Bottles and box sets

Saturday the 12th of January 2013 was a big day for me. There was nothing particularly exciting about it. No events. No occasions. In fact, I didn’t even leave the house. The only reason it was vaguely ‘big’ in any way was solely down to the fact I was being left in charge of my own child for the first time.
Ka was going out on the town with her girlfriends and leaving me in charge.
I was flying solo. Going it alone. Nappies, clothing, bottles, medication, entertainment, it was all down to me. Not only was Ka dragging herself away from Sophie for the first time, she was going out and drinking for the first time in approximately eight months. Vicki, Yvonne and the rest of the girls from her room in the ELU nursery (I can’t remember if it’s the Caterpillar room, the Butterfly room or the Pushmi-Pullyu room) were heading into Glasgow for the day and taking Ka out of the house with them.
“On you go!” I insisted. “It’ll be good for you!”
The words had left my mouth before I’d even seriously contemplated the consequences of my verbalizations.
As it happens, it was a bit of a walk in the park. Sophie, who was just approaching the eight week mark of existence on this miserable little rock, was great company. After Ka left with Amy and Kirsty, Sophie ate her lunch quite happily and then lay back in her deck chair to relax and take in the sights.
No, it’s not really a deck chair, but that’s what I call it. It’s like a soft padded slope on a wooden frame, not unlike a deck chair, but probably usually called some along the lines of a ‘baby rocker’. It had been Claire’s little one, Olivia’s, when she had been wee, and Claire had popped round and donated it a few weeks ago.
Sophie had been getting a little irritable in her jungle seat what with the dangling parrots, butterflies and monkey music and had not been settling. Her frustrated boxing would start within around ten minutes of sitting, but in Olivia’s deck chair, she seems far happier. Sophie will gurgle away quite happily on it until she either gets vaguely frustrated for a few minutes, has another quick boxing match with an invisible opponent and then falls asleep or, even better, simply falls asleep without the boxing match. It’s great for watching the room too. Sophie just kicks back in it and surveys her surroundings, finding constant interest in mirrors, windows and blank white spaces of wall. Sophie often prefers to watch the walls rather than the tv with it’s moving images and light.
So whilst Sophie lounged and relaxed after her latest intake of milk, I lounged and relaxed on the couch and watched a few episodes of the rather wonderful Breaking Bad.
Colin and Jillian bought me the first three series of the American, award winning, drama series for my Christmas and I’ve been watching it whenever I get the chance.
Just in case you’re not aware it’s all centred around a struggling high school chemistry teacher named Walter White played by Bryan Cranston, the Dad from Malcolm in the Middle, who, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer turns to a life of crime in order to ensure his families financial well being after he leaves his mortal coil. White is aided in his drug making efforts by a former student and known local bum Jesse who, with his contacts to the shady underworld, helps his former teacher make his money.

It’s brilliant, dark, funny, intelligent and well acted, particularly by the two main characters (who have some great chemistry…) and great for a Saturday afternoon’s entertainment.
In fact, throughout the day, in between breaks for feeding, changing nappies, bathtime and general baby chit chat, I managed to finish the first season of Breaking Bad off, something it would have been impossible to manage had Ka been in the house.
As it happens, Ka has now not only lost interest in the series but banned me from watching the 18/15 rated drama whilst Sophie is in the living room, which makes watching the box sets remaining seasons even more difficult. I now have to wait on a completely empty house before I can watch it, which will be virtually impossible as I can’t see Sophie heading out into town with her pals for cocktails anytime soon.
Ka probably has a point though. The last episode Ka watched with me involved someone being melted in a bathtub with hydrofluoric acid…
Anyway, before the Breaking Bad ban, I sat that Saturday night and finished season 1 whilst drinking lots of coke and gobbling mini toblerones. Just a flavour of my wild life, and my Saturday nights, getting all the more electrifyingly crazy as time goes on.
Ka eventually called informing me of her missed train and her intentions on the next, so I then bathed baby Sophie and ordered dinner for the night, a take away from the local Indian restaurant (not for Sophie, obviously). Moments before the dinner turned up, Ka tumbled through the door, surprisingly only moderately drunk, and we settled down on the couch to a bhuna whilst Sophie snored away upstairs, her snores growling out of the small baby monitor plugged in at the end of the couch. The light dial goes from blue lights to red on the small monitor, depending on the volume of the child being picked up at the other end, a larger, white, glowing dome presently situated at the side of the moses basket. A great wee device for keeping an ear on Sophie whilst she’s parked in a different room. Just maybe not so great when she’s having one of her louder half hours and you’re trying to get through season 2.

Another year, another quiz and another chilli

"Why did Adele have a minor strop at this year's Brit awards ceremony?".
This was a question that caused a bit of a ruckus in the Reid household on New Years Night.
The two families were round for a buffet dinner on New Years Day. Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann arrived with a big tray of lasagne, a big box of iceland goodies and a big box of budweiser. The McGarva's then arrived in the Hood mobile. Jillian and her Mum arrived with Colin, Grace and Dougie in tow, ferrying a tray full of macaroni, a large steak pie, a large, freshly baked chocolate orange cheescake, a couple of trays of ice cream and more than a few plates of Jean's famous chocolate snowballs. Jillian's mum's white chocolate balls are now a must for any family buffet. Made with white chocolate, coconut and probably way too much sugar, Jillian’s mum’s balls are the ultimate sweet treat.
With the arrival of Steven, Angela, Morgan and Joshua a little later, the living room was now full and Ka and myself got to work warming up, cooking, or boiling in the kitchen on our rickety old cooker.
Earlier that morning, as soon as I'd got up, I had got to work on another of my chilli con carnes. Okay, it's not the hardest of meals to cook but it was my contribution to the night's buffet meal along with a big pot of rice and some nicely warmed pita breads. Whilst Ka got the three large oven dishes warmed up, the macaroni, the steak pie and the lasagne, which all took turns in our wee oven, we got to work on the pasta dish and boiled up the rice to accompany my chilli ("It's just a chilli" Dougie shrugged, nonchalantly, on more than one occasion throughout the night). Before long there was another table of food laid out in our living room and everyone was helping themselves whilst Olly Murs and Kasabian played as background music and Ka sat back in one of the corners of the room to feed baby Sophie who seemed a little disconcerted by the chatter and surrounding family members. By the time early evening came round, everyone had eaten and Sophie had been laid down in her moses basket upstairs after getting a little tired of being handed around the room, from relative to relative.
After Morgan took the names from my holiday hat, 5 teams of two were made and another Reid family quiz kicked off with a spectacular prize of a large slab of Whole Nut chocolate to play for. The quiz consisted of, what I thought, were a good mix of questions from events, people, and places from throughout the year. Plenty of news, sport, tv and music. Something to keep everyone happy. Or so you’d think.
There was one exception. One question was put in specifically for Morgan and Joshua. Unfortunately the kids chose to remain silent and weren't much help to the quiz teams. I had wanted to know the names of Thomas the Tank Engine's two blue friends. Mum and Dad, who had been paired up as a quiz team, immediately objected claiming themselves to be singled out, claiming there was no way they would know such details. These allegations seemed quite unfair considering when Kenny was a wee kid all he talked about was, yes, you guessed it, Thomas the Tank Engine. He had the Thomas the Tank Engine toys, lunchbox and everything! Mum even made him a Thomas cake for one of his birthdays. It's not my fault she didn't pay as much attention to her youngest son's interests.
The Brits question was the one that really got some blood vessels bubbling though as I had wanted the answer including Blur cutting Adele's acceptance speech short in order to play their Outstanding Contribution set at the end of the programme. Apparently this was wrong. It was James Corden who was actually to blame so although I was wanting a mention of Blur there was a minor mutiny and some of the teams started taking it upon themselves to rebel and award themselves points as long as they mentioned James Corden even though they were told clearly what the requirements of the answer had to be and they quite obviously did not have them. Colin, who had been paired with Lynsey Ann, was my only defence in the matter, but this was probably down to the fact he was the only one that answered the question to my high standard. As a result some papers were marked wrongly and even though this one troublesome question was a mere point, it caused the game's biggest ruckus. Grace and Dougie, another husband and wife pairing, had a minor ruckus among themselves about the name of Lady Diana's son, after the teams were asked who was photographed naked during August, in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for my Mum and Dad it hadn’t been Keith Chegwin but Prince Harry baring the crown jewels during a game of strip billiards in his Las Vegas’ VIP hotel suite. Another question asked what Felix Baumgartner broke when he jumped from 25 miles above the Earth. The answer, of course, was the sound barrier, at 834mph. Grace suggested that it was his ankle.
Jillian and Steven were the eventual victors and took the slab of Whole Nut chocolate as their prize which Steven kindly donated to his team mate.
Once everyone had left and Ka and myself were making our way to bed after feeding little Sophie at around quarter to midnight I received a text message from Colin.
“Michael jillian and steven cheated they looked at angelas sheet to get Gordon and shouldn’t have got point for adele so would’ve drawn wi me and lynsey ann”.
That, one sentence text message said it all. It’s a shame that people feel the need to shout, complain and, worst of all, cheat at a small, largely unimportant, family christmas quiz but it’s perhaps more of a shame that Colin was still going over it all in his head three hours after the quiz had been brought to it’s tiring conclusion.
Still, it only happens once a year, we should be grateful of that, like an MOT, a PDR or the Jackie Bird Hogmanay programme.
Thankfully Ka and myself missed the majority of the Hogmanay television as we were both in bed by quarter to eleven this year. Sophie Reid is successfully knackering us out and besides, I had to be up early the next morning to make that chilli.

