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.

Weird dreams and freaky flamingoes

A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night and moved to shuffle my pillow around. This, in turn, woke Ka up and she moved round to adjust her position in the bed. Upon turning round and seeing me, her eyes burst open and she let out a loud scream, which punched through the quietness of the night like a verbal explosion. Ka then turned around again, mumbling and whimpering under her breath and went off to sleep again as if nothing had happened.
Had she forgotten she shared a bed with someone? Was it a scream of shock? Had the shock of reality disturbed her dream of being married to Brad Pitt or Damon from Vampire Diaries?
I know the sight of me half asleep can’t always be a good thing but I didn’t think it was reason enough to scream quite so loudly.
I’d be surprised if she hadn’t woke up the singing postman upstairs with that scream.
Anyway, Ka was soon snoring once again, oblivious to what had just happened and once again needed reminding the next morning.
It reminds me of how I used to sleep walk as a kid. I used to wake up on the living room couch, sitting watching tv, late at night with my Mum and Dad. Apparently I used to just get up a few hours after having gone to bed and amble through to the living room, plonk myself down on the couch and sit there until I came to.
Ka doesn’t generally sleepwalk, though she does occasionally talk in her sleep. She even replies sometimes if I ask her what she’s talking about.
One night she awoke just as I was switching off the light and started talking. Once her mumbles finished I asked her what she meant.
“She doesn’t know how to push the cat”, she grumbled back with eyes still shut under a frown of annoyance.
I have to admit, it may not have been that line exactly, it was difficult to make out exactly what she said but it was something along those lines. I’ve no idea what cat who didn’t know how to push, but most dreams rarely make sense anyway.
My most recent dream that I can remember involved me accompanying Lynsey Ann, my sister, to church on the first anniversary of her Wedding. She wore her Wedding dress to commemorate the anniversary. The interior of the church was enormous and we sat at the side of it’s interior before the massive altar, or at least I did, where there was a cassette player. On this cassette player, a double deck, I kept pressing play, listening to the music, letting it echo throughout the church, disturbing the hymn singing and the voice of the priest, and intermittently flicking it off with the stop button. The priest on the altar, Father Pat, kept getting annoyed with me for disturbing his mass with the loud music clips and I think he asked me to leave on more than one occasion, a request I denied, rebelliously pressing down on the play and stop buttons, whilst he spoke to his congregation.
Can anyone guess what that is all about?
Apparently you can have up to 7 dreams a night. I used to be great at remembering dreams and actually wrote down what I dreamt from time to time, a vague effort at a dream diary (Yep, in those days I had more time on my hands). I would sometimes have dreams that lasted for up to a week, my sleep continuing on with a dream where I had left off the previous night like an ongoing, surreal, drama serial. When I was young I remember actually looking forward to going to bed to see what happened next after the cliffhanger ending from the previous night or morning awakening.
Then there were the nightmares.
I used to have a recurring nightmare when I was small, set in our first house, Vancouver Drive.
It was dark. The curtains were all shut, but some moonlight could still be seen shining through the fabric of the curtain. Mum and Dad had locked the doors and windows and the five of us sat in the dark living room, cowering from what was outside. I remember peeking through the gap between the two curtains covering the living room’s rear window to look out into the small, dark back garden, the old rusty second hand see saw at it’s centre, partly hidden by the old stone hut that came with those houses. I would freeze in terror at the sight of the things outside, all standing, or pacing around, moving around the house, threatening just by their presence. They were large birds with tiny, beady eyes and giant beaks, standing as tall as a man, on long feather less legs. Things that can only be described as large dark, horrific versions of flamingos.
I remember, as I looked out, looking over the gathering block in the pale moonlight, the head of one of the creatures suddenly appearing directly before my nose, on the opposite side of the glass, straight up at the window. It’s small black eyes glaring at me over its large beak.
In one particularly frightening version of the dream I remember having a little later, the giant birds actually somehow got into the house via the back door and spent the majority of the dream ascending the hall staircase. Obviously I was in my bed for the entirety of the dream but could somehow see what was going on. Some of the creatures made their way up the hall’s stairs (Vancouver Drive’s stairs featured in quite a few of my nightmares when I was wee) and after the familiar creaking on the landing directly outside my, and my brother Kenny’s, bedroom the noises stopped. I watched my closed bedroom door, pressed up against the wall behind me, eyes wide with fear. On the other side of the door, a clawed hand reached up and turned my bedroom door handle. Just as the door swung open to reveal the creature beyond, I awoke.
Thinking back that was probably the last time I seen those scary black flamingos in a dream.
In work we quite often have Radio 2 on in the background and occasionally folk come on the Steve Wright afternoon show claiming to understand dreams and know what your subconscious mind is telling or instructing you. Personally I’m inclined to believe it’s a lot of subconscious babble, your brain conjuring up stories whilst you sleep, using elements from all over your life, including family, friends, experiences, locations. In your mind, whilst you sleep, what starts out as a simple thought develops, grow, mutates and expands like a patchy watercolour with too much water soaking through the paper making the colours spread and merge.
Say that, I have had a few, weird, eerily accurate moments involving dreams.
I did have one, very different experience recently. One that came back to me in a horrific flash, like a very bad sense of déjà vu.
I dreamt that I was sitting in Angela’s, Ka’s sister’s, living room, surrounded by the McGarva family members and, what was stranger, my Mum, Dad, brother and sister, who, in real life, had never seen or been in Angela and Steven’s house. Together we watched as young Joshua played in the centre of the living room, dressed in a strange uniform with a big red object on wheels upon which he could ride. Throughout the dream Joshua played with this red object and the relatives talked but I just couldn’t escape the feeling that something horrendous had happened. A terrible aching pain echoed throughout my head which I couldn’t pinpoint in the dream. Even though I recalled the dream the next day the dream faded over time as they all do.
Around six months later, Lucy passed away on Hogmanay and Angela invited us all round for dinner on the New Years Day in an effort to help us through the remainder of the ‘festivities’. The McGarvas, and the Reids. Sure enough, following dinner, we were all sitting in Angela’s living room talking, when Joshua sauntered in to the living room pushing the new fire engine he had received from Santa for his Christmas. Previously, before Lucy had arrived on the 29th and departed the day or so later, we had enjoyed our Christmas Day with Joshua who had been playing with the new truck dressed in his Santa outfit.
It was all probably just strange coincidence but it did make me think, not for the first time, that maybe there’s more to dreams than just mere mental rambling.
I’ve still never encountered a flamingo though.

