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.

Camping and karaoke in Fort William

My calf muscles have never been sturdier. It is now three days since my return home from a camping trip away and my legs are still sore.
On Sunday Colin, Chaz and myself took a drive up to Fort William, Stevie Wonder, along with some dodgy eighties music, blaring from Chaz’s Volkswagen Golf speakers as we made our way up the A82. Throughout the journey the car made it’s way through rain, sun and hail, over the winding roads, through Crainlarich and towering mists of Glen Coe as we discussed the many important topics of the day including work, film, music, radio stations, Steve Martin and how I, in fact, never seen ‘Father of the Bride 2’ as Chaz has so adamantly claimed in the past. Chaz had it in his head that I had apparently called something off, at a younger age, in order to see this cinematic classic with Colin upon it’s first release which I have always ferociously denied and to which Colin, as it turns out, had no knowledge.
Anyway, we arrived in Fort William at around 5pm in the evening and set up camp in the Glen Nevis Camping Park.
We had two three man tents to house us, and our accessories, which included sleeping bags, food, beer, a cooker and a gas canister which was only approximately a quarter full, which was probably just as well after Chaz gave us a horror story about a family named Gillespie who apparently blew up on their way to a camping holiday a few years back. We had brought the two tents, as my own, apparently three man, tent would have been too small for the three of us and there was no way the three of us were cramming ourselves under the one canvas.
We picked a rather pleasant, semi covered grass area under some large trees keeping in mind the large, grey clouds that were constantly threatening from above, surrounding the giant mountain towering over us from across the road.
Our own personal Mount Doom stood there watching us. It’s peak submerged in cloud. With the mountain looming over us we wasted no time in getting the tents up whilst our neighbours milled around.

There was an oddly aged family group in a large tent at the top of our hill whose group included the loudest snorer I’ve ever heard. At night his snoring roared through the area around our tent, even though we were three tents away.
There was the fifty odd year old guy that turned up in an estate with two thai mail order brides. He stood back and shouted orders as his two female companions erected their family sized tent, arguing back and shouting at one another.
There was another small family behind us, who mostly wore kilts, which consisted of a man in his late fifties with a woman of around the mid thirties and a small three year old girl. We thought it was the mum and daughter out with the Granpa until we realised their tent was exceptionally small and they had a rather flirtatious manner whilst playing tennis.
Then there was the couple in the very small tent under the trees immediately behind us. A tent we neglected to notice until we had erected our own shelters. This couple barely left their tent for the whole time we were there. It wasn’t until we’d set up camp and were sitting having our first beers that we realised their tent actually existed. We presumed they were out at first as we started our first beers, chatting away and it wasn’t until the two shapes within began shuffling around, mumbling and making the odd noise
we began to suspect that we may have interrupted a quiet, romantic, rather cramped looking getaway.
After a disappointing meal in the disappointing pub/restaurant attached to the campsite, involving a burger which I thought I enjoyed at first but which then lay in my stomach for the rest of the evening, Chaz, colin and myself ventured into Fort William. We walked the 2.5 miles into town in search of some Sunday night entertainment. As it happens, it wasn’t too hard to find. After a couple of pints of cider in the hole that was The Crofter, Chaz sussed out from the helpful barmaid where the other drinking holes were located. Once we’d finished our pints and refrained from buying any of the vending machine gifts in the toilets, which included an inflatable sheep among other rather worrying items, we lifted our jackets and headed out on to the High street again.
After a short walk we entered the depths of an underground bar across the street, a dark, stone walled, karoke playing horror show in which we opted to stand in the shadows, up against a wall. Chaz, now bored with the beer, bought some spirits which I immediately considered a bad move considering we were climbing Britain’s biggest hill the next morning.
After escaping that bar we then moved on to the Volunteer Arms. A rather fitting name I thought as it turned out to be another karaoke playing night for which Chaz was our willing volunteer. As bar brawls broke out around us, among the rougher looking locals and the bar’s one security guard shuffled around it, Colin and myself mulled over which song Chaz was to sing. Following further lovely renditions from another few locals singing their hearts out up on the makeshift stage, Chaz’s name was called. Following the calling Chaz made his way up to the mike as a good portion of the drinkers in the bar looked round at him, and us, as if they’d just realised we were there, and immediately began eyeing the tourists with suspicious disapproval. Chaz didn’t let the locals put him off though, either that or he didn’t notice, as he belted out a rather joyous rendition of the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’. He managed to get a few girls dancing but mostly just caused a lot of cagey looks from the gathered Fort Williamers. After he’d finished Colin and myself looked at one another and hurriedly finished our drinks, and as we left, we felt the locals following us to the door with their eyeballs.
With barely any sleep and a ridiculously bad hangover, unfairly bestowed upon me from the fairly normal amount of alcohol consumed the night before, I clambered out of the tent and shuffled myself to the campsite’s toilet block.
We slowly cleaned ourselves up, pulled our jackets on, fastened our backpack clips and shoved our bottled water and sandwiches, bought at the garage the night before, into our bags. Just as we were breathing in the cool air, looking up at the mountain before us, flexing our shoulders, stretching our legs, I puked.
I believe the exact words I uttered were:
“Oah, guys, I think I’m going to - ….”
The woman with the little girl behind our tent looked on in disgust as I collapsed down on to the grass, Chaz and Colin struggling to suppress their laughter. It was the campsite restaurant burger’s fault. That coupled with Chaz’s vodka buying.
We covered the barf with the Fort William map the receptionist had given me at the desk the night before and set off, for breakfast, to the burger van.