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.

A lovely machine

A week today.
One week. Not even 7 days away now.
Baby Reid number 2 will be born.
Ka and myself are having kittens.
No, not kittens, a baby.
We’re nervous, we’re excited. We’re sad, we’re brooding. We’re scared, we’re fearful. We’re optimistic, we’re struggling. We’re just feeling flamin’ everything at the moment and we’ve got another 6 and a bit days to go!
Baby Reid has been keeping us busy though and constantly reminding us of her presence.
On one of the first days of noises from the car's undersides, discussed in the last post, we had our 34 week scan, at which baby number two was bouncing around, quite the norm, inside Ka's not inconsiderate bump. The consultant was to give us our date for the birth at the end of the appointment but realised she'd forgotten her diary making us wait until Ka's midwife appointment the next Tuesday. It was then that it was decided that it was to be the 19th of November that Baby Reid number 2 will be helped out of her little cocoon and pulled into the world and, all going well, we'll be celebrating the birth of another baby girl.
Baby’s certainly making herself known, even before she’s made an appearance.
She's going to be a lively little blighter by the looks of things.
She's been jumping, kicking and moving around in there quite a lot in the past months, freaking people out, fascinating the kids in Ka's nursery class and keeping me occupied on an evening.
Baby communicates with me via punches or kicks from within the womb (obviously taking after her mother). I'll lean over Ka's big belly bump and talk to her only to get a near immediate response on most instances with a kick. Baby will also push a little limb out, causing the perfect ball shape of Ka's bump to grow small, lumpy shapes which bob up and down over the round surface like Clangers popping their heads out from within their moon.
Baby likes apples too. Moments after Ka has eaten an apple, Baby will move joyfully around, inside her wee shell, as if hyped up on juicy, applely goodness (Perhaps when Baby eats an apple, an amazing transformation will occur – she doesn’t get any bananas though, Ka’s went off them).
On the day of her 32 week scan the consultant began, as usual, by squirting the thick, ultrasound jelly over Ka's bump and placed the wired scanning device down on to it. Almost instantly the instrument was very nearly knocked completely from the consultant’s hand as baby gave it a damn good kick from inside giving the consultant a little fright.
On Saturday there we were sitting in the cinema, waiting to see Argo with Ka’s brother, Colin, (a pretty damn good movie, quite tense, almost inducing) when Baby started shuffling around again.
We pondered what baby was up to in there. Colin suggested Baby was tidying up. Giving the place a wee clean around, like mother like daughter, which would also explain why the wee baby can’t sit at peace for two minutes.
Colin placed his hand ever so gently on to the ball of Ka’s bump, barely touching it, as if scared of disturbing Baby in her housework, or womb work. Ka huffed taking a hold of Colin’s hand and told him that he wasn’t going to feel anything touching the bump like that and placed it more firmly down upon the belly mound. Once more, almost immediately, Baby gave her Uncle Colin a good kick at which Colin yelped, his bawl echoing throughout the dark waiting cinema.
Friday's scan marked week 36 and we now only have one more week of freedom, sorry, waiting, remaining.
Preparations are at a busy, non stop, high. After painting the newly fitted doors in the upstairs hall throughout the previous days, I spent the entirety of last Thursday building nursery furniture, a nice, bright, white, and fairly solid, Mamas and Papas wardrobe, chest of drawers and cot. Obviously the cot wasn’t vital at the present time but once I’d successfully completed the other two I thought I’d better just get on with it. As a result I woke up on the Friday morning aching, after effects from all the twisting, screwing and lifting. I also finished painting all the upstairs hall’s doors over the weekend, all of which are now nicely finished with a neat gloss white, with only a few wee dried drips here and there (hopefully no one will notice them).
Obviously Ka’s been busy too, organising her bags for the hospital, baby’s bags for the hospital and other bags for the hospital, although I’m not sure who the other bags are for? As soon as I’d finished the furniture on Thursday, Ka got to work folding away the few clothes we have already, into the large drawers, waiting on an owner.
There’s a whole drawer, of the new chest, dedicated to Mum’s knitting. My Mum’s been knitting since the summer. Cardigans, bonnets, wee jackets, skirts, blankets, teddy bears with floppy heads and even a mouse. No matter how much I insist she still hasn’t set up an etsy account to make herself a couple of quid out of her fantastic talents.
Baby is going to have plenty of cardigans even if she doesn’t have a name.
We have no idea what her name's going to be.
Lucy was one in a million.
Not only was she our first child but she also symbolised the first time Ka and myself have ever 100% agreed upon anything together. Her name. The only name. We had a boy's name in mind for the other instance, of course, but no second girl's name. And we still don't.
At the moment Baby is called Bertha.
At first it was a joke.

Bertha as in 'Big Bertha', following a sudden burst in growth at around week 30. Nothing at all to do with the large German war guns used in World War One or the big green, factory machine from the animated kids tv series that produced farting noises and cuckoo clocks.
Unfortunately family members are now calling her Bertha, the kids in Ka's nursery expect her to be called Bertha, and now Ka insists I call her Bertha.
We're going to have to think of a better name and quick.
Anyone got any suggestions?