Good day sunshine

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

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

Performers, pamphlets, pasta and pains

“What’s this all about?”, I wondered to myself after ten minutes of standing watching a flame haired guy shout at the gathered audience around him. The flame haired man had dragged a young child out into his people framed circle in the middle of the Royal Mile. The street entertainer was now spending a hell of a long time shouting at the gathered audience standing before him, whilst the audience standing behind him, which involved Ka, Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann and myself, struggled to hear, his voice a distorted echo which bounced off the old, stone walls and buildings around us. He took a few more minutes to dress the wee guy up in a long coat, red wig and hat, cracking jokes the whole time, which only half of the audience actually heard, the rest of us, standing to the rear, having to make do with vague echoes and attempts at guessing the joke. He then started blowing up long balloons with some sort of small air pistol and as he cracked another joke my patience finally broke and I turned to Ka and my Mum and huffed loudly. Ka and Mum agreed with a nod and a shake of the head and we started moving off. We started to move reluctantly at first, moving away from the busy, crudely formed circle of tourists and Fringe goers as we suspected that as soon as we took our eyes away from the red bearded street entertainer he may actually start entertaining.
That’s always the problem with the Edinburgh Fringe, I thought as we walked, there are a hell of a lot of shows, plays, music and exhibitions on in the capital at this time of year but only some of it will actually be worth watching.
Dad had driven us all through to Edinburgh for the afternoon for a walk around the Fringe tainted streets of the capital in order to take in some of the colour, acting, music and activities.
Ka and myself usually go and see at least two or three comedians of varying standards when it comes to the Fringe time of year. This year, however, Ka and myself are running a little short of fun and laughs and we were quite happy to relax and simply stroll around with Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann, taking in the fringe atmosphere, looking out for anything interesting that may be going on in the streets whilst we looked around for a spot of lunch on the sunny Sunday afternoon.
The crowds were pretty massive, as is usual for the Edinburgh streets at the height of Fringe activity.
People danced around you as you walked. Pirates handed out pamphlets as we passed. Classical music rang out from small, secluded corners in the various squares that lead off from the Mile. Pipers played the bagpipes in animal skins and long kilts, balancing on stilts disguised as goat legs, precariously tottering around the pave stones on hooves. Small groups of artists huddled under brolleys, hunched over easels painting or sketching paying models, advertising themselves with impressive drawings of movie stars set on boards facing out into the street. Some even sat pencilling mildly insulting caricatures of paying visitors to their pavement spot, apparently oblivious to the fact they could be in for a punch on the jaw. Big, fat, burly blokes blew up stretchy, coloured balloons. TV crews ran about with big, complicated looking cameras. All the cities buskers were out in force, wearing the more colourful ties and hats from their wardrobe collection. There were more street statues than normal too. Standing still. Doing nothing. Wanting paid for the mere effort of painting themselves silver.
People stood on the street’s rails and stone pillars in deep conversation with squirrels which they had their hands and forearms hidden up inside the animals’ anal cavity. People pedalled around on unicycles, uncomfortably perched on their small saddles, making you wince, as you felt their pain, watching them travel over the cobbles underfoot. Others walked around holding picture frames around their heads and shoulders creating the illusion of being a walking, talking portraits.
There was no sign of Trevor and Simon though. Dad reminded me of a past Edinburgh moment when the family had been walking down the Royal Mile, at some point in the late eighties, and Kenny and myself spotted the Going Live comedic legends of ‘Swing Your Pants’ fame, striding up the street towards us. Unfortunately they must have been on their holidays as they were not swinging their pants at the time so, being the shy, polite person that I am, I neglected to ask for an autograph.
The celebrity average on Sunday was pretty low. We only managed to spot Four Poofs and a Piano, of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross fame, who performed a short routine in the middle of the street with a keyboard perched on the pianist’s kilted knees.
After an hour or so walking around the city streets we headed back towards the Grassmarket in search of some Sunday lunch.
The five of us ended up sitting in the middle of the old market square outside a small café bar named Made in Italy, the Castle towering above us from behind the various bars which line the northern side of the street. We enjoyed some sufficiently sized pasta dishes with some wine, and, whilst a man cracked a whip in the open space behind us, enjoyed the atmosphere and the varying degrees of sunshine, which shone down through the moving clouds overhead.
In all we had a nice, pleasant, relaxing Sunday to take us into the stressful week that was to come when my Dad woke up on Monday morning with a pain in his chest.

Grace's surprise and the toilet incident

The five or six cars piled up outside the Leckie/McGarva household may have given away the surprise element to Grace’s 60th birthday party on Saturday night. If it did though, Grace certainly didn’t let on, as she almost screamed with surprise upon entering Steven and Angela’s living room to find us all sitting there. We all broke in to the routine of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song, as Grace stood there, smiling over the surprise, while I darted about the floor taking some photos and Steven quietly filmed it all with his new camcorder from the corner of the room.
A good portion of Ka's family, along with Lynsey Ann, my Mum and Dad and myself gathered in the large living room to surprise my mother in law who’d come along with Dougie believing the Saturday night to be a simple dinner date with Angela, Steven, Morgan and Joshua. At least she had believed that up until five minutes before leaving her own house when Dougie had asked her to bring her new photo book, that she’d received for her 60th, in order to show Betty.
As Steven made his way up from Uddingston, after getting Grace and Dougie into the car, the rest of us had been running round the house, decorating, preparing food, nappying, fetching drinks, reintroducing ourselves to relatives not seen in months and some never met at all. As the final moments drew near the smokers were hurriedly pulled in from the front garden path, their cigarettes left spinning on the pavestones, and the kids were ordered to move into the living room, myself picking Joshua up from where her rambled around the buffet table in the second front room and planting him down in the living room, where he simply gave a slight frown of confusion at all the hustle and bustle and staggered on to the plate of cakes at the end of the room. Everyone began frantically hushing one another as Grace and Dougie’s feet were heard from behind the closed blinds which obscured the living room’s large bay windows, the small red stones of the driveway crunching underneath their feet, as Steven led them up towards the front door where Angela would meet them upon arrival.
Once the ‘Happy Birthday’ song was over and the initial surprise over with, Steven got the music on and Ka and Jillian got the food cooking whilst the rest of us started enjoying ourselves.
I had been enjoying myself up until I had to make a visit to Steven and Angela’s loo, a visit which ended up being far longer than originally planned. Unfortunately the toilet refused to flush properly and my, let’s just say, deposit, refused to be removed by this particular toilet’s flushing system. Not great in any situation, but in a house party, with a bunch of your wife’s relatives waiting patiently, not great at all.
As I stood there waiting on the cistern refilling itself for the third time the knocks at the door began. Concerned voices and questions from beyond the closed door started echoing through the hallway.
“Is somebody still in there?”
“Who is it?”
“Is the door stuck?”
“Is it the same person that’s been in there all this time?”
Various questions such as these echoed throughout the hallway until Ka’s voice finally piped up.
“Where’s Michael?” Grimacing, I gritted my teeth. “He’s not in there, and he’s not in there”. The ‘theres’ in question presumably referring the every room, other than the toilet in which I stood, swearing at a piece of excretion.
“Michael are you in there?” Ka rattled the opposite side of the door. Hesitantly I closed the lid over the toilet and allowed my dearest Judas wife entry at which I explained the situation. Ka replied by checking her make-up in the mirror and then leaving me to it. Before I got the chance to lock the door after her, Angela, the sister in law, appeared at the door, to which I again, reluctantly admitted the situation. Unfortunately Colin, Ka’s brother, overheard the situation as he walked by and almost spat out a haggis ball with laughter. Angela, determined that she would flush better, took control of the situation. She firmly grasped the toilet’s flush handle and twisted at which the usual gush of water flowed through the bowl.
“There” Angela shrugged and opened the lid of the toilet up. Unfortunately my floater was still there, bobbing around quite happily. Angela shrieked and ran from the room.
“It’s not even very big!” I yelled after her.
“It’s the size of the bowl!” Angela’s voice reverberated throughout the hall, as other passing party guests soon started mumbling about the toilet situation, the occasional laughing.
In my defense, the flush of the toilet was pretty pathetic and I cannot believe that it’s never happened to them before with such a poor plumbing system. Anyway, without going into too much detail, I eventually managed to get rid of the obstinate piece of discharge after attacking it with a good few large cups of water before Ka and Jillian had the chance to come through with a boiling kettle (a remedy Auntie Lorna bestowed upon them after, presumably, much debating in the living room with all the other family members).
Following the toilet incident I spent some time in the kitchen, plucking up the courage to face the guests in the living room again, conversing with Colin and Ryan and any of the drink seekers visiting in order to top up their glass or pull another bottle from the fridge. Uncle Bill told stories of Hawaii, Las Vegas and losing luggage at airports. Paul spoke with me about old Star Wars toys and the inability to throw any of them out. Colin talked of Torchwood, Tom Jones and T in the Park and Jean dreaded the London train at half past nine the next morning as she drank another small glass of wine from the box in the fridge.
Morgan, Sarah and Joshua played in the large rubber dinghy in the middle of the hallway, Uncle Bill occasionally jumping in to act as Captain.
Wee Joshua ate more than his usual allocation of cakes after he’d got bored of the good few pieces of Jillian’s pasta I’d fed him from my paper plate.
Grace and Dougie enjoyed a slow dance to Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ immediately after which Dougie demands for Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” were largely ignored or laughed at.
It had been a successful wee night and it looked like Grace, and everyone else, pretty much enjoyed themselves. It wasn’t until half past one that people started saying their goodbyes, Ka tidying as they went, clearing most of the rubbish up and cleaning up the buffet table which, Ka and myself were pleased to see, had very little of our two lasagnes left. Must have been the Bechamel sauce…