A dubious pastime

Who killed Archie Mitchell? What numbers will the Pope be doing on Glasgow Green? Is Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marriage a sham to cover their secret identities as a racist pop star and a gay footballer? What is so fascinating about Twitter? Why does Chaz hate facebook? And finally, who is the best karaoke singer out of us? All these questions and so very little definite answers came out of dinner on Friday night.
Well, with the exception of the last question. I would definately give that prize to Heather and her fabulous rendition of 'Any Dream Will Do'. Colin and Ka seemed fairly unwilling to sing anything which rules them out of the prize and my 'Eye of the Tiger' was more than likely fairly dreadful. Memories of running up the 72 steps leading up to the Museum of Art in Philadelphia back in 2003 sprang to mind as I belted out the Survivor hit (the Philadelphia Art gallery's security guards must be so bored of people jogging up those steps). Ka and Heather danced as i sang whilst Colin slouched on the couch, looking fairly embarassed - obviously not drunk enough. I've always hated karaoke which makes the whole 'singing it in your own living room' realisation even harder to deal with. Still, I could always pop upstairs and ask Sing Star neighbour what he thought of my singing. The singing upstairs neighbour and his pals got his revenge on Sunday night singing something incoherent at full volume after Ka and myself came home from dinner. Colin and Heather reckon they are a practising boyband. Ka reckons they just definately need the practise.
Before the karaoke, Chaz had escaped off home as he was up early for work the next morning. Before this he had been doing a lot of moaning about facebook users and people that like to generally chat online as if it was some sort of highly dubious pastime. Looking back i now realise he was perhaps having an, ever so subtle, dig at me for keeping an online blog. Maybe he has every right to but I wouldn't sit at his dinner party and rant about his dubious pastimes (not that I know of any of course...).
Anyway, he missed the best part of the night. Ka's Woo Woos. No, this is not slang for something. These were Ka's cocktails. A rather refreshing mix of Peach Schanpps, Vodka, cranberry juice and ice. Perfect for our dinner party.
As a result we all felt slightly dozey the next morning, some of us not even managing to finish our rolls and sausage. After an hour of eighties pop videos we went our seperate ways once more. Colin will now be back down south teaching young Basildonians how to speak proper, no doubt looking forward to his next trip north on which he'll be hoping to avoid any karaoke.

Remember my name!

