite as much. Colin and Elspeth won a litre and a half bottle of Vodka and £25 worth of winnings which Morgan somehow ended up getting a fiver from.
The raffle tickets seemed to be neverending and when I was in mid rip of a raffle strip following the bingo, DJ Rae announced the buffet open to which we raffle workers just looked at each other and laughed. The buffet table was currently occupied by piles of raffle ticket strips. Nobody was getting any food, anytime soon.
After a quick location change to the back room, where fortunately there was still some tables left, Angela, William and Claire’s Mum, Helen and a number of kind volunteers jumped to help with the grub whilst raffle operations continued.
Eventually, with the help of a couple of other volunteers, we managed to get the tickets all ready and whilst the gathered crowds feasted on the buffet they were entertained by a great local singer who, unfortunately, was a little drowned by the surrounding conversation.
Eager to get on with the music DJ Rae called for the raffle knowing they had a job on their hands. The corner of the room was completely crowded in bottles, perfumes, envelopes and gift bags of various shapes and sizes. There was even a living room rug. Upon his first visit to the bar, Dougie had laughed upon seeing the rug on the monster pile of raffle prizes kindly donated by local companies and many friends and family.
Ka and Claire set up and organised the prize giving, handing the lucky tickets to William to read out over his mike.
It wasn’t long before allegations of raffle fixing were being called as Colin won again, this time a rather lovely bottle of Jamesons whiskey. Unfortunately by this point, Colin and Jillian had since departed for Edinburgh. Jillian was running her first marathon in the morning in aid of Sands and various other worthy causes. In her absence Jillian won a Sex in the City perfume set.
Mum was the only winner of her table with an Afternoon tea for 2, which whilst collecting, for some reason, DJ Rae attempted to persuade her to perform 5 star jumps. Apparently it would have made the gathered lads from his football team happy.
I’m not sure what that was all about or why the lads would be interested in seeing my Mum performing exercises? Nobody else had had to work for their raffle prize.
Among other prizes handed out was a bottle of Courvoisier for big Iain and Angela won a basket of wine, crackers and chocolate.
One of the last prizes to go was the rug. Dougie and Grace won that. A prize Dougie was not particularly happy to receive but did manage to stop at least two blokes from nipping away with at the end of the night.
DJ Rae got the music back on soon enough and filled the dancefloor with a few requests including Paulo Nutini for Auntie Anne and the Timewarp for Ka and myself (I’ll never live that down!).
After the Salmon Leap eventually kicked us out, a select few, consisting of the Mums and Dads, Chris, Jim, Pauline and Lynsey Ann all agreed to come to our place for a nightcap. The majority of the ladies managed to get a taxi with the buffet dishes, remaining prizes, the rug, and, most importantly, the two buckets of cash, one yellow for Sands and one blue for Cancer Research. Never before had I had so much money in my physical possession. Mum, Dad, Jim, Lynsey Ann, Dougie and myself left without a taxi had no choice but to enjoy a walk down the road, back to Kenilworth, taking in the night air. I had to make a brief stop as we approached the end of our walk, standing at the foot of a tree with a large black and white felt top hat on, taking care the passing taxis didn’t see too much of me from the road.
Back at the flat we enjoyed another drink but at around half past two, just as Jim started talking about work again, Chris signalled that it was time to go home. More taxis were called and everyone went on their way leaving Ka and myself to collapse into bed.
The next morning, unsurprisingly, Ka awoke first. Her first job – to count the collected cash contained in both the Sands and Cancer research buckets. The night’s grand total amounted to £1100.19. I’m not sure where the 19p came from, but every penny helps! A fantastic total, from a fantastic night for two fantastic charities. Well done to everyone involved and thanks and to all who came along on the night!

Good day sunshine

The sky is a brilliant blue over East Kilbride today. Who would have thought that driving around the streets of EK on my first week off could be so wonderful?
With the job still up in the air, Friday was my last shift for two weeks. I’ll have to pop by the office at some point during the next two weeks to attend an interview, but I’m free from the office during all the time in between so I finished my shift on Friday with a spring in my step.
Not only that but Ka was going out on the Saturday to her pal, Louisa’s, 30th birthday night out so I was free to do what I liked.
Watch what I liked. Eat what I liked. Drink what I liked. Go where I liked.
Until I remembered it was Mum’s birthday and something had been said about dinner on the Saturday night. So I gave up my chance at the remote control (it’s overrated anyway) and went out for dinner with Mum, Dad and sis, Lynsey Ann, to the local Steak house where we enjoyed a slap up meal and a few glasses of house red. Afterwards we enjoyed a few drinks in the lively Monty across the road where we took what looked like the last empty table, which just happened to be situated next to a table occupied by Mum and Dad’s old neighbours, from their first flat in the Greenhills, who were out with their daughter. Apparently I used to go to playgroup or nursery with their son. Memories obviously long fizzled out by alcohol abuse or age, or both. I did recognise a few faces as I sat in the bar though. Faces from school, long forgotten about, mostly deliberately.
All this while Ka was out on the town for Louisa’s cocktail filled birthday for which they’d managed to book themselves a booth in Mansion House and a couple of nice rooms in a central hotel by the name of the Alexander Thomson Hotel. There was a little uncertainty regarding the location after suspicions were aroused when some local ladies of the night were spotted in and around the hotel’s vicinity, perhaps attempting some arousing of their own. Not the kind of neighbours you wanted staying in the hotel room next to you.
I clambered out from my taxi, happy with red wine, and downed a cup of tea at around one in the morning with a slice of toast not forgetting to put the clocks forward by an hour and thus eventually begin the British summertime.