Restaurants, rehearsals and running

We’ve not heard back from Chaz yet. Both Ka and myself text him a message yesterday to ask him how he got on with his casting audition to be in the next big Brad Pitt movie being filmed in Glasgow.
Chaz and myself ordered dinner in the Crooked Lum on Thursday night, two three course meals, taking full advantage of a 25% off voucher Chaz had procured from a taxi driver. I ordered a fillet for my main but Chaz had to do better. He challenged himself by ordering the steak platter, a massive square plate of food which included a large sirloin, fillet and ribeye along with a mountain of chips, a massive mushroom and a giant half tomato that looked like it had been grown in some kind of mutant vault in a local Nuclear facility.
Over dinner Chaz informed me that he was to go along on Saturday in a suit and tie for a movie audition to be an extra in a forthcoming Brad Pitt movie production which apparently involves zombies, being zombies or being attacked by zombies. I’d always thought Glasgow was the perfect setting for a zombie movie – although I’m not sure we need more of them diving about Glasgow than there is already.
By trade, Chaz is a car salesman but I’d also always thought he’d have made a rather good actor. Chaz lamented the end of his drama days over dinner. His best part to date being the role of Lead Pharisee in the school Easter play in the late eighties. Chaz managed to turn the part of the Chief Pharisee into a sort of flamboyant Police Informant type Government spy character. His biggest scene, pivotal to the capturing of Jesus, included Chaz skidding on to the stage and informing the gathered characters that:
“It’s alright, he’ll do it, at ten o’clock tonight!”
Unfortunately his adventures in drama ended during the final rehearsals for that particular scene with the skid on to the stage not quite ending where it should have, resulting in a continuous skid off the stage and the bashing of an eye off the end of a gym bench below.
Let’s hope he gets on better with his zombie audition. I hope he’d done his homework and watched Sean of the Dead, Land of the Dead or has just simply walked up Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night.
Or the Hamilton town centre on a weekday, for that matter, a strange, destitute place into which my work has just moved and is taking some getting used to. Ka and myself met for lunch last week, my first week in the Hamilton office, and we sat on a bench in the middle of the local shopping precinct to eat our lunch. Strange, smelly, lonely looking characters soon began to circle us like vultures, eyeing either the bench, our lunch or the very flesh which clings to our bones. I wasn’t sure which, but it was enough to put me off my ham sandwich and Irn Bru.
Thankfully, Ka and myself ate in far nicer surroundings yesterday. Once again, we found ourselves dining out, once more in a restaurant, Grace and Dougie treating us to a meal for our anniversary, which was then followed up with a few coffees and shandies at a local pub.
With all this eating in mind we woke this morning finding our usual trip to the gym a bit of a stretch, so instead opted for a run round Calderwood and St. Leonards, circling around the neighbourhood, one lap being just over 5km. It went well considering it was our first jog in months, since before Ka fell pregnant. So Ka and myself are feeling rather pleased with ourselves. Next time we’ll make it two laps. Mum, Dad and Lynsey were popping round for a cuppa though so we had an excuse today to make it a single lap. We’ve promised ourselves to go running more often, especially in the run up to Ka’s run for charity in October (details of which can be found here http://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Ann-Reid).
There is a turn off, halfway round, where you can trim a good half a mile off the whole lap. Ka was tempted to take this route as she was knackered, struggling for breath and generally getting grumpy after fifteen minutes running and stressed that she may have to ease herself back into the running by taking a shorter route round. When I refused to go this way and told her she would be fine with various other words of encouragement she swiftly replied with a barrage of abuse, just as we passed a row of quiet houses. The occupants of these houses had probably been enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon up until that moment when they spilt their teas, woke from their naps or jumped from behind their Sunday papers to the loud, shouting couple jogging by their front window.
No pain, no gain, they say. Although I didn’t believe it was the pain of the hurling abuse from your stressed wife as she runs around the block after you. So with little argument after this I reluctantly agreed to take the shorter route only for Ka, not more than 5 minutes later, to agree to carry on with the full lap, missing the halfway point turn off. Typical Ka. She was either fiercely determined to complete the planned route, or was simply refusing to go along with anything I agreed to.
It’s all well and good running for miles on a treadmill in a gym but when it comes to real outdoor running it’s very different. Hills appear on your route spontaneously before you, inclines that you did not even realise were inclines when you usually drive along them in the car. Midges and bugs are everywhere too. On passing various clusters of bushes and foliage various sizes of insects would instantly decide to aim for you face, particularly the eyes, nostrils, or even worse, the mouth. You’ll be chatting away to your fellow jogger, or arguing, as you tackle the latest incline when all of a sudden a passing midge that had previously been buzzing about a local bush, would take a notion for a kamikaze mission with your tongue, stopping and firing itself straight into your oral cavity.
Something a little more pleasant is the nodding to and greeting of fellow joggers. You notice this when you’re out walking on the hills too. You’re all complete strangers but you follow some sort of unspoken code with which you nod or greet passing joggers, as if acknowledging each others’ athletic prowess and sportsmanship tackling the dangerous pavements and grass verges.
A greeting of a different kind I received today was a wolf whistle. I’ve never been wolf whistled before but managed not to get too excited about it as it was from a trio of giggling 12-13 year olds who passed by me giggling. A few moments later their giggling was interrupted by the jogger they’d failed to notice behind me, elbowing them off the pavement. Ka mumbled some more abuse as she caught up, running up behind me just as the rain started to fall and a jeep carrying our former neighbour Kay, passed by. The horn tooted as the neighbour waved at us, grinning smugly over her phone from behind her windscreen in her nice, warm, dry 4x4.
With the exception of the interfering insects, the threatening rain and the teenagers, the 5km was a bit of a breeze to be honest and I was pretty surprised at how easily I managed it.
Well, when I say easily we did finish the run with faces the colour of tomatoes. I was suffering with weird blurred vision after coming to a stop outside outside our front door, wiping the dead midges from my face as the old legs began to quiver a little with exertion. The walk I performed going up the stairs to our front door wouldn’t have looked out of place in Chaz’s zombie movie.

