Sophie Reid

Apologies for the absence.
I have a good excuse though.
Baby Reid number 2, Sophie Reid was born at 9.33am on Monday 19th November 2012.

As you can see, she was pulled out into the world with a bit of a grumpy expression on her face, but she was forced to arrive three weeks early I suppose.

Mum is fine and recovering whilst Sophie is... well, hard work.
I'm off to bed to try and catch up with some more sleep.

Giant inflatables and disappearing buffets

Frank Sinatra’s slow, melodic version of Send in the Clowns’ played through the living room stereo speakers as we closed the front door on another day of guests at half past midnight on Saturday night. We were finishing up a little earlier than we had done at the previous housewarming but certainly didn’t feel any less tired.
It was the family’s turn to visit and from three o’clock that afternoon we’d had everyone from the Kerrs and the Taylors, to the Symingtons and the Leckies, not to mention the Reids and the McGarvas. The food had been demolished, the beer nearly all drunk, the wine bottles finished, the irn-bru and diet cokes swigged and the caffeine swilled, not to mention a bottle of the finest Arran Malt Whiskey with accompanying cheese and biscuits which more than a few people partook in, a gift to the buffet from my Uncle Jim from his new abode on the ‘geologist’s paradise’ (not to mention the golfer’s paradise, the camper’s paradise and the whiskey drinkers’). A text arrived in the morning from Jim to say he was supplying the cheese and crackers, bought from the famous Arran Cheese Shop, just before my Dad turned up in his gardening gear with his hedge loppers and his ladders. He was here to start the back garden.
The hedge running up the left of our back garden was ridiculously overgrown and, as a result, blocking a lot of the Scottish sunlight out so Dad and myself had been talking about trimming it all down at some point and getting it into some kind of order. I hadn’t expected to see him turning up on the doorstep with his ladders a mere four and a half hours before the arrival of the first guests though. The first of which would be the bouncy castle organised through one of the Mum’s in Ka’s work. This Mum owns, or is part owner, to a company that hires these inflatable structures out and Ka had the rather brilliant idea of hiring one to keep the kids entertained throughout the day. We had told people to turn up whenever, and however, they wanted from 3 o’clock onwards, saying there would be entertainment for the kids in the earlier hours of the afternoon.
Just as Dad and myself finished tidying the last of the giant bushes and hedge branches away from the back garden’s lawn, a job that involved surreptitiously chucking them over the back hedge into the council ‘controlled’ wilderness behind us whilst cutting and scratching my arms to ribbons, the bouncy castle man turned up at the front door, Ka immediately racing away in fright, up the stairs as she was once more still in her polka dot dressing gown (she does wash it, honest!). The guy brought through the black box generators along with a couple of mats and cables and gave the garden a quick check over and then instructed me to take down the washing lines before he disappeared through to the front of the house again. After obediently deroping our washing poles I jogged off through the house to meet the bouncy castle man once more, this time at the front door, mulling over how he was going to fit the giant roll of plastic between us, through the entrance. With a bit of shoving, a bit of squeezing, a bit of wall scraping and a touch of sweat we managed to squeeze the rolled up monstrosity through the not terribly wide front door, then finding ourselves in the hallway and faced with a similar problem three times more as we took the heavy delivery through the house and into the back garden.
That is the one major downfall of owning a terraced house. No side gate to the back garden.
Anyway, we eventually got the giant barrel shaped roll of plastic through and out on to the back lawn where the bouncy castle man immediately set to work, pinning the flat structure down into the wet, slightly mushy grass as I stood and watched the large square unfold over half the garden.
“We’re going to need a bigger garden”, I thought as John Williams’ dark, foreboding music built up in my head. The castle slowly rose up before me blocking the sunlight out that my Dad and myself had revealed in the previous few hours by chopping the surrounding hedges. A shadow now loomed over me from the giant arched roof of the inflatable monster which continued to rise like a cake in an oven with way too much baking powder. A slide seemed to shoot out from the nearest side of the structure as it filled with air, pillars and loops decorated with bubbling fish and swimming scuba divers rose up inside the filled framework and before long you could barely see a patch of grass around the plastic bouncy building.
These kids better turn up, I thought, as I seen the bouncy castle man off after he’d run through his rather vague health and safety procedure which basically involved making sure little kids were looked after within the castle and nobody did anything stupid.
I’m not sure he realised whose house he was in.
As Ka finished straightening her hair upstairs, I reminded her that I wasn’t doing any kid entertaining today. The whole reason we got the bouncy castle in was for me to specifically not do any child entertaining.
As soon as the first child came through the front door, who as the first on the bouncy castle? Muggins, that’s who.