Since then it’s been blue skies all the way. Temperatures of 22 and 23 degrees. The green emerging slowly from the trees. The tops and t-shirts starting to get taken off at the first sight of the sun. Bikinis making appearances on the pavements again. The slamming on of the brakes as you turn to realise the driver infront has actually stopped.
With the car heater on ‘cold’ and the electric windows fully down to let some air circulate, it’s almost like driving around in a foreign country. The streets feel different.
Sitting in the flat with the windows open I can actually hear footsteps in the street outside.
Not rain. Not wind. Footsteps.
Neighbours walking by. The occasional conversation echoing up as they pass, their voices seeming to travel further in the warm, quiet street. Blue skies must be good for echoes too.
Bikes cycle past, their tyres whirring and ticking. The cars going up and down the road seem louder as if they’ve all souped-up their exhausts with those ridiculously stupid sized versions you see on cars roaring by with before breaking at the lights along with everyone else.
The kids are slowly emerging from the surrounding houses, out playing for the first time in months, like animals coming out of hibernation. Shouts and yelps echo around the street as they once more start to hang out, kicking balls about and hanging around the large hill of uncut grass directly opposite us which stands alongside the ruins of the old college that was demolished to make way for flats at least three years ago (needless to say the flats never turned up). This long grassed hill is particularly popular for sledging down. Not when there’s snow about though, no, that would just be silly. When the sun’s out and they slide down the grass on their hind ends, straight into the large, mangled, rusty old fence which stands at the grassy slope’s end. Hours of entertainment. Their Mum’s must have a great time with the Vanish.
The daffodils are out in force too. The front garden of our block as an abundance of green and yellow climbing up out of the usually weed filled soil.
Where did they all come from? Who planted them? It wasn’t me. Daffodils just jump up out of nowhere when spring comes around. Those pesky phantom daffodil planters must have been round again.
I’m sure the grey clouds will roll back in at some point though, casting doom and gloom over the days to come. I’d better just enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

350 friends

I spent three hours on facebook the other night updating my profile page to it’s new ‘timeline’ design before it’s forced upon me on the 12th of March. Suddenly that date is suddenly almost upon us I thought I’d better get it done before the wonderful programmers at facebook take it upon themselves to mutate my profile page and pick layout to their own liking, probably slapping some tagged picture of my mug up, massive on my profile, for all to see.
I haven’t spent such a long time on facebook for ages. In fact, I’m very rarely on. I usually pop in to wish Happy Birthdays and pop back out again. It’s great for keeping in touch with people you rarely see in day to day life, such as a brother in Australia. Drinking, partying, sky diving, bungee jumping, nighty wearing.
With the exception of the occasional brief visit, I’m rarely on facebook. Especially recently. Everybody on my home page, who I haven’t hidden from view in my preferences, seems to be having babies at the moment. Either that or just talking about what their babies are doing, in minute detail.
Before you think it, it’s not jealousy, I just have no interest in what a fb friend’s wee Baby had for dinner and why he or she (or it in some cases) looked so cute eating it. Some folk on facebook struggle to talk of anything else other than the latest movement or noises their baby is making. Do they have nothing better to talk about? Politics, sport, the war in Afghanistan, art, independence, cinema, the state of the block’s wheelie bins even? None of these subjects seem worthy enough.
If Lucy were around I wouldn’t be boring everyone that’s befriended me with endless stories of how Lucy belched at the dinner table.
Why do facebook have to keep modifying things anyway? They’ve been messing with the design for a while now. Adding bars, pop up screens, new newsfeeds, new buttons, preferences, scrolling effects.
And how many times do they need told that no, I don’t know that person that somebody else does and no, I’m not interested in gaining their friendship just because someone else is.
I suspect there are people that do aim for that though. You come across folk on facebook that have 350 friends.
That’s just not possible is it? How can you have 350 friends? I’ve got about 3.
Excluding family members of course. They’re friends whether they like it or not.
But then facebook friends and Friends, real friends, are very different things. The word ‘friend’ is a very loose term of phrase online.
There must be loads of folk out there that just add and befriend folk for the sake of it, just to make their friends list look attractive and popular. The place to be, like they’re involved in some kind of game to see how many hundred facebook friends they can get?
When I get a friend request from someone I don’t know from Adam (whoever Adam is?) I send them a polite question asking them who they are exactly and how they know me, just in case I have known them in a previous life and have just managed to forget all about them (if that was the case, would you even be interested in befriending them?). This usually gets ignored and I lose out on another +1 to my friends list, a fact which I do struggle with at first, but usually manage to come to terms with over time and persevere onwards with my life.
Twitter’s a good one for that. If it’s not complete strangers, it’s scantily clad girls in provocative poses (thankfully not involving sheep), looking at me hungrily on a profile picture telling me they’re now following my tweets. Then there’s the completely crazy followers you somehow obtain. Twitter emailed me one day, informing me that Coronation Street had decided to start following my tweets for some reason. Why Coronation Street was interested in following me I’ll never know (perhaps they mistook me for Norris or something?).
After changing my facebook profile page to it’s new timeline set up, I looked over it to make sure there was nothing too embarrassing on it.
How did facebook know when I got engaged? I couldn’t even remember when I got engaged! (because it was such a blur of joy and happiness!!)
A low profile on facebook is getting all the more unlikely.
The timeline documents the birth of my brother in 1983, yet there’s no mention of Lynsey, my sister, who was born in 1980 or all the other family members that have confirmed by a simple click that, yes, to their misfortune, they are indeed related to me.
Admittedly I do quite like the new timeline profile. It allows for a little more creativity for your profile page. If you’ve got a particularly stunning picture that you’d like to show off you can now make that you’re main, cover picture. My cover picture is not particularly stunning but it is a rather nice shadow photo of Ka and myself walking over Saint Peter’s Square in Rome on our Honeymoon (I wonder what my facebook timeline remembers about that?). Of course it just looks like a couple of shadows over a stoney ground on it’s own, but at least I know what it is.
Looking back, the old profiles were pretty boring giving you only the one smaller profile pic to toy with alongside the small photos that you’d either uploaded yourself or had been tagged in by other happy snappers (Jillian!).
But even the old profiles were a struggle for some.
My Mum phoned me the other day while I was at work. She needed my help. I had been attempting to tell her over Yahoo Chat how to upload images from her phone by connecting it to the computer via USB and then navigating to her device’s memory drive on the computer and lifting the photos from there. Mum had wanted to upload a picture of herself from her phone to use as her new Facebook profile pic.
Unfortunately she must have got a little muddled on the way.
I answered the call to Mum howling over the phone. I mistook the howling for crying which immediately made me panic and think the worst. After a few moments of a rather strange, undecipherable conversation, I realised it was uncontrollable laughter and with the few words I eventually managed to piece together what had happened.
In attempting to upload a new profile picture from her mobile she had successfully uploaded something quite different from the computer.
My Dad’s letter of discharge from the hospital, following his heart scare last year, was now her profile picture.
Jillian, who had been on Facebook at the time, seen this new update and clicked the ‘Like’ button assuming it to be a happy statement of rejoice from Betty for her husband’s good health, be it six months later.
Needless to say I had to log in under Betty’s name and sort it all out for her.
This was the same day my Uncle Jim left a Happy Birthday message on my profile page. Moments after I started getting a little excited about my birthday I realised that Jim had his Michael’s mixed up. It was my cousin’s birthday, not mine, which I quickly pointed out to him, just so he had enough time to give the right Michael his many happy returns.
My ambiguous, evasive brother, currently adventuring in Oz, even found the time to comment on that. When not exploring, working, partying and dressing up in nightys, Kenny has now decided to start jumping out of planes.
Now that does make a good profile picture.