Smiley Miley's Radio Roadshow

As Coldplay's ‘Every Teardrop’ drew to a climatic conclusion on the Pyramid stage around midnight on Saturday we all counted up our miles. Dad finished with over 2,200 miles in his possession which meant he won the game, even though I had been the first to reach London after the nationwide journey around the board of the Smiley Miley Game and thus brining an end to the game.
Lynsey Ann had brought the Radio One Smiley Miley Road Show game up with her to Mum and Dad's on Saturday night to be played after we all demolished a delicious and rather impressive Chinese carry-out which included Chow Mein, King Prawns and Sweet and Sour chicken.
The Smiley Miley board game was based on the famous Radio 1 Road shows which toured the country every summer between the late seventies and the late nineties, entertaining the nation live on Saturday afternoons from various beaches and parks across the country. The young Reid family went to around three or four of them. The likes of Bruno Brookes, Phillip Schofield and the lovely Jackie Brambles would present the show live to the gathered locals. Games with lucky contestants plucked from the crowds included pop quizzes, 'Bits and Pieces' and 'Smiley Miley's Mileage Game'.
In 'Bits and Pieces' a small sample of a tune was played and you had to guess the artist, song name, or both, a game which I ended up introducing into the family Christmas quizzes I used to put together for the Big Boxing Night bashes we used to have. Mum and Dad's vinyl collection always came in quite handy for that particular round. I'd use the linked tape recorder to make cassettes up full of five to ten second clips from records that my Mum and Dad had bought over the years and apparently forgotten the sound of after a few beers on Boxing Night. I still use the old 'Bit and Pieces' routine occasionally in homemade quizzes to this day. Instead of the old tape recorder I now use the Mac's Garageband application. It's much easier to blend the tracks and even distort them but it's strangely not as much fun.
I miss cassettes. Music in a thin plastic case on a magnetic tape played when wound between two cogs. How cool does that sound? Antiquated, but cool! They were so brilliantly temperamental too.
I spent many an afternoon trying to wind a tape smoothly back inside it's cassette casing. Hours of fun! Once successfully all wound back into place, I'd plug the tape victoriously back into the my cassette player, pressing play with a satisified grin, only to hear the music start warping and morphing, after a few minutes, into a chewed up garbling noise. A wonderful alien noise the BBC's Radiophonic workshop could not easily produce.
Anyway, the BBC finally axed the Radio 1 Roadshow in 2000 replacing it with the present day, annual, festival wannabe, Big Weekend. Probably a good move in the end up as The Big Weekend now attracts pretty big, international names such as the Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and Madonna.
Del Amitri and Status Quo were the big crowd pullers of the Road Show. Not quite the same.
The last Road Show we went to was in Arran. Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann, Kenny and myself travelled over in the wee Nissan Micra with our tents, setting up camp on the Friday afternoon, the wee two man tent and the bigger three man dome tent, alongside each other, just in time for the imminent arrival of the Radio 1 lorries and their guest artists, Wet Wet Wet.
Mum and Dad had decided to set up camp with the rest of the Radio 1 roadshow campers and as we settled down to bed, everyone else in the makeshift campsite decided to waken up and the campsite seemed to suddenly transform into a rave. Being younger and naive at the time the Reid family spent the night cowering in our tents, surrounded by crazy, wild, drunken teenagers high on drugs and juice, falling into the sides of the tents, puking on tents, shouting, dancing and ramsacking tents. Kenny and myself were in the wee two man tent which stood before the larger where Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann’s cowered, sleep deprived and helpless. Halfway through the night Kenny and myself looked up into the darkness of our tent to find some bloke staring back at us.
“Here, there’s somebody in this tent?!”, I remember the guy blurted, before reversing back out and diving off into the noisy darkness.

A young Jackie Brambles and the rest of the roadshow, eventually arrived the next morning as promised, and as Marti Pellow started belting out the hits live on air to the gathered crowd, who seemed strangely mellow and considerably more controlled than they had been the past eight hours, even with Wet Wet Wet on stage, the band they were apparently all camping out to see.
Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann, Kenny and myself sat on the grass in the open Arran park, half dozing in the Scottish summer sun, enjoying the quiet. Even with Marti Pellow warbling in the background it seemed like bliss.
The board game proved to be more of a hit for the Reid family than that particular Road Show in Arran and at the weekend proved that, although dated, it’s still a hell of a lot more enjoyable than listening to Wet Wet Wet.