Popcorn, treasure hunts and the furry pencil case

“Papa’s juice, papa’s juice!”
“No Joshua, this is my house, so this is Michael’s juice”
“Papa’s juice!”
My nephew, Joshua, and myself had this argument a few times over the weekend. Robinsons fruit juice apparently has a pseudonym of ‘Papa’s juice’, a name that is not known, at least not yet, in the Reid household. Joshua’s only allowed a certain amount of Robinsons juice as he follows a strict diet of as little sugary drinks as possible even though he had a more than healthy helping of the massive bag of popcorn I purchased for his sister, Morgan and myself at the cinema a few hours before.
Ka and myself picked the two terrors up at around 2 on Saturday afternoon for a trip to the cinema to see Madagascar 3 and Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe. We were then heading back to ours to house the niece and nephew for the night whilst Angela and Steven went out to a friend’s 40th birthday party.
As it was mid Saturday afternoon by the time we got there, the cinema was busy and crowded with families buying tickets for the latest Dreamworks animation. Ka and myself both had our cineworld unlimited cards at the ready but it somehow still managed to cost us £12? £12 for two kids to see a cartoon? Unbelievable.
It must be a flamin’ fortune to go to the cinema as a family these days.
We proceeded upstairs via the great glass elevator which moves up the corner of the building, looking out over the northern end of the city centre. Port Dundas Street stretching out ahead, leading up through the bustling crowds of buses, cars and shoppers towards the quieter streets beyond and the joys of the M8. On reaching the fourth floor, the four of us piled out into the foyer where we joined the queue for some sweet popcorn. The last time Ka and myself took Morgan to the flicks I’d tempted Morgan with a bag of Butterkist from the kitchen cupboard which she quickly rejected as her Dad apparently bought her the special cinema popcorn every time she went. So, with this in mind, I joined the queue and upon reaching the counter, asked for a bag of popcorn from the baseball capped foyer attendant.
Regular or large, I was asked. First I wondered what happened to the small. Perhaps management had rejected it as they could slap as big a price on it. I asked the becapped girl what the difference in size was.
“Well” the girl shrugged, lifting the two paperbags, holding up the small, purple paper bag and the large, A4 sized, yellow bag. “The regular is £4.45 and the large is £4.95, it’s only a difference of 50p”. I’m glad she pointed that last snippet out as I would have been there all day working that one out. Upon hearing the prices being verbalized before me, I asked her to repeat herself suspecting I had misheard.
I was wrong I hadn’t misheard her reply. £4.95 for a bag of cinema popcorn. I almost asked her to repeat herself again but then decided against it, seeing Ka, Joshua and Morgan waiting patiently for me at the side of the queue. If it’s a fiver for a bag of popcorn how much is it for one of those ludicrous looking hotdogs or those plates of Doritos and guacamole?
Why do people eat this stuff in cinemas anyway?
Doritos, okay, that’s fine, I suppose. But why guacamole? Could there be a blander condiment on the planet? And why those stinking hot dogs with the completely ridiculous amount of tomato sauce zig zagged over them? I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting through the duration of a movie having one of those giant sausages squirming about in your stomach in a pool of red sauce.
You see some people walking up the cinema aisle to their seats, hands and arms laden with hotdogs, plates of doritos, bags of popcorns and giant cokes. How can they sit and each that much stuff, never mind pay for it?
Anyway, Madagascar 3 was great. Well, for kids anyway… or if you like listening to Chris Rock for an hour and a half…

Unfortunately I don’t, but the film did have some other things going for it. Full of fantastic colour and craziness the story was like a speeding circus train, racing through it’s scenes and landscapes. Much to the kids amusement. Especially Joshua, whose favourite toys and tv shows just happen to be “choo-choos!”.
After the cinema we headed off home, to East Kilbride making a quick stop at the Fort Morrisons for pizza, another of Joshua’s favourites. We hunted the store for the freshly made variety, circling the entirety of the store before ending back up in the fruit and veg aisle, not two meters from where we started out.
Getting home we unpacked the boot, lifting the various backpacks, bags, guitars, teddy beds, Thomas the tanks and teddy bears into the house, reminding the kids of the last time they had visited when the place was a mess of chairs and relations, not to mention the giant bouncy castle in the back garden. Needless to say there wasn’t a bouncy castle this time around, although there was a treasure hunt which I put together in my last half hour of work on the Friday evening.
Before the treasure hunt, and as time was marching relentlessly on, we decided to ready Joshua’s bed and build the Dream N’Play travel cot borrowed from the McGarva household. Ka and myself worked at it for around half an hour, whilst Joshua continuously circled us, telling us how Papa could do it. After some struggle we ended up phoning Dougie, who informed us it was Steven who built it in their house. Not wanting to disturb Steven on his first night off for a long time we worked at it a little longer before I ended up on google and read of how a pregnant woman with a baby in one arm, could erect the folding cot with a heavy flick of the one free wrist. Needless to say we then found ourselves on the phone to Steven and just as he was about to leave the house in Bothwell to travel over and give us a hand, the cot seemed to suddenly coalesce, almost as if the thing had a mind of it’s own and had been having us on the whole time just like that moment when the Delorean’s engine roared to life when Marty headbutted the steering wheel. Almost collapsing back on to the spare room’s floor, like Doc at the end of Back to the Futrue 2, we all celebrated, high fives all round and we quickly called Steven back to tell him to continue to ready himself for the party.
So, the treasure hunt could begin. This hunt basically consisted of eight rhyming clues and a treasure map with which I led the kids around the house, on a hopefully exciting, but needlessly tiring, journey to find two bags of gold coins Ka had bought the previous week. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the most bountiful of treasures, but it did work in keeping them entertained, whilst the pizzas were baking in the oven.
After having run up and down the stairs a few times, visiting various rooms, getting our feet muddy in the garden, getting the bedroom carpet dirty from the garden, getting Ka to shout at us about it, and almost smashing the living room clock, the kids eventually ended up at the base of our dying yukka plant, digging down into it’s soil with their hands and pulling out a bag of gold coins each. A bag of gold coins and more than a few dollops of dry, crumbly soil which successfully exploded over the surrounding living room carpet. Fortunately Ka was in the kitchen and missed this. I quickly instructed the kids to run through to the kitchen and demand their coins to be cleaned, keeping her occupied, whilst I dived into the kitchen cupboard for our tall, trusty white plastic friend, the J. Edgar.
Following the treasure hunt we all sat down to watch the last ten minutes of Strictly Come Dancing and eat our pizza, the quietest the kids had been all day, and that included the cinema. Joshua was then put to his bed, the now fully functioning, or at least fully standing, Dream N’Play travel cot and Morgan set up the Snakes and Ladders interrupted by Ka giving the supposedly sleeping Joshua a quick check upstairs. He was awake and needing changed.
Oh my god.
I had never known such a smell existed. I called the army and warned them of a suspected toxic blast in the Calderwood area after I quickly disposed of the heavy white, padded bag given over to me. I had to put it straight into the wheelie bin outside. Regretting my actions almost instantly I then feared for my wheelie bin’s life. I’d probably go out the next morning to find a sizzling mound of melted green plastic that used to be our two wheeled, refuge collecting, green friend.
And there it would be sitting. Joshua’s nappy perched on top, still steaming.
On the past Wednesday mornings since moving in, when we’ve put the bin out for collection, it’s always been full to bursting and as a result the birds have been circling it, pecking at the bags exposed by the half open lid. Gawd helped any bird that dared to have a peck at that blighter.
What about the bin men themselves? They’d have to put that in their lorry? Do they get paid danger money?
If it gets out I could wake up one morning with the whole street in quarantine! Dustin Hoffman talking to me from behind the mask of a protective suit.

Anyway, whilst the nappy lay in the wheelie outside, the smell safely contained upstairs, unfortunately in the room where I was to spend the night in the futon alongside the travel cot, our Saturday night continued.
Pictionary with the furry pencil case followed the snakes and ladders.
Not two days before, whilst rummaging through some more boxes in my Mum and Dad’s loft, I found my trusty furry pencil case. Mum recognized it immediately after I’d brought it down. Mum had designed and created this furry pencil case when I was around seven or eight, for all my many coloured pencils, pens and other various drawing implements. Upon inspecting it’s innards I discovered it still held functioning felt pens so I brought it home for the weekend and for my niece to use for her drawings.
Unfortunately Morgan wasn’t too impressed and insisted on using her own black pen to draw her stories which we were obviously supposed to know. Ka used her illustrative skills to depict Blackpool as a steep pyramid built by the blind Egyptians with Christmas lights and I attempted the old woman that lived in the shoe.
That old woman had so many children she didn’t know what to do. We were looking after two for the night and we didn’t know what to do. We were knackered. Cinemas, treasure hunts, pizzas and snakes and ladders all seemed to work though. The old woman in the shoe obviously wasn’t that creative, she just whipped them all and put them to bed. If the old woman were around today she more than likely find herself getting reported to the RSPCC.
Still, it was all good practice.