Team Lucy

The Black Eyed Peas woke me up from my slumber, early on Saturday morning. It felt and sounded like Fergie and will.i.am were actually standing around my bed, belting down their microphones but, surprisingly enough, it only turned out to be Angela calling on Ka’s unattended mobile phone. It was half past seven and still concussed from a weird dream, I opted to leave the phone and merely shouted on the wife, telling her of her sister’s early buzz.
It was the day of our fundraising big Fun Run in Bellahouston Park, and after Ka had spoke to her sister, it was decided that Angela would come over to EK with Grace and Dougie in her car as she was unsure of the route to Bellahouston. This meant Angela having to follow us, on our twisting route through the hills of EK, as we were picking up fellow runners, Claire and Pauline, on our way to Glasgow.
After appearing at the door in her silver Vauxhall, Angela gave me a whistle from her driver’s seat, obviously liking the sight of me in my shorts, as Ka and myself jumped in our car to begin the journey on which I drove slowly and carefully ensuring my dearest sister-in-law didn’t get lost on one of the many roundabouts of East Kilbride.
We picked up Claire first, who left a teary Olivia behind with her Dad, and then headed for Gardenhall, and Pauline, who ran back into her house for a large pile of towels, unsure of the darkening clouds above us.
On our two car trip down the M77 Pauline took a rather urgent call from a slightly stressed Angela who informed us her tank was empty. So pulling off at Silverburn we made our way to the garage were we topped up our tanks whilst Grace decided to go for a wee wander around the pumps on her mobile phone. Colin was on the other end of the phone informing her that Jillian and himself had already arrived at Bellahouston Park and were successfully parked and ready to go. Ka and Claire quickly warned Grace to put her phone away in case of an explosion.
Old myths die hard and the possibility of an explosion caused by a mobile phone call in a petrol station is still, apparently, a possibility even though nobody has ever heard of it happening, anywhere.
Imagine standing innocently locking your petrol cap up when your phone goes off in your jacket pocket. Just as you huff and shake your head at the unfortunate timing of the caller, a tremendous explosion sends you, and all the gathered motorists, up into the grey clouds over Silverburn, in a rising ball of flame.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t warned of such dangers when I bought my phone and signed the contract.
Anyway, as we left Silverburn’s Tesco station quite safely, and without any fireballs created from Grace’s mobile, we made our way out on to the first roundabout, turned left and lost Angela.
Angela had successfully navigated the streets of EK, followed us down the M77 with care on an empty tank and was now, after one left turn, nowhere to be seen. We stopped at some red lights, that were taking us back out on to the motorway, where various urgent phonecalls were made, but, by this point there was no turning back for us and before we knew it we were approaching Bellahouston, Ka shouting at me about where Colin and Jillian were park in the street from the front passenger seat. Taking my own lead and seeing one of few spaces left, I pulled the car up in the park’s Sport and Leisure Centre’s car park where we piled out to make some calls and wait on a silver Vauxhall.
Both Claire and myself were in dire needs of a loo and, finding ourselves unable to wait any longer, we left Pauline and Ka standing in the car park with the phone whilst we headed off to find the sports centre’s toilet.
There was one of each just outside the café and Claire and myself stood in the small square room between each toilet, politely waiting on the slow occupants within, Claire just missing out as a family of three entered the female toilet just as we arrived. I tried the male toilet handle only to get a huffy shout from within. Claire and myself waited politely, myself shuffling a little on my feet, but trying desperately to control myself before the eyes of one of my wife’s best friends.
After a good five minutes a toilet flushed from within the male toilet. I almost punched the air eagerly. Another toilet flushed moments later. There was a click, and a turn of a handle. But it was the wrong handle. The family of three bundled out from the female toilet and allowed Claire access, leaving me standing awaiting the male door to swing open. Five minutes passed. Suddenly the toilet flushed once more from within. More waiting. Then it flushed once more and eventually a rather tall man in glasses, a luminous yellow jacket and shorts appeared from within.
“Sorry, had a bit of trouble there!” he let me know. “I was struggling to get that clear!”. I nodded with an uneasy laugh and elbowed my way into the toilet before the question occurred to me. What was he struggling to clear? I gulped nervously as I looked at the closed over toilet seat below me.
Angela, Grace and Colin eventually arrived moments before Colin and Jillian strode over from the other side of the park and we all pinned a copy of one of Lucy’s pictures to our backs, alongside our various charities logos. Colin complimented his Dad’s athletic figure complaining about his own jelly belly as he made sure he had his iPod and cigarettes for the run whilst I struggled with the clothes pins and everyone piled their belonging into the back of the car.
Everyone was running for Sands with the exception of myself. When I booked up I thought I’d be different and try and raise money for Yorkhill Children’s Hospital, just so they didn’t feel left out. So instead of Sands’ white short sleeved T-shirts, I was wearing the Yorhill blue vest, but over a normal white T-shirt. I didn’t fancy exposing my armpits to the gathered running masses.
Approximately 600 folk were present on the day and as we all milled around awaiting the run to start we commenced a general warm up on the park path behind the sport’s centre and the Run’s Start and Finish line.
One lady asked Ka who the little girl was on all our backs. Getting a little teary mid stretch Ka she explained about our wee Lucy but held herself together well as the woman immediately apologised and then commenced to give the usual compliments referring to our beautiful wee girl.
Steven, Morgan and Joshua then turned up waving from the side of the track as ‘Walk this way’ started blasting out from the starting line’s speakers whilst the warm up girls punched the air repeatedly with their fists, photos were taken and Colin gave more of his comedy breast hooter impressions. Eventually, at around twelve to thirteen minutes past eleven, we were off. The first few minutes were slow as the crowd got going, people moving slowly apart, finding their feet and their preferred speed for the first quarter of a kilo. As I started getting into a steady pace I suddenly heard a familiar shout from behind a fence to my right.
“Yoohoo!” Mum was waving from behind the fence, Dad walking up and waving behind her, appearing at the last minute to cheer us on.
Round and up Bellahouston Park we ran, over the large, grassy but pathed flat and then up into the trees and over the steep hill which took us up and round the House for an Art Lover, past it’s back portico which leads into the large garden and the Giant foot where Ka and I spent a rather day and evening back in July 2009. After this we headed for the main road and Ibrox before turning off and moving round the perimeter of the park. I think it was around there that Jillian said she met one of her ex-boyfriends mid run. Apparently he was one of the guides, who stood at various route corners and pointed you in the right direction with some words of encouragement to spur you on.
As I neared the 3km mark I looked up to recognise one of the route guides myself. It was the tall, bespectacled man in shorts who’d had the struggle in the toilet. He seen me and looked away rather quickly, faltering on some words but then shouting encouragingly at the runner that had passed ahead of me.
Chris and her pal Sandra, who always has her camera hanging from the strap around her neck whenever I see her, were at the finish line to welcome us at the end of the race, along with a hastily arriving Mum, Dad, Steven, Morgan and Joshua who’d followed our progress from various points around our route.
Everyone finished, happy, a little tired, some a little sore, but probably a little fitter.
We all collected our goody bags and medals whilst more photos were taken, Morgan and myself got covered in mud, running back through the park and Mum met a long lost neighbour in Sandra, Chris’s photographer friend, who, it turns out, grew up in the same street as her and used to hang out with her and my Auntie Tricia. Another one of those strange, small world like incidents that take you by surprise.
27 minutes. That was my initial thinking of my time. But, due to a lack of clock at the finish line we’re all a little unclear as to what our final times were. As it turns out my time may have been a good few minutes shorter than 27, as Ka crossed the line around four to five minutes after me, and Jillian followed around a minute or so after her, and Jillian tells me her tracker tells her she took 29 minutes. So nobody knows for sure, but nobody really cared.
Pauline crossed the line moments later followed by Angela, who was last on the running track over a year ago but found it a walk in the park. Finished next were Claire and Colin and then, around ten minutes later, Grace and Dougie. We’d all ran for Lucy and the chosen charities, collecting at least a good seven hundred pounds between us, thanks to a lot of generous family, friends and colleagues.