Cookies on call

Just back from Dunblane. Ka and myself stayed at the Doubletree Dunblane Hydro, a monster of a hotel perched on a large hill at the edge of Dunblane village. As Ka and myself drove up the winding road towards the front of the building we couldn't help but be impressed by the large Victorian structure with it's towering height standing over us like a traditional hollywood style haunted house or murder mystery setting. One of the best things was the greeting at reception.
Standing on the plush carpets before the tall wooden panelled reception desks we were greeted with, not only genuine friendly smiles and offers of help with luggage, but also, most importantly, a large, steaming hot chocolate chip cookie straight from the oven wrapped up in a thin paper envelope. The receptionist had just pulled them out from a small storage unit under her desk. No wonder she was all smiles. What a fantastic perk to the job. Chocolate cookies on call. As we waited on the elevator to take us up to the top floor, the beautiful stench of cookie filled the air. The need for tea grew within me as we waited with the cookie smell wafting around me. The champagne we'd brought for our overnight stay could wait. Tea had to be made immediately in order to accompany this smoking hot baby.
Of course, Ka opted for coffee, (that ain't right is it?) and after enjoying our 40 grams of fat in cookie form we thought we'd walk the dietary sin off by exploring Dunblane. A town we'd never visited before and were curious to have a walk around. We returned to our rooms an hour later, considering a trip to Stirling. From what we could see, Dunblane has a Cathedral, and a Tesco. Oh, and a Railway Station, presumably for escaping by, sorry commuting by. That's about it.
After our short walk we opted to stay in the hotel and take advantage of it's amenities enjoying a dip in the pool and a sweat in the steam room, all the while I mulled over the location of the Doubletree chocolate cookie factory. Could it have been in the Hydro's basement, with small serving lifts rising the cookies up into the receptionists desks, just in time to serve to the lucky arriving guests?
Could Celebrity tv chef, Nick Nairn have had a hand in creating the cookies?
Ka and myself dined in the luxurious setting of The Kailyard, Nick Nairn's Restaurant, housed within the hotel. Beautiful meals of duck and tagliatelle served with a nice, crisp Pinot Grigio (crisp, hmm, I may become a wine connoisseaur yet). We then retired to our room where we danced to the final tunes from a dying iPod and ate strawberries with champagne.
The breakfast, this morning, was immense. Tables of cereal, freshly cut fruit, bacon, sausage, egg, scrambled and fried, potato scone, porridge and whisky, racks and racks of toast and baskets of chocolate chip muffins. Muffins, but no cookies. The cookies were disappointingly absent at breakfast.
After breakfast we went for another swim in the hotel's pool which was more of a challenge than yesterday, as it seemed far more difficult to keep myself afloat after my platefuls of food in the past 24 hours, not to mention champagne and wine.
All in all, not bad for a short Valentines break.
A Valentines all kicked off on Sunday night by a visit to Tricia and Tommy's.
Tricia was on a mission. Ka, Lynsey Ann and myself walked into her house only to be bombarded by a plethora or hearts. Tricia had transformed her living room into a Valentines wonderland with candles, confetti, balloons and paper hearts hanging from the ceiling in coloured, curving, twisting, acetate papers. Tricia had went to town with it all presumably just stopping short before she had painted it red. Christopher and Martin hummed in quiet but amused disapproval, well used to their Mum's fantastic enthusiasm. After dinner Tricia had organised a game of Mr & Mrs for the gathered couples. All two of them. Tricia and Tommy themselves and Ka and myself. Chris, Martin and Lynsey Ann opted out, thankful, for a change, that they were single.
After around twenty questions, with a possible 300 points up for grabs, Tommy and Tricia managed to win the game. Winning only by a mere five points I should add but with totals, which Chris quickly pointed out, that were not even a third of the possible total. A miserable performance by both parties. As a luxury item of clothing I thought Ka would have preferred a pair of her boots to underwear but hey, what do I know? Not enough, as it would turn out. It was the iMac on a desert island and the purple pants that tripped me up. How was I to know that particular desert island would have no electricity supply?
As a result of the Valentines games we all won a prize regardless of how bad our result was. The girls all got various items of smelly stuff and chocolates whilst I got a large, heavy wrapped box. Puzzled, I started unwrapping my present, nervously laughing upon revealing the Mr. Men Library. A boxed collection of every Mr.Men title by the late, great Roger Hargreaves. The reason I was nervously laughing is because I immediately became slightly emotional as the Mr. Men Collection had been the one thing I had informed Ka would be the first purchase I would personnally make for Baby Reid's own library. Obviously I did not bring everyone down at the dinner table by mentioning this as Tricia started telling of how she always used to read the tale of Mr Tickle to me as a wee tyke.
Mr. Tickle had hands on enormous long arms, with which he could reach people from far off and give them a damn good tickle. Mr Tickle could also lie in his bed and reach downstairs, into his kitchen and get himself a cookie from the jar. He'd have loved the Dunblane Hydro!

A wood, an iron and an extreme Grannie

Mum and Dad have just called having arrived back home from their thirteen hour journey back from Hong Kong and their trip to Austrailia. Dad was worried that there was no mail for them to go through after a four week absence. It's always the first thing parents do on coming back from holidays, go through the post and always with more attention than they'd usually bestow upon it. Lynsey Ann, who had stayed in the house, must have tidied it all away. I just hope they did not record all the Coronation Streets while they were away this time otherwise poor Lynsey Ann will be coming home to a quadruple soap omnibus for at least a couple of days.
Whilst on the treadmill last night I seen on the News that Deirdre's mother in Coronation Street, Blanche has just died - in real life. Gutted. Blanche's acidic remarks and brilliant retorts were the only thing vaguely entertaining about the soap these days. She was like an extreme version of a Grannie. Not that I watch Coronation street of course. I merely see it in passing, occasionally, whilst eating dinner after the gym on some, few, nights. Hardly ever at all really... Anyway, doubt I'll watch it at all now.
Also seen the latest on all the carry on surrounding Tiger Woods' car accident. Tiger has more than a few stunning vehicles apparently, but now he's got a hole in one. Last Friday the golfer crashed into a fire hydrant and then a tree and all of a sudden he's having two affairs?! I must have missed something but how did all this suddenly come to light from Woods simply crashing his car? Perhaps the supposed golf club protruding from his back window had something to do with it. Apparently his Swedish wife javelined a club after Woods as he tried to escape in his Cadillac Escalade. He thought he'd clear his head with a drive and apparently she thought she'd do the same. The Swede's anger would explain the supposed extramarital affairs theory being spouted by the media and the sudden surge in supposed waitress lovers all over the globe. The sort of tale Blanche from Corrie would have a field day with. Not that I'd know, of course.

Woolly thoughts

The family and I were all up to five in the morning on Friday dancing, drinking, playing table football, and wearing balaclavas. Yes, balaclavas! After dinner Kenny pulled a box of his old stuff down from upstairs that had been collected by Lynsey Ann as she had moved into his old room. This box contained all sorts of strange memorabelia from his younger days including drawings, hand written stories and comics, old teddy bears and embarrassing headgear. In among a pile of old baseball caps were the two matching sets of balaclavas and gloves that Mum had knitted for Kenny and myself when we were young. For a time, in the Scottish winter months, Kenneth and myself trooped to school in home made woolen brown balaclavas. Only one pair of the gloves had survived the years and the string of wool that joined the two gloves was long gone but it didn't stop us trying them on for size. I always used to think those joined mittens were revolutionary. My Mum's own invention, sitting at home, knitting furiously coming up with all these weird and wonderful designs. Of course I learned later that quite a few youngsters had them and probably just didn't let on. The line of cord leaving one mitten going up your arm around your back and down your other arm holding the other mitten to the other hand just in case you got confused with the whole 'how to work a pair of gloves' idea. The balaclavas no longer fitted either. Does anyone still wear balaclavas? I mean anyone that's not exploring the Arctic, driving a Formula One car or robbing banks or generally causing some form of terror? The brown balaclava itself was enough to induce terror in anyone. Poor Mum, she just wanted to keep us warm. Now that I've written this I'll probably get a new one now for Christmas!