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.

Gorillas, gritted teeth and grannies

£155. Brilliant. That’s the total I’ve managed to raise thanks to all those that sponsored me in my Glasgow 10k on the 2nd September. 310% of my predicted sponsor target. Fantastic. Facebook, email and twitter made using the Just Giving site so much easier so no one could have missed it really and even it they did, the sponsor page is still there, so it’s never too late!
Like I said I couldn’t have done it without you guys that gave your hard earned cash to such a worthwhile cause, Glasgow Sands, so thanks very much all of you, (you know who you are!).
The whole experience wasn’t without a certain amount of pain and hardship though as I did suffer a little for around four days. It wasn’t until the following Friday that I actually started regaining my usual walking abilities and stopped moving like a hungover John Wayne who’d been up all night. Going up and down stairs turned into an exceptional challenge, lurching up and down, like a limping Robocop. I’ve only got myself to blame, of course, it was the first time I’d ran 10k in a oner and I got very little training in beforehand. I even had to put the usual thrice a week trips to the gym on hold while we flitted at the turn of the month. If training for a 10k had included loading, lifting and the unpacking of heavy boxes, not to mention the seemingly constant use of a screwdriver, I would have completed the run in no time with no unfortunate after effects. Never before had small, menial, tasks been such hard work such as getting up off the couch and walking to the kitchen to make a brew. All with gritted teeth and noises and muttered sweary words.
The after effects didn’t actually kick in until the Monday morning when I had tried to get out of bed. I thought a gorilla had came in during the night and attacked me, refraining from waking me during the assault, as I slept.
Mysterious, nocturnal, gorillas aside, immediately after the race, under Nelson’s Monument on Glasgow Green, I’d felt great.
The run had gone well.
Later the results were published on the official website I had taken 58 minutes and 1 second.
Standing there, in Glasgow Green, I knew I had done it in around 58 minutes as I had timed myself with my trusty Rotary. I had aimed for under an hour at least so I was quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately I had no one to celebrate with.
Ka and the Mums and Dad’s had travelled into Glasgow to cheer us runners, Colin, Jillian and myself, off the starting line in George Square and, presumably, had the intention of cheering us over the finishing line. As I ran up through the last leg of the route, over Victoria Bridge and up Clyde Street and Greendyke Street into the Green, hollering crowds on either side, there had been no sign of the wife or either of the couples so I had assumed that I had missed them among the colourful, cheering crowd. As I slowed to a trot beyond the finishing line I picked up my medal, the traditional bag of runners’ goodies, and avoided the giant boxes of bananas, (I don’t like bananas… not sure why?) at the foot of Glasgow Green’s needle walked out on to the green picking a spot to stand and wait for anyone who may want to run up and congratulate me.
Nobody did.
Instead I watched all the others runners coming out through the finishing gates picking up their own medals and getting their goodie bags and then being greeted by loved ones over the surrounding temporary metal fencing.
I wasn’t bothered. I had run it in under and hour. I had seen it, even if no one else had. I kept an eye out for any of the ‘support’ but none could be seen. Not even the wife. Typical.
Around ten minutes later I spotted the familiar sight of Jillian in her Sands T-shirt, making her way through the puffed out running crowd, in the expanding queues for the medal, goodie bag and banana collection, a big smile on her ever so slightly red face. The brother-in-law’s missus to be, turned thirty that day and was celebrating by crossing yet another finishing line before she headed down to Newcastle for the Great North Run later in the month. This 10k was probably a mere walk in the park.
Jillian and myself then headed further down the park to the fencing at the side of the finishing line where we eventually met Ka and the meandering Mums and Dads who’d missed me because, on the long, tiring, arduous, walk down from George Square, they had felt the need for a McFlurry. In her wisdom, Ka had refused and walked on but had still managed to miss me, by a matter of minutes we worked out. However, minutes is everything when it comes to this kind of thing (especially 2 minutes, that’s donkeys… as long as it’s under an hour).

Ka has an excuse, of course, so I let her off, the fact that she’s currently carrying another Reid lifeform in her belly, (an excuse she uses way too often to be honest), and after we cheered Colin over the line we headed off, back to George Square to celebrate Jillian’s birthday over lunch in the Italian La Vita Pizzeria. We had tried the Greek Restaurant Elie first, where we met the rest of Jillian’s family, but the staff of Elie claimed half past twelve was too early to serve 12 hungry people, on a Sunday afternoon. This was the be only the first meeting for Jillian’s birthday though as her highly anticipated Muppets and friends 30th Birthday party was to follow the next Saturday in Kirkintilloch. Unfotunately, however, this was not be be, as Jillian’s wee Gran, Helen Hodge passed away early on that week.
Helen had not been too well the previous week and had been thought to be on the road to recovery and had missed Jillian’s birthday lunch whilst recuperating. So when Saturday did come around we all sadly found ourselves attending a funeral, rather than a birthday party, remembering the little 90 year old lady, with the seemingly endless energy with which she had constantly travelled up and down the country with her family, visiting relatives and seeing the sights whilst still attending all the party’s going and even the odd clubbing night. There is no doubt Helen will be sorely missed in the Hood household, not to mention the family parties, but forever remembered.
Like all grannies. Each one a massive cog in the machine of the family.
When that cog stops turning you wonder if the rest will keep going, knowing there’ll be none, in any way, similar to take it’s place.
Somehow though, the cogs do keep turning.
It’s the remembering of loved ones lost that sometimes keeps you going.
Why else would you go to the bother of running 10k?
Certainly not for your health.
My ankle still hurts.
But it was worth it.