Ka and myself have even talked of making it an annual event, making a yearly effort to raise some money for our charities in Lucy’s name. Jillian responded by text later in the day, rather optimistically, suggesting next year’s Glasgow half marathon.
We’ll see.
5km may not be a lot to some but Team Lucy did well.

Racing at Raploch

Ka and myself are lying across our couches. Ka sipping 5.5% rose wine that I bought her in Asda the other day (obviously unaware that it was 5.5% and gaining some ear ache on my return home) and me supping some Kronenbourg lager and generally having a lazy Saturday night after the fun and shenanigans of last night’s charity race night (wonderful word, shenanigans…)
The Raploch Bowling Club sprung to life last night much to the disapproval of the regulars. The bar staff were miserable and, from the impression I got, highly suspicious of us strangers, and the drinking regulars disturbed by our presence, an old man with a walking stick particularly unhappy to see us, growling at us as he tried to get through to the bar. The gathered crowd didn’t let that get to them though.
The various staff members from Ka’s work, the Early Learning Unit, the various parents of kids at the ELU and a fairly large portion of family and friends assembled soon got the race night started as ever under the guidance of Kay (spelling?) and Fiona, the husband and wife team that make up the backbone of the ELU’s successful charity bashes. Ka and myself have been particularly touched by the support of the ELU with this charity night as the cause was inspired by our wee Lucy Reid, not to mention all the other babies that pass through Wishaw Hospital’s Neonatal ward’s doors.
Upon arrival at the bowling club, secreted away like a green batcave behind some worn out billboards, Fiona and Kay immediately volunteered me as a jockey for one of the horses. I opted immediately for the first race, believing it to be better to get it over and done with. The first few races were South Park themed making each of the ‘horses’ characters from the seemingly forever popular American cartoon, so, in memory of my brother, I went for Kenny.
Not that Kenny’s dead. He’s just in Australia. Exploring, seeing a bit of the world, travelling another continent and getting dogs impounded.
Anyway, like Kenny’s dog, I wasn’t going anywhere fast. My racing wrists failed me three quarters of the way through my lap. Ka’s bro, Colin, would have won the race if he had not decided to give his horse/character one final, illegal tug of the cord over the line. Kay immediately disqualified him thus making the dark horse of the race, George, the jockey to my right, the victor. Colin was raging, but only at himself, either for performing the illegal manoeuvre in the first place or being spotted by the adjudicator carrying it out. My guess is the second.
Even though I had even odds at the beginning of the race, I ended up third, or was it fourth? I’m not sure now but I was fairly average anyway, ensuring more than a few folk lost their money. It’s all for a good cause though so I didn’t mind.
Roslyn did, mind you. She scowled at me for around two hours afterwards. Her other half, Iain, won a race an hour or so afterwards in the night though so she lightened up later. Or maybe that was just the alcohol?
As I retreated back to our tables with shaking wrists, disappointed and a little downtrodden, the races went on. Ka continued organising the buffet in the kitchen area, the ELU girls sold out of raffle tickets, Kay continued shouting at folk and Angela and Unlce John nicked Auntie Lorna’s caramel shortcake from it’s tin foil cloaked, secret location in the backroom corridor.
With a little help from the two Mum’s, Ka cooked up a cracking buffet and after the ELU staff members all helped bring through and set up, the gathered crowd of betters and racers demolished it, sandwiches, chicken legs, pizza, sausage rolls, garlic bread, pasta, quiche, Victoria sponges and all, even the whole four pieces of caramel shortcake that had been left on their tray.
The Victoria sponges were particularly magnificent along with the fantastic white chocolate snowballs, all made by Jillian and her Mum. That will have to become a buffet tradition. Like Auntie Linda’s trifle.
After eating it was the ELU race, in which a representative of each ELU room, raced and competed for the coveted Race night trophy. Louisa impressed all the girls with her wrist action lifting the trophy and winning a bottle of red wine in the process (the wine she swapped for a bottle of white when no one was looking).
The world’s largest raffle ended the night. The amount of donated prizes was fantastic and could explain why the girls sold out of raffle tickets. Numbers and colours were read out one after the other.
Lynsey Ann won a very nice pair of crystal glasses (one cracked) and a bottle of Grants (which my Dad gained as an early Fathers Day present). Jillian won more than a few prizes for more than a few cousins. Colin won a box of chocolate biscuits. Jennifer won a bottle of plonk (one of many won by others) and Dougie won his now traditional collection of bath salts and lotions, together with the exfoliating cloth. He had had his eye on it earlier on, as he sat, before the massive pile of raffle prizes, waiting to race. The only thing being he had been swearing not to win the soapy bath box of delights this time around as he’d won bath products instead of bottles at most, if not all, of the previous charity nights.
Anyway, he accepted his prize with grace and dignity, everyone laughing as he huffed and puffed walking back to his table, almost losing his exfoliating cloth on the way.
Finally a signed Rangers football, signed by the current squad and organised by Claire and her Auntie, was auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Colin started the bidding and continued the bidding, apparently being one of few Rangers fans among the gathered crowd. His Uncle John joined in, much to Colin’s irritation.
“You don’t even support Rangers!”
At one point Colin even outbid himself and as everyone laughed, a rather flustered Colin yelled, “just gee us the baw!”
In the end an old guy, sitting quietly in the shadows in the corner of the hall, outbid everyone and won the football for around £65, donating even more wonderful money to the cause.
Fiona, Kay and the rest of the ELU had all worked very hard to make the night a success and thanks to all the generous donations, raffle ticket buyers, racers, bookies and backers, made it a fantastic success. I’m certain the Neonatal ward will be more than happy with their donation.