A round in Mosquito

Kenny stood in the centre of the Mosquito bar in Glasgow on Saturday night practising his golf swing. After pulling on his newly bought Pringle jumper, polo shirt and cap he found a small clearing in the centre of the bar and readied himself for a shot. Dad had taken the family out to dinner in the excellent La Laterna Restaurant on Hope Street and treated us all to a slap up three course meal with a good few glasses of wine, finishing with a liqueur which Kenny ordered with a flourish of the hand receiving only an nod from the miserable looking waiters. Perhaps taking slight assumptions as Dad was picking up the bill.
Mosquito was busy, the clientele it's usual mix of ages, from students to older blokes, like me. Ka, Kenny and myself headed in after leaving Mum, Dad and Lynsey to jump on a 66 and met up with Andy for a few drinks. It was then that Kenny decided to pull on his newly bought Golf gear and start practising his golf swing. His shot was not up to much, probably due to the fact he was using an invisible club and ball, but the Dr. Pepper shot was better. A Dr. Pepper was a glass of Amaretto dunked in a half pint tumbler of coke. Very nice to drink and not in the least unpleasant but for some reason we had to down it in one which I did not quite manage and deserved a slagging for. After three Kenny and Andy left Ka and myself standing outside Mosquito after some drunken goodbye cuddles and danced off down Bath Street with their carrier bags of golf jumpers. We called a taxi and unsurprisingly Raymond from the Auldhouse came out to pick us up. Raymond was one of the regulars from the Auldhouse Arms, when I worked there, and now drives a taxi having rescued us from the chaotic, post club hour, streets of Glasgow after a night out on many an occasion recently. As we waited outside the Kings Theatre, watching the road for a Mondeo, a countless number of near collisions between taxis, other passing vehicles and chip eating drunkards entertained me. A growing throng of passengerless taxis piled up as they turned the corner from Elmbank Street swerving, honking and growling as the Glaswegian mini skirted zombies milled around the kerbs of the theatre. Luckily within ten minutes Raymond sped up in his big Ford, various bodies getting knocked to the side as he pulled over after spotting us. Ka and myself dived into the back seat as a few members of the surrounding crowd clocked on to the waiting taxi and we sped off on to the Kingston Bridge. A bad choice of place to get our taxi, Raymond told us. I must owe him a few drinks now for the amount of times he has rescued us from the streets of a Saturday night. I never heard if Kenny and Andy made their midday teeing off timeslot...

A long wander in the sun

Have been enjoying the sunshine for the past few days with plenty of walking and burning. On Saturday I took a wander into town and began the wander with a quick browse through the CCA's Book Fair which turned out to be fairly unimpressive, and probably quite rightly so as the sun beamed in through the shop's large front windows burning the front room up. Most of the books and magazines littering the display tables bending and curving into weird and wonderful shapes in the freak Scottish heat. Following this I took a wander up the hill to the Glasgow School of Art and found myself walking down Renfrew Street, in front of the Mackintosh building for possibly the first time in a long time. The eastern end of the Mackintosh building has recently undergone some refurbishment. there is now a spacious shop and Mackintosh furniture museum where there used to be student classrooms and an art store. These changes have been carried out to bring it more in line with the original designs for that end of the building presumably this is not only to celebrate the building's centenary but also to cash in a little more on the Mackintosh name, giving the tourists more of a reason to visit the school building. Perhaps all part of a masterplan to earn the School more dough, something which was very much lacking when I studied there at the end of the nineties. Standing in one section of the new shop is a brilliant 1.60 scale model of the Mackintosh building designed and built by Brian Gallagher of B.G. Models. It even had a miniature version of the Mackintosh weather vane - brilliant.
After my visit to my old haunting grounds I took a long walk down past the GFT and through the shops and before I knew it, it was 5.30pm. The streets were warm and busy with summer shoppers. The small, fenced off courtyards, restaurant and pub exteriors packed with afternoon diners and drinkers enjoying the Scottish summer weather. After waiting on a bus for thirty minutes, and successfully burning my forehead in the rays, the number 20 eventually sauntered up Stockwell Street, as if it too was feeling oppressed by the heat. As the bus chugged its way across the Gorbals Street bridge the Rangers fans started piling in, towards the city centre, scarves aloft and singing. A victorious crowd I assumed as they sang at the bus as it passed.
Sunday was spent painting Mum and Dad's new extension walls with more of the blazing sunshine pouring in through the large front window. We did take advantage of the sun later though with a few beers and a barbeque out in the back garden once the girls had returned from their hen trip to Newcastle. I picked up Mum, Ka and Lynsey Ann from Hamilton as Dad fired up the barbie, piling on the sausages and chicken for another invisible army that was apparently coming to dinner. The trip down to Geordie land all seemed to have been pretty successful. Apparently Ka even met a local squad of Stormtroopers?!

Put the freshness back

I know when to go out. I know when to stay in. Get things done. Today I've single handedly done some freelance work, watched two episodes of Ashes to Ashes, washed two lots of dishes, picked Ka up from work, then taken her to a hairdo appointment and done the housework. Yep, you read right, housework! Hate it. If there was one thing in this world which I could pay someone else to do for me it would be housework. Dusting, hoovering, polishing tellys, brushing floors, cleaning bathrooms, slipping on the porcelain bathtub whilst cleaning down the tiled walls and banging your tail bone off the bath tap (hitting your tail bone off anything is generally very sore but a bathroom tap is not to be messed with). That's definately one thing that would make being rich great, having your house cleaned for you.
Most blokes, of course, don't need to even complain like this as they get it all done for them. I'll mention to some of the guys in work about doing the housework and they'll either look at me and laugh, spit out their tea in a giant spray of outrage or simply look rather vacant as if they don't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about. A quick run around with the hoover doesn't make me any less of a man does it? As long as I don't get the shake 'n' vac out and start dancing round the living room I'm pretty sure I'll be alright. It needs done after all and it earns you a couple of brownie points with the other half too (which you can cast up at a carefully selected moment later on).
Talking of the other half, Ka is off on her first hen doo at the weekend. When I say first, I mean first of three. A trip to Newcastle being the first, a work night out being the second and a meal out in Glasgow being the third. On Saturday morning I'm dropping her off in Hamilton to meet up with the eleven other crazy women going down to Geordie land, including her sister Angela, my mother, Auntie Tricia and my sis, Lynsey Ann, to mention a few. Imagine being stuck on a small bus with that lot?! Angela has organised a non stop couple of days though so there will be enough to keep them busy. Hopefully Ka will come back in one piece. This leaves me with the place to myself. A nice freshly hoovered place, because remember when your carpet smells fresh, your room does too.