Flitting, phones and forklifts

Has it been so long? Sheesh, it’s been donkeys since I’ve had the time to sit and write anything on this here blog.
Ka and myself have now, more or less, fully settled down in our new abode.
The boxes have all been emptied, the rooms have been organised, the wardrobes have been built, the books unpacked, the Cds put into alphabetical order, the Virgin tv finally activated, the wifi enabled, the loft filled, all the junk cleared out and the dates for the all important housewarmings organised. We’ve had to arrange two housewarmings, one for family and one for friends. There’s just too many people to invite in one go. Don’t get me wrong, we could attempt it but not even a three bedroom house could hold everyone.
Three bedroom house. It’s strange even saying that.
We now have stairs. I was on the phone to Aunt Linda there and had to travel downstairs when it came to Ka’s turn in the conversation. The wife was sitting on the couch, supping a coffee, watching Eastenders when I made my way down to the living room and handed the phone over.
We have stairs now. I had to walk and talk in order to pass the phone over. Back in Kenilworth we simply shouted for the other person to take the few steps from the next room to take a shot on the phone.
Okay, yes, it’s probably nothing amazing to the likes of yourselves, but we’ve been living in a one bedroom flat for the past seven years. Not only that, we were using a cord phone handset. Now we have cordless handsets with which we can saunter around the house, visiting various rooms as we talk. Perhaps one of the three bedrooms. Perhaps one of the two toilets. Perhaps the sizable kitchen, the comfortable living room or the lower or upper hall, both connected by that weird, unfamiliar, rising passageway known as a staircase.
Very strange having a staircase actually inside my home after having used the cold, stone steps of the flat close for so long. We can now climb stairs without fear of jumping spiders, meeting neighbours on the way down, encountering singing postmen or noticing the absence of a wheelie bin. Well, the latter to some extent. We can just about see the blue of our recycling wheelie bin through the front door’s window and would probably notice if it suddenly went missing one night but I doubt it would be going missing in this neighbourhood to give the youngsters a quick thrill and fix as they sniff away over an open fire in the local forest at the bottom of the street which, unfortunately, had been the fate of one of our past wheelie bins. No, this neighbourhood feels a little different.
We put a pile of old carpets, garden furniture and general rubbish out on Sunday night for the council to pick up on Monday morning and found that anyone passing in the street was giving the pile of unwanted goods a dirty look or a shake of the head. If that had been Kenilworth the unwanted goods would have got a quick look over or a quick, inquisitive, glance at the very least just to make sure it really was for the scrap heap.
I’m always seeing stuff lying about in streets, left out for the council to pick up, presumably the next day, and always cast my eyes over it just in case I see anything that would come in handy. I seen a pram recently, lying unwanted at the end of a garden path and considered it briefly for more than a few seconds. It was missing a wheel though so I opted against it. If you see anything out there, we do need a wee table for the corner of our living room for the new cordless phone’s terminal box to sit on. (Is that what it’s called the ‘terminal’ box? That’s make’s it sound awfully final or important. We better not get any immigrants that have a more than passing resemblance to Tom Hanks hanging around the corner of our living room).
The actual flitting was great. I met Auntie Lorna’s son-in-law, Robbie, with his van in Birkenshaw Industrial Estate on the Saturday morning of the 25th August. Robbie had offered his services and his van for the flitting, which was great as it meant we didn’t have to go through the whole hiring of a Boulevard deathtrap.
The only problem was, it wasn’t quite a van. It was an 18 tonne Mercedes lorry. Brilliant for flitting with. Not so brilliant, I predicted, for flitting into a tightly packed, curving, uphill street on a oddly sunny, warm August afternoon. Anyway, I led him home in the car, dropping Grace off at the new abode to help Ka with the cleaning, and pulled up, back at Kenilworth, to find Tom waiting with Jack the dog. My Uncle Tom had been told ten rather than half ten so was getting a little impatient. After Robbie pulled up the large Merc lorry, with Dougie in the front passenger seat, we soon got started. My other Uncle Tommy then pulled up, followed by Uncle Laurence and Steven who all got to work in shifting the piles of boxes from out the wee one bedroom flat.
How a one bedroom flat had held so many boxes I’ll never know. There was a pile in the bedroom, a pile in the hall, a pile in the living room, and a few more in the kitchen. Some of the boxes were easily lifted, others were not. In fact, I’ll have serious considerations the next time I go to buy myself another hardback book. I think I may have inadvertently strained a few muscles that day with my book collection. Three shelves that had stood in the Kenilworth hallway for over seven years, filled with hardbacks, had filled three and a half boxes and had the potential of breaking three and a half backs. Once all the boxes were packed in the back of the lorry Dad and young Michael turned up closely followed by Iain, who had driven over from Motherwell, leaving a hungover Roslyn, in bed. This completed the A-Team and together we made our way over to the new house where the lorry slowly clambered up the street, reversed, then maneuvered, reversed then crawled up into Robertson Drive where it was swiftly unloaded in an organised line of straining, growling, humfing and, occasionally, complaining relations. Quote of the day had to go to young Michael who, as another large box of hardbacks was hefted through the house’s front door by two uncles, looked up the stairs at me and moaned.
“Michael, get a kindle!”
My Unlce Tom wasn’t at all happy either when a box of VHS videos was lifted into the house.
“VHS?!” Tom lamented. “Gawd’s sake Ka, get him told!”
Ka agreed with him oblivious to the fact, at the point, that Tom had sneakily nicked a couple of wine gums that had been left in one of the untaped boxes lifted from the Kenilworth kitchen. It wasn’t until later, when all the boxes had been unpacked in the kitchen that the pregnant Ka had went looking for her favourite confectionery only to find the bag with only a few remaining gums left. Fortunately for him, Tom had left by that point but as soon as Ka shouted as to the whereabouts of the rest of her bag of gums the other relative removal blokes, keeping their dignity, quality and conscience clear said only three words.
Unfortunately the words did not consist of “we don’t know”, or “we’re saying nothing”, or even “we’re no grass!”. The words were:
“It was Tom!”
The loudest accusation from Laurence. So much for brotherly love.
It was 2pm when the last of the 2 lorry loads finally made it’s way into the house.
The second lorry load had consisted mostly of the larger pieces of furniture, and a hastily deconstructed bed which Steven had toiled over back in the flat, obviously making up for the garden shed incident which he put me through on his own flitting day.
Have I mentioned that before?
I think I might have. (I can imagine Steven rolling his eyes with a groan as he reads this…)
Imagine opening a garden shed during a flitting and being being met with a tidal wave of screws, bolts, plastic balls and spirit levels (okay, it wasn’t quite a tidal wave, but this is my blog, and I’ll exaggerate if I like!).
As Robbie had pulled the lorry up once more with the second lorry load, into the tight curve of Robertson Drive, Uncle Jim turned up, just in time to help with the unloading and maneuvering of the couch.

Mum claimed at one point that Jim had turned up with a forklift to which she got quizzical looks before we realised she was referring to the two wheeled baggage trolley parked on the front door. A forklift would have been great though. Saying that, an 18 tonne lorry was annoying the neighbours as it was. I’m, not sure we would have got away with a forklift also driving up and down the street.
As Iain and my Dad chatted out in the garden, the sun was shining down over Robertson Drive, the tea was getting poured, a couple of bottles of Kronenbourg were being cracked open and people were resting on various boxes and oddly positioned furniture in the living room. As everyone else settled down for a wee drink and a chat, Steven, obviously still keen to work on, moved upstairs and started reassembling the bed.
Within the next hour Angela, Morgan and Joshua turned up and Morgan wasted no time in insisting that I order my four swimming pools that would fit in the back garden.
Not only do we have stairs of our own now, but we also have a back garden. Not to mention a front garden. We obviously don’t have any swimming pools as yet, but considering it was a suggestion I first put to Ka upon seeing the slightly overgrown back garden upon our first viewing, you never know.
Then again, maybe I should just stick to being grateful for a staircase and a cordless phone.