Say what you see with friends

Quiet as a mouse. Land in jail. Frog in the throat. Scared stiff. Cool cat. The walls have ears.
Colin, Jillian, Ka and myself fought over the remote playing Catchphrase on Saturday night.
As Mr. chips illustrated catchphrases on the television before us we had to go for the remote, before anyone else got to it, as soon as we had a guess, pressing the remote button assigned to our team and yelling the answer.
Strictly speaking, we probably didn't have to yell, the volume of your voice was not really a game requirement of the completely uninteractive DVD, but, as the competition got fiercer, the voices got louder. We reckoned we were safe from upsetting any neighbours though as we'd seen the Singing Postman leave earlier in the day with a bag full of booze and food, probably off to a singing barbeque somewhere. Anyway, as we played, the fake Roy Walker continued to give us the scores, which forever see sawed between the two teams of couples.
That was the most disappointing aspect of the game for me. No Roy Walker. Instead we got some bloke, that kind of sounded like he might have had some kind of vague irish accent at some point in his life. Presumably the irish part. It wasn't even a good impersonation. I had been quite looking forward to hearing the big, irish “Riiiiigggghhht!”, or even the occasional, “It's good, but it's not the one”.
With a couple of plates full of chicken fajitas and with a good few beers, the four of us had great fun on our games flavoured Saturday night in.
Following Catchphrase, I dug the Friends Scene It out from the flat's TARDIS cupboard. The Scene It games require you to circle a board answering questions on the featured movie or tv show, the questions usually accompanied by clips on the accompanying DVD. The picture frame, Jillian, the coffee cup, Colin, the skyscraper, myself and Joey's easy chair, Ka all headed out around the board on the spin of the dice. Ka's easy chair seemed to take things a little too easy though as I'm not sure she left the starting square and, like the other two, have seen every episode of the easy watching American comedy. Jillian won in the end, just beating Colin, who showed an extreme geek knowledge of the show, naming episodes, coming up with the obscure guest star character names and even naming a season just by watching the opening sequence.
I did manage to get at least one question right.
The question was a 'which episode?' and as the other three shouted, “The one when he asked her to marry her”, “The one when he popped her the question”, “The one with the ring!” and other such ridiculous answers.
I relaxed, took my time and then shouted, “The one with the Proposal!”.
I got it right. I wasn't smug about it though. I saved my victory dance for later when I started singing Aloe Blacc.
“I need a dollar, dollar, dollar is what I need, hey hey”.
Or a quid.
That's all a strip of raffle tickets for Friday night's prizes is. A mere quid.
Any more takers? (Ah, you thought I'd forgotten didn't you?!)