At precisely three o’clock, on the dot, Aunty Lorna and her three girls, Wendy, Pamela and Susan, turned up along with Yvie, Wendy’s youngest. They all had their own customary tour of the new abode before Yvie finally got her way and headed out to the bouncy castle with Auntie Susan. Along with Yvie the first kids took to the bouncy castle and I helped support the little girl over the curved, wibbly wobbly surface inside the castle. Susan stood on the patio and supervised her niece as she got used to moving over the giant inflatable and the stranger egging her on inside it.
My cousin Sarah arrived soon after with her boys Christopher and Daniel and Uncle Ian and Aunt Anne just after. Before long I had company on the castle as Ian took wee Daniel up into the bobbing innards. More kids arrived in the form of my younger cousins Megan and Lauren with my Uncle Laurence and Aunt Maria, Claire arrived with her wee girl, Olivia and as the afternoon progressed and more and more of the families started trooping through the front door the house warming was soon in full swing. Ka got the buffet served single handedly, only because she refused anyone permission to help, I took coats and served drinks, my time on the bouncy castle now down to a minimal after the growing number of kids took over. I was also a little more hesitant to venture on to the bouncy castle along with so many kids after following Colin, Ka’s brother, on his first attempt to board the inflatable. He got so far as getting up on to the main section before losing his footing, falling back over his arse, taking me with him and managing to land on my head, much to the kids and the Symingtons’ amusement.
Mum, Dad, Jim, Lynsey Ann, Tricia and Tommy came in early evening, just in time for the second serving on the buffet table after the first table full got pretty much demolished within half an hour. Grace’s macaroni and homemade bread along with Ka’s wraps, olives, pizzas, prawns, cheese sticks and my very own chilli all went in the first tableful to be closely followed by the second which included Mum’s lasagne and Jillian and Jean’s coconut snowballs.
Jillian and Jean’s white chocolate coated coconut balls are now famous at family buffets, each in their own small paper cake cases and although merely around 2 – 3 centimetres in diameter each probably hold around 500 calories within their small, sweet interior. The coconut snowballs are almost becoming just as traditional as Aunt Linda’s trifle which, unfortunately, we lacked on Saturday as Linda could not make it due to an extreme cold.
My chilli was well received by most or so I thought until Pamela approached me in the kitchen and complemented it. She asked how I made it. As I started describing how I gently browned the mince in the pot she asked how I made my spices.
Make spices? I had no idea you could make spices? I bought mine from a shop in a jar, I replied to her.
Pamela frowned slightly and then asked how I made my chilli powder. Again I replied that it came from a jar bought in a supermarket. Morrisons own, I believe.
Looking thoroughly unimpressed now, Pamela squirmed with discomfort a little and started describing how she would usually make her chilli powder before trailing off and disappearing off to the living room again leaving me to ponder who invited Nigella flamin’ Lawson.
I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been the real Nigella Lawson in my kitchen giving me her tips (just check my spelling there…).
Aunt Tricia had been so intrigued upon hearing about the bouncy castle beforehand that almost as soon as she arrived she joined Grace up on the giant inflatable and both ending up marooned, struggling to get up, thanks to the kids bouncing and ricocheting around them like popcorn in a microwave. At one point Joshua even accidentally headbutted Tricia across the head giving my Auntie a small, slowly growing, lump for the rest of the night whilst Joshua bounced off unaffected. In fact, he looked more than at home on the inflatable. He bounces about rooms like a blonde haired tigger at the best of times, giving him an inflated ground to use is possibly asking for trouble. I’m quite surprised he didn’t end up in Betty and Malcy’s garden next door.
The girls of the group also found it highly amusing to run up and hit, tap or punch either myself or Colin over the leg, waist or arse repeatedly before running off back up on to the castle. Lauren also took to mounting my lower right leg in an effort to hold me to the spot. Both were amusing at first but soon got slightly tiresome. There were perfectly good tall pillars of hot air within the castle, to punch and smack, why the kids felt the need to continue to hit Colin and myself I’m not sure.
Once the bouncy castle was gone everyone retreated inside for the night. Megan brought her guitar out to impress us with some Killers tunes and the rest of the night was spent chatting and drinking along with some more eating.
As I poured a few drinks for people and Tricia came into the kitchen requesting an aspirin, I spied Ka pulling a large, rather delicious looking, rectangular pizza from the oven’s innards. I’d barely eaten any of the previous tablefuls so I quickly rushed the drinks I was pouring. Once I’d finished pouring and dishing out the glasses I went straight for the buffet table in the living room to grab a square slice and found an empty breadboard with a large rectangular square of heat, grease and crumbs awaiting me.
“Who invited this lot?”