Secretaries, celebrations and congratulations

Sorry, it's been ages. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I've had documents, forms and letters coming out my ears not to mention the fights with sellotape, cardboard boxes, bubblewrap and newsprint that went on in the flat. No, it wasn't a crazy, drunken stationery shop party. In fact, we've been anything but stationery (yes, I know, different spelling).
We picked up the keys to our new house two Fridays ago and haven't stopped since.
We arrived at the East Kilbride solicitors office at quarter to five on the evening of Friday 17th, after another successful scan of Baby Reid number 2 at the hospital. I, rather rudely, interupted the two secretaries sitting in the reception office, distracting them from their inane chatter, giving them a rather heavy hint to actually respond to the two new arrivals in their office. Once I had their attention, I asked for the keys to the property now owned by my wife and I. The secretary, who was obviously in possession of such keys, rather huffily went into her drawers and produced a bulky white envelope (and before you ask, I don't know how big her drawers were) and picked up the phone to inform the solicitor concerned that, "that was the keys to Robertson Drive". Ka accepted the bulky, clinking envelope from the solicitor's secretary and we hurried from the office. Normally we would have hurried off to get on with the final arrangements for a flitting that weekend but before all that we had the small matter of a sixtieth party to finalise.
Along with her brother, Colin, Ka had been making a lot of phonecalls throughout the week, rounding up a good crowd of friends and family to help celebrate her Dad, Dougie's, surprise 60th birthday party to take place in his own local, The Rowantree, the perfect location to arouse the least suspicion.
Colin arrived back at the McGarva household straight from work that Saturday evening, to entice his Dad out for a pint, and considering Dougie's big birthday was still 2 weeks away he had not suspected a thing. There was also reason for Colin to celebrate over a quiet pint with his Dad following his own proposal to his other half Jillian, the weekend before.
That shouldn't go without a mention either! (Congratulations Colin and Jillian!)
Colin got down on one knee and set Jillian the question as they had made thier way through to Edinburgh for their first visit to the Fringe festival. Jillian proved that she is indeed a nutcase of sorts, and said yes (only nutcases marry McGarvas, it's a well known fact). The two of them called Ka and myself as we sat down to dinner with Dougie and Grace in the Uddingston branch of the Hot Flame World Buffet where we enjoyed an 'eat as much as you can possibly eat' experience and, at the same time, discovered Dougie is deaf in the right ear (rather than the wrong one). Apparently there was something wrong with the phone as he could barely hear anything Colin and Jillian were saying to him before he switched to the other ear and suddenly heard them loud and clear.
He is 60 now, I suppose these things happen as you get older.
So, a week later, Dougie was taken completely by surprise as he sauntered through to one of the pub's side rooms, apparently where all the women usually sit, and everyone, including family, friends and former work colleagues from DC Thomson, all enjoyed the night. Ka and Jillian made a buffet that was too big for the table with contributions from a few others including Mum who made some delicious tuna pasta, Steven who made his parma ham sticks, and Auntie Lorna who made her caramel shortcake and I finally got a piece of it. Lorna makes a whole tray of the splendid sticky stuff up at every special occasion and I have never managed to get my hands on a whole piece yet. I've always been left raking through the buffet leftovers looking for a solitary piece of Lorna's caramel shortcake like a desperate, starving scavenger looking through the wreckage of a burning cornershop that's just been reduced to a pile or burning bricks by a rogue missile at the end of the world in a smoky, rotting street far, far away. Or even a music fan looking for a fantastic performance in an Olympics closing ceremony.
Anyway, photos were taken, the big golf themed birthday cake was cut, family members all had a chance to catch up and Dougie kept the DJ busy, hardly leaving the makeshift dancefloor in the middle of the small, but comfortable function room as the music eventually enticed a good crowd up to dance, including Aunty Lorna, who ended up on her knees again to the tune of The Killers' "Human".
It wasn't until late on the Sunday morning that I arose from my pit, ambling, zombie like, between the large piles of boxes littering the bedroom, hallway and then living room. Ka was sitting quietly, watching the tv, knackered after the organisation, excitement and then eventual end of the surprise party.
I wasn't feeling particularly energetic myself but we still managed to head out around mid afternoon to visit our new property. It was a lot dryer and sunnier that day than it had been the first day we'd visited as we pulled up outside the terraced house. The rain had been bouncing off the windscreen the first time around. We'd been struggling to see the house from the other side of the street, through the water attacking the glass of the car but it hadn't put us off and once we'd been inside we knew this was the house for us. With a clearer view of our new house now we each took a set of keys from the white envelope and walked on up the garden path with a sort of quiet, mellowed, excitement. We turned the two keys in the old front door's locks and pushed the door open. The name of McCulloch was still present on a small, aged nameplate screwed into the wood of the painted door. We'd have to get a new one of those, I thought, as we stepped inside.

Tales of the punexpected

Tim Vine stopped his puns briefly, taking a moment under the warm stage lights, to mop his brow with a handkerchief and looked down at the slightly crumpled note of paper he pulled from the left pocket of his suit jacket.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we’re very lucky to have him here. Would you join me in welcoming this man to the stage. He’s a Graphic designer and he is Mr Michael Reid!”
The surrounding audience in the darkness cheered and clapped as a few of them looked round for the next named guest. The comedian had already invited two random members of the audience up on to the small stage individually in the Pleasance Cabaret bar. He’d interviewed them, questioned them and joked with them and now it was my turn.
Upon entering the Cabaret bar and taking our seats in the audience before the show we had all found strips of paper, forms to fill out, lying on our seats and stools, waiting for us. Ka and myself took our seats in the third row, not wanting to venture too close to the stage as you risked getting picked out for interrogation that way.
The forms asked simply for your name, your occupation and a situation you’d been in recently or not so recently that could be deemed to have been ridiculous. I filled out my form, as did others, not thinking much of it but struggling at first to think of any slightly ridiculous situations until the more recent misadventure in the supermarket popped into my head. The recent supermarket misadventure in particular being the one where I couldn’t find my wife anywhere and ended up having to get her name announced over the tannoy. Shrugging, I handed my form up to the compere as he dived around the audience collecting other shruggingly filled out forms before he disappeared backstage, through the slim doors at the side of the stage on which two stools stood, with two microphones perched on each, alongside a table of props.
After around five minutes Tim Vine, the English comedian famous for his daft jokes, fast one-liners and non stop puns, eventually emerged from between the curtains at the back of the stage, greeted with applause by the gathered Fringe crowd and immediately launched into his usual barrage of jokes. It was only the second day of the Edinburgh Fringe so this would have most probably been a mere warm up act for him since he is performing his chat show act for the entirety of August.
As everyone cheered me up on to the stage the comedian greeted me with a big shake of the hand and invited me to sit on the second stool, where the previous two guests had sat. The first had been a red faced, mumbling mechanic whose story had centred around him giving someone a new wheel on their car and neglecting to tighten the wheel nuts, thus causing some embarrassment to his garage and getting himself a written warning when the wheel spun off a some point in the unfortunate customer’s journey home. Thankfully no one died, so it was okay to make light of it. Until the customer had been revealed to be a woman, of course, as this caused some upset from the audience much to Tim Vine’s surprise and wasted no time in accusing the audience of being sexist.
The second guest had been a wee lady, an accountant, from the best hotel in Edinburgh, apparently. Her Dad was polish and after some discussion, a discussion which seemed to inadvertently confuse the lady, it was revealed to her that this in fact made her half polish. This lady’s story involved a milk run in her local town when she was younger and a truck hitting and dragging the finishing line rope along with it bringing the flag pole down on to her head. Tim Vine shrugged views this as definite proof, if any were needed, as to her being polish.
During the accountant lady’s tale a young girl got up and left her seat, presumably to either visit the bar, the loo or just to escape. Tim Vine gave her a little mention as she escaped insisting that if you don’t like the stories you can always just sit through them, the show didn’t last too long.
There was no escape for me though as Tim Vine called me up on stage.
At first it felt fine, sitting up there. You can’t really see the audience as the only light in the room comes from the strong, warm, bright stage lights hanging overhead casting the rest of the room in darkness making you barely able to see beyond the first two rows of the audience. Beyond those first smiling rows there was only darkness, so my safe seat on the third row together with Ka, who had let out a fairly audible groan as I was called up, were shrouded in shadow before me.
Tim Vine introduced me to the audience once more and raised an eyebrow, or two, when I gave the audience a ‘hello, how are you doing?’.
Tim then asked about my job and upon mention of the words graphic designer a man in the second row on the right of the audience got up and left his seat, making his way to the doors. Tim Vine immediately caught on to this and mused over whether the man had something against graphic designers.
Tim wondered whether he’d said to his wife; “This is fine. I’ll come and see this show. But if someone even mentions the words graphic design I’m outta here. I’m drawing the line at that!”. Tim (notice how we’re on first name terms now!), then asked about the job, what it entails and where it was based, making sure is wasn’t in ‘Ayrshire’ to which I said I was pretty (sure) to which he replied “is it?”. I nodded, defending Glasgow even though I was sitting in a crowd, which was most probably made up of a good percentage of Edinburgh folk.
Tim then got me to go through the whole supermarket tannoy story (seen here) and noticed, as some do, that I sometimes, when a little nervous or excited, or on stage with a famous comedian, tend to repeat myself or get a little too enthusiastic about certain points in a story.
“So, I searched the length and breadth of the supermarket, twice, three, four times…”
Tim asked if I done most things three or four times.
Even as I told my story I realised it wasn’t very funny or interesting at all, not the way I was telling it anyway, and I was probably making a very boring chat show. I finished my story with the tannoy announcement and the rather shocked and embarrassed Ka making her way to the checkouts to meet her husband. Tim seemed to quite enjoy the tale launching off into a few of his supermarket puns, obviously ready and in mind as soon as he’d seen my note come through the backstage door and then, after a few more questions, asked for Ka to come to the stage. There was no movement in the darkness where the third row should have been. I looked into the shadows behind the first two rows looking for Ka to make and move but she didn’t. She had disowned me with embarrassment.
Apparently at some point in the next few moments Ka did put her hand up, but I never seen it, although Tim Vine definitely knew she was sitting there, in the third row, as he was willing her on to the stage with his eyes.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, and Ka had finally died of mortification, someone did jump up on to the stage. It was the girl who’d went to the loo during the earlier story.
“I’m Kelly-Ann!” she told us. “My name’s Kelly-Ann!”. Tim and I looked round at one another with surprise and then back at her.
“Well, this wasn’t planned at all”, Tim stated, wide eyed. “Was it 2 for the price of 1 that day?”
Tim Vine welcomed two others up on to the stage after me, a nurse, who kept claiming that not killing people was a good thing, and a teacher. As much as I thought my story was hardly exciting and pretty boring, as I recited it on stage, I am now quite happy and content with the fact that the two following guests’ stories were worse. The nurse’s story involved her losing a hat to the ocean whilst on a ferry and the teacher’s involved him dressing up as a turtle for one of his kids’ school plays. At least losing your wife in a supermarket and then getting her name called over the tannoy is vaguely humorous and a suitably daft for a Tim Vine show.
After the show finished Tim disappeared, back behind the curtains, at the rear of the stage, to the applause and cheers from the audience. As the lights came back up, everyone started making their way out the Pleasance cabaret bar, following the exit signs (they’re on the way out aren’t they?) through the double doors through which we had previously entered. After a few moments a familiar voice echoed out through the stage speakers.
“Would the wife of the Graphic Designer please make herself known to the stage”.
The shambling crowd all laughed as they made their way, looking round at Ka and myself as we followed among the crowd, but unfortunately Ka was too embarrassed or affronted to hang around any longer and we headed for the Pleasance courtyard.
It hadn’t occurred to me until afterwards that maybe, just maybe, Tim Vine had been wanting us to go to the stage to collect a best story or show contribution award?!
Or maybe not.