Ka and myself discovered we have a karaoke machine in our tv last night?! We were having a 'quiet one' which involved staying in and watching movies with a couple of beers and a bowl of pretzels. It had been years since I had ate pretzels and I'd completely forgotten how good they actually are. A curly wurly like crisp with heavy doses of salt sprinkled over. Invented by Italian Monks apparently. The three holes in the loop representing the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The more religious readers out there will probably be disappointed to hear that Ka and myself did not partake in much of a Christian ceremony whilst watching 'Iron Man' though. We simply considered them a good munch, perfect for a 'quiet one' with a couple of beers. In fact, I've just this minute polished off the last of the packet whilst watching the latest episode of 'Being Human'. My very own way of keeping the Sabbath. (Incidentally, Curly Wurly's were great too. Remember them? Do you still get them?! They were more ladder shaped than Holy Trinity shaped though...)
Anyway, Ka was browsing through the movies on offer via our Virgin media movie rental system and came across a whole karaoke section in which you could purchase music videos for 20p each. A bargain, if you were up for making a fool of yourself. For some, inexplicable reason, we were! So safe in the knowledge that it had been darkness in the upstairs flat when we had arrived home and under the impression Mr Singstar (see post 'Take That hell') was out Ka pressed the buy button. Despite some lame complaints and disapprovals from myself, I eventually relented and Ka and myself ended up singing Fame at the top of our voices dancing around the living room. The accompanying video which looked like something straight off the Movies 24 channel told the heartfelt story about a dreary looking housewife dreaming about the life she could of had if she had not married her boss from the office all those years ago (it kinda reminded me of a few folk actually).
As the music finished and the living room returned to quiet, Ka and myself laughed at our stupidity and as I turned to go to the loo (the vague dancing about the living room had obviously affected my 30 something year old bladder) we stopped. Suddenly music blared into full volume from upstairs, rising from the quiet volume it had obviously been sitting in before our audible onslaught. Mr Singstar was in fact, in the building and was obviously not impressed by our fame rendition. As I made my way out into the hall, cowering with embarrassment, I eventually realised through laughing that it certainly was not the worst thing the neighbour could have overheard us sing. He had been singing Take That constantly for a whole Sunday with his pals for gawds sake. Once Mr Singstar, upstairs, realised fame had just been a one off, his music soon quietened back down again to a more normal volume and we settled down to watch our movie with our pretzels.

Kind you'd like to meet

Congratulations to Craig and Gillian for their engagement and the success of their engagement party on friday night. We all had a great time in the Rolls Royce club. A few drinks, a few dances and a few songs. Everyone was there to wish Craig and Gillian well. At first it seemed like a reunion night for Ka's work colleagues, past and present, but I soon relaxed as they're all a cool bunch. Maybe I relaxed a little too much as, for some reason, after a couple of beers, I plucked up the courage to get up on the dancefloor and perform 'Oh Pretty Woman' through the karaoke machine. Unfortunately, mike in hand, I felt the need to try and get the dancefloor shy relatives up and asked for all those accompanied by 'pretty women' to get up on the dancefloor with their own 'pretty women'. None of the relatives moved. Failing this I then shouted, 'get off your arse and dance!' at Craig and Gillian's relatives. Needless to say they did not look very appreciative of my comments, some of the older guys growling from behind their pint glasses. I'm not even sure if Gillian and Craig appreciated me shouting at their aunties and uncles in such a fashion. I suspect not. I think I just got a little too carried away. The girls at the ELU, including Chris, Margot, Amanda, Roslyn, Cheryl and the rest, helped me out though and filled the dancefloor the best they could. I'm not sure what possessed me to get up and sing karaoke as I was not even drunk and usually hate the bloody things. Looking back I suspect it was the fact that it was the same few people on the dancefloor all the time and stupidly thought I could do something about it. What a time to suddenly gain a rockstar ego! Feeling slightly embarrassed afterwards I ran for the safety of our tables and hid for the rest of the night. I did receive some compliments with regards to my singing talents, however. Maybe I should try X Factor next year?
When last orders were shouted and everyone started filing out we piled into Chris' car. With Margot, Bev, Ka, Amanda, myself and Chris driving we set off to the forever excellent Centre Point. When I say forever excellent I am of course being sarcastic - but it was a last resort. However, once inside we ended up having quite a good time, dancing to classic tunes of the nineties. Rhythm is a Dancer, Everybody's Free, Key the Secret, mixed in with some Prodigy and such like. Some really good tunes so a complete surprise to go into Centre Point and enjoy yourself. Almost weird.
Ka and myself met the great Martin Darcy with whom I used to work behind the bar with in the Auldhouse Arms many moons ago. Leaving Ka in the taxi queue I ran down to the nearest grease shop and ordered a portion for us to share. A comment was made over my shoulder whilst I stood waiting, leaning on the warm metal counter to which I looked round. I knew I was in trouble. His name escaped me completely and he had to gently remind me with the help of some swear words and the odd barrage of abuse. He was not best pleased but he got over it when he met Ka outside at the bus stop and started accusing her of insanity for agreeing to marry such a person as myself. He was having a laugh, of course, and let us escape to a taxi.