Elmer Fudd must have been blind

It was back to work yesterday after a quiet time of milling around the flat last week whilst the horrendous gales ceaselessly battered the windows from outside (gales being the wind, not a bunch of angry female neighbours or work colleagues named in such a way).
Having saved all my holidays up for Baby Reid's arrival, I've found I've got a certain amount of annual leave to spare. Obviously Ka is still off work and it probably helps her, to some extent, having me around annoying her. It can't be easy being off work, on maternity leave, without a baby to look after, in fact, I know it is not. It's always the quiet moments that get you, especially when you are sitting in the house, on your own. It must be even harsher for Ka.
We don't get loads of opportunities to be on our own, thankfully, due to the family and friends popping round. Ka made her famous meatballs in spaghetti, last Tuesday night, and Chaz and Pauline popped round with whom we unexpectantly drank approximately one bottle of wine each. Chaz arrived with a rather lovely bottle of Chablis and an expensive looking Italian red, of sorts.
Of sorts, because I cannot remember what it was. I've no idea.
When it comes to wine, I'm afraid I am as ignorant as I am stupid.
What kind of wine is considered 'elegant'. What makes a wine 'complex'. Three for a tenner in Asda is about as 'complex' as it gets for me. Is the wine 'full of depth', 'rich' or 'silky smooth'?
These terms all sound more like how the sexy rabbit with the purple ribbon described Caramel chocolate in those adverts.
Did I just describe a rabbit as sexy?
They do have a bit of a reputation don't they?
Looney Tunes even played with the idea when Bugs Bunny would dress up like a woman to fool Elmer Fudd... Elmer Fudd must have been blind to fall for that!
There was Jessica Rabbit, but she doesn't really count considering she was rabbit in name only. Then there's the whole Playboy bunny thing, the creation of the soon to be married Hugh Hefner. Come to think of it Hefner looks a little like Elmer Fudd, except older and probably with less ammo.
Anyway, wine. I also have no idea what a wine's 'bouquet' should be.
Should wine smell like flowers? I've never drank a bottle that smelled like an toxic abundance of tiger lilies before and I doubt I ever would. Hoegaarden is about the closest I can think of to an alcoholic beverage that tastes like flowers (and that's pretty rancid).
Chaz knows all about wine now though, after being educated in the ways of the wine world by a past girlfriend, and treats us to some fantastic wine whenever we invite him round for dinner.
Tuesday night was the first time Ka and myself had enjoyed a wine after everything that's happened. When I say 'enjoyed' I use the term loosely, of course, because there's always going to be that slight, nagging feeling of guilt running through our head when we start feeling comfortable and recently, sometimes we've mentally stopped ourselves, unintentionally, as we've almost come ridiculously close to having a nice time and a laugh when seeing family and friends.
The wine was not the reason on Tuesday night, of course, as it was all down to the company. Pauline and Chaz were great dinner guests and were probably a little more satisified with their meals this time round considering the last time they visited they were served a buffet consisting of a plate of toasted cheese, a bowl of grapes, a plate of tomatoes and a bowl of baked beans, fresh out the microwave.
We did not serve wine with that particular feast. Who knows what the bouquet would have had to have been like to suit that feast.

Some kind of normality

Ka's in Africa. That's the latest. One of the wee boys in Ka's Nursery turned round to one of her colleagues today and asked, "When's Ka coming back from Africa?".
This was after the kids had all been sat down last week and told the story of how Lucy went to Heaven. Obviously this particular little boy hadn't been paying much attention. Either that or he's under the impression Heaven is a northerly region of the second largest continent and Ka's joined Lucy over there for a safari.
It was back to some kind of normality this week as I went back to work for the first time since before the new year. It was harder than I thought, sitting at my computer, working on ads again after everything that has happened, so I was a little sluggish to begin with.
It just doesn't seem right. Ka and myself feel like we should be doing other things. Life should be more enjoyable, messier and more hectic after the build up of the past nine months. We should be getting used to a new way of life when, in reality, life is pretty much the same as it was nine months ago. Nothing has changed except the grief we will forever feel at the back of our minds, slowly sinking out of sight but never relieving it's weight.
Work, gym, cinema, shopping, meals at relatives. They have all been attempts at keeping us occupied but all seem vaguely different somehow. We can't escape the feeling that there should be more going on. Someone else around, keeping us occupied.
Yesterday morning I was on one of my many stridings through the wilderness that is the EK shopping centre, surroundings not unlike the wilds of Africa described by Ka's wee nursery pupil by the look of some of the folk that inhabit the place on a normal weekday morning as some of them look as if they've just escaped from cages.
Another trip to the dentist had been successfully accomplished on time with just moments to spare. After, once more, answering and grudgingly attempting to tell of recent events involving losing one's baby, in this instance to the friendly receptionist and our nice dentist, I went on my way through the mall with polished teeth..
Next stop, the post office and as I marched I spotted something whilst passing one of the larger charity shops that stopped me dead in my tracks. A large Yamaha keyboard, adorned with buttons, dials, screens and, well, keys, sat looking at me from within the Debra shop under the out of the question price tag of £35.
A hazey dream of reminiscence filtered into my mind. Back in the day, (cue Dvorak's Hovis music), during the High school years I always toyed with the idea of learning keyboard and piano. At the time, most of my mates could play some kind of instrument, to some kind of extent and were keen to form a band, of some kind. Colin sang and swung his guitar, whilst Nocker strummed and Bungle battered the drums.
The keyboard appealed to me. It made cool noises and played beats for you that you didn't have to spend hours making up yourself. I'd always thought it'd be quite cool to learn piano too. Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Rowlf the Dog, they'd all mastered the art before me. If a blind guy, a rocket with glasses, a grinning mannequin and a dog could do it, so could I.
Of course, I never did. Colin managed to teach me one song on the bass but that was about as far as my contribution to music went. I'm far better off merely listening.
Anyway, after seriously considering the prospects of buying the Yamaha for around five seconds I decided against it. I realised that if I brought that massive keyboard home to my one bedroom flat, Ka would probably take it and batter me over the head with it. The last thing she needs at the moment is me setting up a Yamaha in the middle of the living room, switching off all the lights, standing in my tie and going all Kraftwerk on her.
It's more like Kraft Foods in our house, the amount of cheese on crackers we're putting away. Great to have in the house for guests but not so great when your looking for nibbles whilst watching the telly. The calories I'm piling on must be immense!
Yes, the passing of Baby Lucy has left the two of us feeling at a loss and looking for more meaningful things to do to keep our minds busy, but I doubt bringing home a second hand Yamaha keyboard is an answer.
A break somewhere would be more worthwhile, probably not a trip to Africa though.

SiMBA, Sands and Tricia's Poem

The night before Lucy's funeral my Auntie Tricia, Auntie Ann and Uncle Tommy popped round to see us. Over tea, crackers and cheese we shared our grief.
During tea, Tricia gave Ka and myself a rolled up sheet of card tied with ribbon. Tricia had been working hard the previous night on a memorial poem which she gave to us as a contribution to Lucy's SiMBA Memory Box. The week following the death of little Lucy this Memorial Box had been shown to all visitors and well wishers to our flat.
We received the SiMBA Memory Box after the passing of Lucy in hospital. It is a small, white chest of mementos put together following a baby's passing in the care unit as a gift to the bereaved parents and an item to remember their child by. In our box was placed the small blanket upon which Lucy lay in the incubator, a small teddy from the SiMBA charity, a small collection of photographs taken by the hospital, prints of Lucy's hand and footprints, her hospital tags, her small, colourful little New testament bible she received upon Baptism and cards of sympathy from both the hospital's Neonatal unit and SiMBA itself along with various leaflets offering help in coming to terms with these sad events.
Sands, the Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society is another charity featured in the reading material given in the Memory Box, which helps bereaved parents after the passing of a young baby. The Sands organisation offers guidance, support and help and is run by volunteers from all over the country who all give time from their own lives up following similar experiences in losing their own young babies, in order to help parents in similar circumstances come to terms with their own tragic events.
Both great charities and both more than worthy of any support.
Support which some family and friends have already offered and given in the form of donations. Alongside the donations towards Wishaw's Neonatal unit Ka and myself have also received we would like to say a great big thank you, on behalf of the charities and in memory of Lucy.