Picnics, barbecues, beaches and tomatoes

My not insignificant forehead has been red raw this week and is only just recovering. For the first half of the week it felt like I'd had a particularly heavy injection of botox as I was finding it difficult to lift my eyebrows (and spending days on end with the inability to lift your eyebrows is most inconvenient – a look of surprise is misconstrued as a look on constipation).
The sun had once more got the better of me. After a day spent lounging about a beach on Elie harbour without any form of protection I suffered. I should know by now that even though the sun may not be obvious at times, it's still there. Quite often, as soon as I've set foot on a beach, be it Ibiza, Lanzarote or Largs, I’ve turned a violent shade of red.
The family, or in this case, families, were all gathering in the Fife coastal town of Elie for a beach barbeque. My Aunt Anne had arranged it with the extended family of my Granpa Reid’s sister’s, my Great Aunt Nan’s, side as, unfortunately, we only ever seem to really see each other when somebody dies. Anne had got talking with a few of her cousins at the last funeral, my Aunt Maureen’s, and had decided enough was enough. She was determined to bring the two families together for something that wasn’t a death.
So Dad, Mum, Lynsey Ann, Ka and myself all jumped into Dad’s citroen on the Saturday, and travelled up to Leven, and to the Caledonia Hotel, a half hour drive from where we were headed the next day. We arrived at around half past eleven and, as check-in wasn't until after one, we decided to take our picnic, organised and provided by Mum and Ka, down to the waterfront. Unfortunately the weather wasn't up to much and as soon as we climbed down the large stone steps on to Leven's short sand beach, the rain started to fall.
Not just normal rain though.
This was large, big, splodgy dollops of rain which made a fantastic attempt at soaking us before we ran for shelter, cowering under the shelter of a large tree, we'd spotted earlier, back up towards the streets, alongside some park benches. As the rain eventually lightened, Mum and Ka quickly started preparing the tea, coffees and sandwiches, the Firth of Forth stretched out before us under the continuously moving clouds.
After our lunch, we decided to take a wee walk around the seaside town.
It didn't take very long.
We walked up on to the rather neglected looking High Street, not even paying any attention to the decorative signposts which pointed the way to the town's various hotspots. Not that there was much in the way of hotspots.
The bigger hotspots consisted of the local Lidl, which stood opposite our hotel for the night and served as our picturesque view from our hotel window. An indoor swimming pool stood lay, across the road from the bus station, at the end of the short High Street. A Sainsbury's sat across the road from that. There was an Arcade amusement shop, a bounteous amount of charity shops and a few pubs.
My Dad and I left the women in a wool shop and wandered further up the street and came across and slightly more curious looking little shop which displayed examples of it’s wares in it’s window. World war helmets, military caps, uniforms, nazi war medals, gas masks and beer flagons were just a few of the collections adorning the shelves and walls of this particular shop all leading you into a false sense of security as you ventured forth into the back of the shop and found a bog standard second hand book shop. Dad bought some Michael Connelly books for a pound each (cheaper than the charity shops) before we headed back down the street to find the women in the hotel buying in the drinks.
Following check in, during which we checked over our basic, but clean, rooms admired the view of the local Lidl and unpacked our small cases of belongings, we headed out to Crail to meet up with Tom, Linda and the just arrived Jim who had driven all the way up from London. We arrived at Tom and Linda’s camper van just in time to see Cavendish and his team get beat in the Olympics cycling road race and decided to head up to Crail’s Main street and a pint in the Golf Hotel where Anne and Ian caught up with us and Mum noised up the barman for not delivering Ka’s coffee.
We headed back to Leven for the remainder of the evening, driving through the pouring rain, which seemed to suddenly only exist outside of Crail, and enjoyed dinner with Anne and Ian in the Caledonia, where the waitresses had neglected to book our table and then nearly forgot to take our dessert orders.
With the rain finally giving itself a break, we took a short walk afterwards, ending up in one of the pubs we’d passed on our walk earlier in the day. Now it was a little livelier and the Saturday night entertainment was in full swing with the pub’s DJ and karaoke machine. The karaoke only made up half of the entertainment though as we were introduced to the lively residents of Leven’s Molly Malones. Most of the singers were awful, successfully destroying perfectly good songs. One of the guys, who would probably have ate himself if he had been chocolate, could barely sing the last three words of each screen, struggling to keep up with the colouring text. A few girls attempted Lady Gaga and the like whilst one of the biggest karaoke stars of the night turned out to be a lady called Margaret.
At least we think she was a lady.
Usually Margaret is a lady’s name so we opted for the female option. This ‘lady’ would strut up to the microphone in her suit jacket and belt out the hits with a deep, but not completely tuneless voice, and was overjoyed to hear the cheers from Mum and Anne following her various song interpretations. Insinuations were even made the next morning about Mum getting a few heavy winks from Margaret.
After a quick drive across the road to Lidl, where we packed a couple of boxes full of chicken, burgers, ribs and wings along with wine, juice and a couple of large bottles of water for the beach feast we headed out to Elie.
Arriving at Ruby beach, Sarah Jane turned up with Yvie, Christopher and Daniel before Anne and Ian drove up and met us where it was decided we should change location and we settled down on a small section of beach in a rocky alcove on a southern point of Elie harbour.
The sun was out but the wind was strong as we started setting up camp. Tom kitted me out with some shorts and a pair of spiky soled sandles as I’d left the shorts at home not expecting much from the Scottish coastal weather, much to Tom and my Dad’s disbelief. Earlier, on the Saturday, Dad almost swerved off the road with incredulity when I told him that I’d not brought any shorts.
Anyway, tents were built (and never used), barbecues were laid out ready for use, canoes were blown up, windbreakers were erected and a couple of castles were built as the family gathered to meet the more distant, extended family. Granpa Reid’s sister, my 87 year old Great Aunt Nan, soon appeared on son-in-law Stanley’s arm, the majority of her family, all following soon after.
Considering I only see these distant relations briefly at funerals I still find myself getting names mixed up, if I can even remember the names in the first place. There were a number of occasions on Sunday when I had to ask reminders from Mum, quietly and subtly whenever I think none of them are looking. There was Paul married to young Nan, Joan married to Stanley, Allison married to Ken, Kathryn married to Vince, Claire married to… Paul… I think it was Paul. Gawd, see, there I’ve started forgetting the names already?!
Anyway, on the day mixing up the names and relations didn’t get in the way of the food. Before long the BBQ’s were lit, the cans were cracked open, the wine unscrewed (we realised in Lidl that we had no bottle opener) and Linda’s trifle was out whilst the sun shone down, the strong wind succeeding in fooling us into being cool, whilst the occasional shower pestered us from time to time.
In all there was probably around 35 folk crowded round that small piece of beach before some of the blokes disappeared off to the Ship Inn for a pint, or to see the hanging baskets, as some were claiming, and to watch the game of cricket taking place further along beach. Apparently Elie’s hanging baskets are lovely at this time of year, I suspect they’re even lovelier when there’s a pint or two involved.
Unfortunately for me I made the unwise decision to stay on the beach and get merry with the wine, my Dad only realising later that we could well have been breaking the law.
It wasn’t until I got back into the back seat of the citroen at the end of the day, after returning the shorts to Tom and spending around an hour saying goodbye to people, that Mum turned a fetching shade of scarlet, Dad got dizzy and tripped over a wall, Lynsey Ann started to feel a little drowsy and my whole head started buzzing with heat. It wasn’t until the next morning when I awoke that I realised I could no longer look surprised, let the water from my shower hit my head or dry my hair or head without screaming in pain. I walked into the office with a head resembling a expertly polished tomato. Now, a couple of days later, and after copious amounts of after sun cream, that tomato is now peeling.