Daleks, pirates and tropical plants

Yesterday morning I had an appointment with the Doctor. Unfortunately he did not turn up, which was odd because a familar blue police box was certainly there . Yes, yesterday morning Ka and myself ventured along to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery to experience the Doctor Who Exhibition that's been open since the end of March. My inner geek was enthralled. With a host of models, costumes and props the small exhibition was very entertaining with some great exhibits on show. The Daleks squawked and moved by remote control firing lasers at the viewers and the Cybermen lit up, speaking in their monotone accents and didn't really manage much movement at all. A slight wobbling was all you seemed to get from the Cybermen after activating them by pressing the one big button at the front of their stand. Kylie's outfit from the 2007 Christmas episode was also there. I stood looking up in awe at those fish net tights and waitress uniform for perhaps a little too long. Another highlight was a Dalek that you could actually climb inside, control and voice by speaking through a mike which transformed your normal tones into that of the metallic pepperpots themselves. When I say it was a highlight, I mean, it would've been if I had had the opportunity to have a go. The thing was forever surrounded by these flamin' kids who could not even do a decent voice through the speaker. I tell you, if I'd been given a chance inside it the kids would have all been running for their lives! As we left Ka managed to crash one of the touchscreen computers which taught you all about the Doctor, past and present. Ka requested info on Ecclestone's Doctor to which the computer gave a viral warning and closed down. Unfortunately K-9 was not around so we had to inform a clueless security guard who just kind of garbled something expecting a laugh and when we looked back blankly he shrugged and carried on moping about. He was possibly a little scarier than some of the creature designs surrounding us.
After our adventures in space and time we headed up Byres Road to Oran Mor for some lunch. As we discovered on entering the friendly whisky bar, Celtic FM was transmitting live with various different musicians and singers which we listened to as we bought a pint. After sitting quietly, listening to the music for approximately ten minutes or so, another bunch of folk dressed in blue rags and rubbish pirate costumes jumped out from behind one of the bar's wooden pillars singing 'A Pirates Life for Me' and 'Yellow Submarine'. As this all kicked off I was just standing to make my way to the bar to order food when a small man in his sixties, who had been sitting quietly beside me but at the next table, jumped up on to his feet, elbowed me out of the way and started playing a flute shimmying away to the music, joining the young pirate with the guitar. Picking myself back up I made my way round all the shiny happy pirates to the bar and realised it was 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint' day in Oran Mor. This relaxed lunchtime theatre programme runs in Oran Mor through the Spring and Autumn in which you can go along and for the price of a ticket get a , you guessed it, drink, pie and play. In all honesty the pies did not look up to much but scotch pies are often like that. Once you start eating them you generally forget that they actually look a bit unappetizing.
After lunch Ka and myself then headed to the Botanic Gardens across the road for a walk around the plants, ponds, glass houses and sunbathers. It had been a long time since my last visit and the gardens really impressed with their vibrant colours and amazing amount of tropical foliage. Don't get me wrong, I don't have much of a clue when it comes to gardening and always speedily flick the channel whenever I hear that Beechgrove Garden theme tune but the walk round the Gardens and the Kibble Palace was surprisingly enjoyable.
Once evening came we were once again eating out, only this time it was with Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann for Tapas in Ola, EK's one and only Spanish restaurant. It was Mum's treat and we all ended up leaving, bellies full and a little inebriated. It was the Brandy's fault. They ran out of JD.

The Chapelton moors and Mike Baldwin

Things all seem a a bit hectic at the moment. We were pretty relaxed for a while there. Unfortunately, however, Ka received a letter the other day informing her that the company providing her bridesmaids' dresses had suddenly folded, or in this case creased, leaving the bridesmaids to be, without dresses. This has obviously caused some anxiety as there is a mere four months to get new ones sorted. This is proving harder than at first expected with neither of the bridesmaids being able to help till mid March. As a bloke I was dismissing Ka's concerns with a blase wave of the hand and a relaxed 'plenty of time'. However, it would seem these dress shops take at least three months to turn a bridesmaid dress around. Gawd only knows why it takes so long (what's wrong with a swiveling stand?). My sister managed to get a day off in March today to try and rescue the situation later in the month. Lynsey Ann works in McDonalds and, for some reason, her manager finds it extremely difficult to allow his staff some time off. Members of the family have often toyed with the idea of going into McD's ourselves and smashing one of those fast food trays over his head but we've always given in to reason in the end.
My Mum offered her dressmaking services at Gran's bedside in the hospital tonight. My Mum is an expert seamstress, or at least was, before she went to work for Motorola. Now that that factory's current incarnation is closing down at the end of February, however, she is now being made redundant. In my opinion she should start up her own wee business making curtains, dresses, and any other manner of clothing. I could design and control her website and before we know it she could have her very own Underworld factory going on from Chapelton. Underworld being the factory on Coronation Street not the dark horror film starring Kate Beckinsale and a bunch of werewolves. It is Chapelton though, a bunch of werewolves making knickers would not surprise me, stranger things have happened up there. We used to hear strange noises coming from the surrounding fields at night, and they did not sound like the cows mooing or the sheep bleating. And don't even ask me how I know the name of Mike Baldwin's Coronation Street factory! Saying that, I think Mike Baldwin is dead now... and I doubt my Mum would make knickers for a living anyway. She will not stay redundant for long though, I know that much.
Gran is looking a little better by the day, but it will take a while before she's releasing herself from hospital and jumping on the No. 265 home. If you knew my Gran, you'd know that to be no idle threat. It does not matter how many sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters and friends she has with cars, she would still either run out the hospital and jump on a bus or go out onto the Hairmyres road and try and flag a taxi. Here's hoping she will be able to do that soon enough anyway. She did not even get to meet Princess Anne yesterday. I'm not sure she was bothered about that particular visit though. Ka and myself were even kicked out tonight when we turned up after the gym. Cousin Craig, Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann all turned up to visit and we were obviously considered expendable. It was fair enough I suppose since Craig had travelled all the way from Pollockshaws and the other three from Chapelton. It can be a treacherous journey coming down through those moors remember. You never know what's round the next corner. Especially on those, dark, twisting roads to Chapelton. The full moon shining in the blackness above... the sound of a sewing machine echoing over the fields...

Lactobacillus casei shirota!

The curtains. The tables on wheels. The tv that you can barely see. The visitors' bell. The blue aprons with no backs. I don't like hospitals much. Hospitals are one of those things that make me feel very uneasy. Gran Reid has been in hospital since last friday and Ka and myself have visited three times since then, taking in the traditional gift of grapes. Not sure why it is grapes that are THE fruit to take in to a hospital. The second time we went in we took plums and Gran quickly rejected them. Maybe she has been warned by some sort of hospital fruit adjudicator, that goes round the beds inspecting their edible gifts. That hospital smell is another factor of immediate recognition and dread. Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic with it all though? Hospitals ,generally, are places where you go to get better after all, usually, hopefully. The only experience I've had as a hospital patient (touch wood) was to get some fangs removed from the top section of my mouth that were growing in. These oddly formed incisors were threatening to replace my front teeth with a rather neat pair of fangs that the Count himself would have been proud of. The main memory I have of that is of lying helpless in the surgery as I slowly fell unconscious. It was a horrible feeling, being deliberately knocked unconscious by drugs, and those memories still occasionally bob to the surface in my mind.
My Gran was in Ward two and as Ka and myself sat down at her bedside all the usual hospital features brought me the usual sense of unease. However, after a while I began to wonder whether my Gran was being kept in the correct part of the hospital. We were surrounded by slightly odd, elderly patients. One, directly across from Gran, was an elderly lady, with manic grey hair framing her head lying lop sided on her massive pillow. She seemed to be reading the ingredients of her Yakult through a terrible frown and would occasionally yell out an additive vehemently.
'Skimmed milk!'
'Sugar!!'
'Lactobacillus casei shirota!!!'
Like some health conscious Father Jack, she sat there mumbling quietly to herself, then interupting our own conversations with her sudden yells, causing us to jump in our seats. The other poor lady opposite us, beside the first shouting woman, I don;t think even knew where she was really. At one point she started pulling the drip tubes from her arms and started shouting in alarm when the blood started squirting out of them. As a nurse moved to help the woman made it clear she needed the toilet rather desperately and we tried to carry on with our conversation as the lady's curtain was pulled over. We were then almost immediately interupted by an enormous 'OH NO!', a moment of silence, and then a loud sigh from one of the nurses. From behind the curtain the lady then went on to go on about how her mattress was now soaking. It was all distinctly depressing.
My Gran was taking it all in her stride though and is, as always, determined to fight on. Since then she has been moved into another ward thankfully, which we visited on Wednesday. A slightly more comfortable ward. Again, not without its characters. Ka and myself were there with my Dad and sister, Lynsey Ann, sitting at Gran's bedside chatting away, when suddenly I felt eyes on me. I froze. A shadow loomed over my shoulder. Very slowly I looked round, only to find another wee old lady standing over me... staring at us. She had silently hobbled up behind me and, as we sat conversing, was now standing, leaning over my shoulder. Staring. We made polite conversation with her only to get some barely audible mumbled responses and then tried to go back to our own conversation. She then hobbled round to my Gran's table and started shuffling her fruit and books about. Unsure what to do we hesitantly continued our conversation. As this continued and I came perilously close to losing my patience and chasing the crazy old bat away we all breathed a sigh of relief when a nurse finally came in and quietly ushered the mumbling lady away. Surely some of these poor ladies should be in another ward. One that has more nurses and better care. One with the word psychiatric before it maybe? Is this what happens when we become old and ill? We get thrown into any old hospital ward and left to wander about aimlessly? Thankfully my Gran has no such mental problems and was voicing her frustration with her staring friend on our next and most recent visit. Thankfully the mumbling lady had visitors of her own to which she barely spoke. Quite right though as they didn't even bring her any grapes.