Lucy Reid - Our Angel Baby by Patricia Taylor

A Little Angel, lent not given
Taken too soon, to be in heaven

We just don't understand
And we'll never know
why God chose you for his Angel
And we had to let you go

One thing we know for certain
You are loved beyond compare
God picks his Angels wisely
Though our pain is hard to bear

You touched so many hearts
Many tears have been shed too
We know that you'll be with us
to ease the pain we're going through

Goodnight our darling Lucy
You will be our guiding light
A special bright and shining star
Looking down on us each night

xx

Times like these

For a wee lassie that was only around on the planet for just over 26 hours, Lucy Reid certainly made an impression. A large crowd of family, friends, colleagues and aquaintances gathered in St. Leonards Chruch, East Kilbride for our wee Lucy's Funeral on Saturday morning.
John Donnelly, of the Heritage Funeral Services, picked Ka and myself up in his large limo which struggled, climbing out of our street, over the freshly fallen snow from the night before under the bright blue winters sky, and took us round the corner to the chapel at the top of the hill to meet Father Mac at the doors.
Not a moment has went past when Ka and myself have not shivered with sadness and disbelief at the situation we have found ourselves in. We'd spent an unbelievable week organising and preparing for our newborn daughter's funeral after her birth, a week early on the 29th before her due date.
We had the joy of an early birth for Baby Reid on the Wednesday night only to be replaced, not half an hour later, by the horror of having our baby whipped away from us and placed in an incubator as she struggled to breathe for herself. On the Thursday morning we were faced with the horrendous decision given to us by the specialists of the Neonatal ward in the Wishaw hospital. We could continue to keep Lucy alive on machines, in the hope of her surviving to some extent but never to have a life of her own to speak of, or to switch off the life support and say goodbye. We made the heart-rending decision and over the course of the Thursday evening, watched little Lucy slowly slip away until her final breathes in my arms at twenty to one on the Friday morning.
The image of that little baby, shivering her last, her breathes fading to a quietening whisper will be ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life. Her last shiver of breathe shook out from her body shaking my arms which cradled her small form. I knew exactly when my wee Baby passed away before the doctors even began inspecting her. Lucy passed approximately eight minutes before the doctors finally decided, with tears in their eyes, that she'd gone.
Afterwards, I pointed out to Ka, on more than one occasion, that I didn't need the doctors to tell me. Even though the death certificate says 00.50am, it's wrong. I felt Lucy slip away in my arms just after twenty minutes to one and I don't need no stethoscope to tell me otherwise. Lucy came into the world, going straight into her Mum's arms, and left in her Daddy's.
Needless to say the pain and grief was unbearable but Ka and myself managed to stay strong thanks to the gathered family around us. The two sets of Mums and Dads, the two brothers and the two sisters along with Steven and Jillian were almost at the hospital through the whole ordeal just as long as Ka and myself were. The families were our rock and without them I'm not sure Ka and I would have made it through at all.
On the Saturday morning we stepped from the limo, the undertaker giving Lucy over to me and together we followed Father Mac into the church. As I walked I couldn't bring myself to look up at the gathered crowd as I stared down at my little girl's pristine white coffin, clenched in my hands. I tried to make out that I was being respectful, head bowed as I walked up the aisle, or perhaps that I was concentrating on carrying the case, making sure of it not slipping under my trembling grip. In reality I dared not look up on fear of breaking down into tears as the sympathetic faces of everyone gathered watched us move through the church. As a result I had no idea the church had been so busy till after the mass.
Ka, the Mums and Dads and myself sat in the back of the Undertaker's Limo, Lucy's coffin perched on my lap as the gathered congregation poured out from the church behind us.
A terrible, horrible situation to find yourself in but one made slightly bearable by the people that had shown up on that snowy, Saturday morning to show their grief and give Ka, myself and the family their support, prayers and sympathies.
Family, friends, colleagues and aquaintances have all been fantastic in the past few weeks. Without their visits, cards, texts, words and support I'm not sure Ka and myself would have been so strong to face the challenging past weeks. It's in times like these you realise how fantastic your families are, what friends you can really count on and how generous of heart people can be.
Lucy Reid would have been a very lucky wee girl to have such a massive, loving family.

I wasn't looking forward to writing this blog.
Ever again in fact.
But surprisingly, it still helps.

Could this be any weirder?

Ka text me today to announce that she felt movement. Baby Reid moved. Halfway through a cereal bar Ka flinched as she felt a strange flutter throughout the lower belly area. She assured me it was in no way due to any cereal bar digestion. Baby Reid is finally making his, or her, presence felt. About time too, at 22 weeks we were getting a little impatient.
It must be the weirdest thing, feeling something moving about inside you that is not the gathering of wind. Never mind 'something' what about someONE. Another human shuffling around inside, trying to make himself, or herself, comfortable.
Of course, this news fired up some more baby talk in the work. Prams, cot buying etc. Then Dave, who sits in the office alongside me, asked whether Ka was going to consider breast feeding. At first a little taken aback by the fact a fellow worker was mentioning my wife's breasts, I then remembered about how Dave must spend quite a lot of time talking of breasts. His wife has not only already produced three children but is also a nurse in the maternity ward of Wishaw General who specialises in the old feeding with the boob. Dave must be an inadvertent breast feeding expert. As is Andrea, who sits opposite him, who immediately started talking of how much of a pain in the neck it all is... not to mention the nipple.
That must be weird too, having another human being feeding from your nipple. A nipple that squirts milk? Weird. As if the thought of a human growing inside your belly wasn't weird enough. Then there's the actual birth... I was reading something the other day that suggested it is the modern father's job to cut the umbilical cord. That'll be right, I thought. I'll be lucky if I'm still conscious behind the video camera.
Only joking, of course. I'm certainly not taking the video camera into the birth. That's just weird too. Does anyone still do that? Did anyone ever do that? Or was it just a 'Friends' myth? Perhaps merely a plot device cooked up to aid the comedy of Chandler and Monica's baby preperation in it's fiftieth episode of Season 72..?
A family video of your mother giving birth to you would surely never be classed as a family favourite. Saying that, I bet some crazy person out there has uploaded the birth of their beloved offspring on to youtube. I'm not even going to investigate that one.