Messed up

It’s all kicking off. The Olympics have started already and Danny Boyle hasn’t even had a chance to complain about the BBC yet. The Olympic football games have started ahead of the official opening ceremony this Friday night in Stratford.
Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium hosted Team GB’s win over New Zealand yesterday afternoon whilst Scotland hosted France, USA, Colombia and North Korea at Hampden Park, in Mount Florida. Let’s hope the USA weren’t expecting theme parks and Mickey Mouse.
Saying that, there must have been some kind of Mickey Mouse outfit in charge of the Hampden graphics as the North Korean Women’s football team stormed off the pitch in a huff tonight after the South Korean flag was shown alongside pictures of the team’s players on the big screens. Not a great start.
Still, what did they expect going to Glasgow for a game of football? Of course it was going to end up in a fight.
My disappearing fourth year Art School tutor suddenly reappeared on a STV news report about the whole affair claiming he didn’t have a clue what was going on. That’s not great considering the man’s a graphic designer.
On the way home the motorway yesterday signals warned of Olympic traffic and instructed which turn off to take to head for the Olympic football. I didn’t notice any Olympic traffic. In fact the traffic seemed it’s usual mundane self, quieter than usual if anything. Throughout the day there had been emails going around the work giving Olympic football tickets away. One of the guy’s in the daily record marketing department was giving a large bundle away for free. Graeme, who works opposite me in the office, had tickets and almost seemed desperate to get rid of them.
Earlier, on the company’s intranet, I found out I was one of 10 lucky winners to receive the new Rolling stones 50 book, a tome detailing the Rolling Stones’ lifetime through photographs taken by the newspaper company throughout the many long years. It was a staff only competition and one which didn’t require much effort, only the ability to type your name and address which I just about managed.
And yes, my address is still the same. We’re still waiting to hear back with regards to our mortgage for our potential new house but are not much further forward since the last time I wrote on this blog. Phonecalls have been made, emails have been sent and solicitor forms have been filled out and posted but still no news. Perhaps by the end of this week we’ll know something. Considering house buying is possibly one of the biggest decisions of your life, not to mention one of the most costly, these solicitors and mortgage companies just leave you hanging. Probably sneering at you on the other end of the phone as you sit and stress about the upcoming deadlines, cash worries and form filling.
As a short break away from it all we’re off to Leven at the weekend. Aunt Anne decided it was about time we had another family trip so this time we’re all meeting up for a family BBQ on a beach somewhere around the Crail, Fife region on Sunday. Tom and Linda are camping with Jim and James up in Crail. Laurence and Maria are also camping somewhere with Megan and Lauren. Anne and Ian are staying in a fancy hotel whilst Ka, Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann and myself are staying at a hotel in Leven throughout the Saturday before travelling up to the yet to be disclosed location on the Sunday.
All this money talk and the signing of lives away is getting a little tiring so a brief respite may revitalise us a little.
Bump is growing too. We took another trip to Hairmyres Hospital last Friday morning for another scan and Baby Reid wouldn’t sit still for two minutes. Jumping about all over the place, she was, making it more than a little difficult for the Registrar and the Consultant, Dr. Ferguson, to get proper measurements of baby’s various body parts.
Notice how I said ‘she’ there?
Yes, after we asked the question once more, the registrar looked into the shadowy depths of the computer screen before him and mumbled a reply of female. Dr. Ferguson agreed having hummed and hawed and then eventually coming to that conclusion the last time. Another little girl.
A rather energetic, crazy, non stop little girl. Much like her mother I suspect as when Lucy was still in her mummy’s tummy she’d been more like myself. Lying back, relaxing in it’s womby waters, albeit with the occasional Blockbusters hand jive spotted more than once on the scan monitors.
This new little one won’t sit at peace for two minutes.
On Sunday Ka jumped on more than one occasion whilst sitting in the cinema and it wasn’t down to the break in any tense action sequence or sudden fright.
Either the loud voices, echoing bangs or roaring engines from the surrounding cinema were disturbing baby or she was just enjoying herself in there just as much as her mother was, sitting watching Christian Bale in the leather bat outfit.
Earlier in the week Ka had awoken from a dream in which she had been having an affair with Christian Bale. Not only that, but Christian Bale was her Dad’s brother.
“Wouldn’t that make him your Uncle?” I frowned, over my orange juice that morning.
“Yes” Ka nodded. “But in my dream, it didn’t matter”.
“Sleeping with your Uncle?” I continued to frown. “That’s just messed up”.
What was even more messed up, and unfortunately far more real, was what was to follow on the Friday night at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, over in Aurora, Colorado.
A horrendous nightmare as yet another crazy person with a couple of guns, dressed and, quite obviously, disturbed, walked into a cinema, intent on killing.
For some reason.
12 people dead and 58 injured.
And yet, what do the people of Colorado do? Go out and buy more guns. According to the BBC website, in the days following the Colorado shooting, applications for the purchase of a gun were 43% higher than the previous week.
Is this the answer? Does this make people feel better?
I’m not so sure.