Eat more cake

More job losses in BT now? Will this ever end? Things seem to be getting more and more depressing with all the redundancies and recession talk.
On a happier note it was my wee cousin, little Lauren's, birthday today. She was three. Ka and myself popped round to Laurence and Maria's after the usual Thursday night gym workout to deliver her present. We walked in to discover my Dad, Mum and Gran already there, lounging on the couch eating pizza and drinking Laurence's very own brewed beer while kids ran about the living room, followed by the two cats and the dog, Taz. Named Taz presumably because of his Tazmanian Devil tendencies of which I seen no sign of. He seemed perfectly at ease and calm, except from getting a bit 'excited' when Megan, Lauren's bigger sister, started having a tickling competition with Ka. Megan fell to the ground at one point only to be jumped on by a, let's say, over enthusiastic, Taz. Needless to say Megan made sure she quickly escaped. Lauren had her birthday cake presentation after Maria eventually had the lights put out for the full candle effect and everyone helped themselves to cake. Even though I was driving I did have a brief swig of Laurence's self brewed beer. 40 pints for a tenner, apparently, and not bad at all. Will maybe consider that for our tightened purse strings Reid Christmas (damn, said the 'C' word again). The other, younger, Michael, Laurence and Maria's eldest, disappointingly had not made another chocolate cake for us all and was annoyed that his mother had went out and bought one. Got to say, so were we all. At Megan's birthday a few months back, her big brother had made two giant, gorgeous cakes that Nigella Lawson would have been proud of. My mum used to be great at making cakes, especially of the birthday variety. She used to make us themed cakes of whatever we were into at the time. Lynsey Ann always got chocolate cake extravaganzas. Kenny, my brother, I remember, got specially constructed Thomas the Tank Engine cakes, castle cakes and a football pitch complete with players. Or maybe the castle was mine... anyway, she was an expert. Mum must have had a lot of time on her hands in those days as she doesn't bother so much anymore. Maybe it's more because of the fact the three of us are, or are approaching, thirty years of age though.

Practically perfect

Mr McKell has done it again. Chaz has found us a new car. A Toyota Corrolla. Ka and myself sat patiantly in a certain Glasgow motor dealership, drinking machine tea while Chaz finished another sale. He then came over and began by complimenting my new glasses. I told him he could dispense with pleasantries and was there to put him back on schedule, in getting us a new car. He took us out in a Toyota Corrolla which, although not as luxurious as the Audi Quattro, seems to be a very smart wee car. Well, when I say wee, I mean it's smaller than the Audi, but bigger than my old Clio. Although two years old it is in near mint condition with little mileage on the clock. Chaz informed us of the car's many selling points, including room and connections for baby seats in the back. Agreeing, I quickly pointed out that they would be good for Ka's niece, Morgan. After a ten minute test drive in the busy Glasgow city centre we stamped our names on it, considering it ideal and left as we had a pressing engagement.
Through to the traffic mayhem that is Edinburgh, Dad drove. Edinburgh traffic always seems so terrible compared to Glasgow with the sheer quantity of bus lanes, one way roads and road works that have been going on for, at least, the last five years. We spent Halloween in the Edinburgh Playhouse watching Mary Poppins with Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann. The brilliant Cameron Mackintosh production version of the classic P. L. Travers tale about the weird, freakishly perfect nanny who gains employment in a troubled family's London house in 1910, eventually bringing the estranged family back together again with the help of dancing statues and suspicious looking bottles of medicine. The show was everything you'd expect from a Mackintosh production. Great music, fantastic sets, special effects, expert dancing, fun performances and a few surprise spectacles including Poppins gliding out over the stalls up into the galleries above, her brolley raised over her head. There was no tea party on the ceiling though which was a bit of a disappointment but there were a few scenes from the original book, missed from the 1964 movie, including a visit to Mrs Corry's magical Sweet shop in the park. She was basically a dealer based in the park. On one of the Banks' encounters with the Park Ranger he did start to go on about how he found many an odd person wandering around in the park. Bearing in mind the tale is set in London, I wondered if that included George Michael. Do you think George Michael, on being cornered by police and asked what he's up to, has used the excuse 'supercalifragalisticexpialidocious'? Maybe he claimed it only to be a spoonful of sugar? It was certainly a bit odd on leaving the theatre as we, and the rest of the Poppins mob, were surprised to find the street filled with drag queens. Apparently, or so we were to realise, the bar right next door to the Playhouse, the Cafe Habana, has a speciifc form of clientele. It's very popular in Edinburgh's gay scene and, since it was Halloween, the pub's crowd were taking full advantage of their mother's closet. Some of the looks on the older ladies and burly blokes coming out the theatre were a hoot. It was a bit like one of Mary Poppins' fantastical trips coming to life on Greenside Place, making our way through the wigs and feather boas to the car whilst people sang supercalifragalisticexpialidocious. Poppins was right, it does make you feel better!

Whose day is it?

Today was just one of those days. A day were stupid things infuriate you and small things aggravate you. I should apologise to all those I work with for being a miserable b****** today. Lost Ian, Creamy Chicken John, Gareth, Andy, Shirley Ann, anyone else? I was just grumpy that's all. Computer crashed, playing catch up with planning the newspapers, playing catch up with car ads... It just wasn't my day - and no, I don't know whose day it was Lynsey Ann.
Getting ready to go out somewhere. Must have been summer time as we were off school. My mum had just accidentally put a heel through the lino in the bathroom. This adding to her fluster she shouted at us to hurry up then sighed, 'It's just not my day'. Lynsey looked up with a puzzled frown on her face ' Whose day is it then Mum?'