A flat full of women

"Is it not about time you had y'er flat invaded by that bunch of women again?" DVD Andy asked me this over lunch yesterday and I groaned inwardly. He'd been looking in his crystal ball again. Most men would be excited by the prospect of a flat full of women.
Ka's friends from work were all coming round for dinner last night and by the time I got home they'd all be in full swing, talking to each other, over one another and probably around one another. Not really the best thing to greet you after coming home from a twelve hour shift but I suppose I shouldn't be so miserable. Ka has to have her life too and it certainly doesn't stop when I go to work.
The only member of the group that seemed to look in my direction upon entering my living room was Claire's wee one, Olivia, from behind her Mum's legs to which she'd retreated after I managed to frighten the living daylights out of her in the hallway.
As I had shut the front door behind me I'd heard Ka asking the youngster "who was at the door?". Who could it be, was it Michael and telling Olivia to help her go and see (at least I presumed it was Olivia and not one of her pals being overly curious). So as Ka entered the hallway with wee Olivia, I playfully gave them a big "boo!". The tot nearly collapsed in fright, all wide eyes and quivering mouth. Fortunately for me she stopped herself from bursting into tears as Ka was there to ease the sheer terror of seeing me.
Children, and babies in general, never seem to like me anyway and I've now grown accustomed to it. They either spontaneously burst into tears upon seeing me or regard me with deep suspicion in their eyes, hiding behind the leg of a passing adult - an adult with a prosthetic leg would be particularly helpful as the child could then freely move around the room, though the one legged adult would presumably have some difficulty getting back up off the floor.
Joshua, the latest addition to the Leckie family, for instance, starts crying as soon as I pick him up. He has probably spent the past hour or so happy, smiling, laughing and gurgling away pleasantly to himself but as soon as Uncle Michael picks him up for a chat he suddenly gets very uncomfortable, looking around wildly for help (or maybe a leg?) and eventually objects rather loudly.
Still, at least Olivia noticed me. As I entered the living room the women barely looked up with a hello as they gabbed on. I'm only the man of the house afterall. Saying hello would interupt the conversational flow and the vastly important things they have to say to one another. Things probably too vast and important for me to even comprehend. The ability for these women to talk is incomprehensible in itself. A nuclear bomb could have went off in Long Calderwood outside. A cloud and blast of fire, wind and orange dust sweeping through our large living room window, powering through exploding cracks in the wall, as the room is showered in shards of glass, brick and mortar. I'd be clinging on to a metal fence, watching the city collapse around me, screaming as my flesh turned to dust. Yet they'd still be sitting, going on about transitions, mismanagement and how big 'wee Jake' is now.

Who nicked my custard?

Snow is falling, all around us. Christmas is now in full swing. At least two inches of snow is lying on the ground, cars are skidding on the roads, the shops are still packed and we're all waking up bleary eyed with sore heads from the beer consumed the night before. This was the case yesterday anyway as I woke up feeling slightly under the weather, Ka jumping out of bed to begin the tidy up operation after our little party the night before. Unfortunately she had to wait a while before attempting the living room as Colin McG, Jillian and Kenny were still lounging around watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, either on the folded down futon or, in Kenny's case, across the couch, under a burgundy sleeping bag. As they shouted for pieces and sausage from Ka in the kitchen I rose and staggered through groaning. With every hangover I have as I get older the idea of giving up alcohol for life seems better and better. Life is too short to be wasting half days under a cloud of booze in the brain. But then you could argue the other way and say life is too short to sit at a Christmas party sober, worrying about the effects that a couple of beers will give you the next morning.
The party was pretty fun though with most folf arriving around half past eight. My brother turned up a little worse for wear after a work day out and was a little disgruntled when we forced him to drink at least four pints of water before being allowed any alcohol. He complained at first but when we all realised it was having the desired effect he did what he was told (though i suspect it was more fear of Ka that talked him into it). So Kenny shouted at Miley Cyrus on the advent calender, Chaz got slagged for his pink sweater, Colin McG nicked the custard, Chris had a power nap under the coats, a white wine spritza cured Heather of her food poisoning and Claire hummed to the music whilst listening to Gillian and her wedding plans. Most people seemed to enjoy themselves although we probably waited a little too long before starting the quiz, hastily prepared by myself in the afternoon. Apparently it was half past one at night by the time we started and as a result things got a little too loud and one person in particular got a little too irate forgetting the whole 'it's only for a laugh' theme that is supposed to run through these Christmas games. Everyone was too afraid to say anything though as the guy in question is a copper and he would probably have arrested someone the mood he was in.
The Christmas tunes along with the drinks were in full flow and those of us left in the flat didn't get to sleep till around 6 in the morning. Chaz was the last to leave after Clair and Martin, who ended up having to push their taxi into motion as it had ground to a halt in the snow on the upwards slope of the street outside.
A push I could have done with on Friday morning as the snow that had fallen on Thursday night had turned to ice and as a result transformed our street into a icey slide. I managed to drive the car half way up the street before it stopped and started spinning its wheels on the spot creating an unfortunate burning smell. I ended up gritting half the street on my lonesome with one of my Granpa's old spades using the grit bin positioned further down the hill, sliding as I worked, hands turning to ice. The South Lanarkshire Council have once again chosen to ignore most streets that are not bus routes and we have not had one grit lorry all weekend. Some of the main roads have not even been gritted or cleared of snow in the past few days making travel around East Kilbride slightly trecherous. Not the best when you've still got presents to buy.