Chutes, wine, beer and jam

Joshua wasn't too impressed at first. To be fair to him he'd only just woken up not ten minutes before and had found himself surrounded by relations.
Waking up and finding yourself surrounded by grinning relations looking directly at you can't be fun, so why should we think that it would be okay for a kid?
Can you imagine waking up on your couch from an afternoon nap to find your living room filled with various Mums, Dads, Aunties and Uncles, all sitting chatting, drinking, grinning and taking photos of you? Even if your Dad did come over and try and cajole you into being sociable it would take you at least fifteen minutes to come round to any idea of putting up with it, never mind liking the sudden invasion.
Joshua remained in his Dad's arms for around fifteen minutes, taking everything in, before being lowered to the floor in the hallway. His cousins Ross and Jack were wildly running around in circles as usual, speeding through the various rooms, Morgan not far behind them. Grace and Dougie were seated in the lounge and chatting away to Steven's cousins, his brother David and his Uncle John, whilst Jillian and Colin stood chatting in the living room's doorway, Jillian a little worse for wear after a big night out, including karaoke, the previous night.
Ka and myself were late and arrived through the heavy rain of Saturday afternoon. As a birthday gift for our wee nephew we bought a big, bright, blue and green plastic slide and came up with the idea of decorating it in balloons before we arrived to give it to him. We made a brief stop at Sainsburys to buy flowers for Angela and a bag of, what turned out to be, rather disappointing, supposedly animal shaped balloons. Ka and myself sat in the car, in the middle of the rain soaked Sainsbury's car park, blowing the balloons up to stick to the plastic slide, our inanimate third passenger, stretched across the whole of the car's back seat. Unfortunately these balloons were in no way animal shaped, not to any stretch of the imagination, but refusing to go back into the shop for more rubber we begrudgingly stuck them on to the plastic slide with sellotape. They'd have to do.
After being released on to the floor Ka and myself tried to introduce him to his birthday present, now standing in the hallway, the pathetic looking balloons bobbing around pitifully at the top of it’s mighty peak, three foot up. Joshua frowned and grumpily shook his head, waddling off in another direction.
He preferred the look of his Thomas the Tank Engine, that Colin and Jillian had bought him. A push cart version of the familiar blue steam locomotive with the big, grey, grinning face and the Liverpudlian voice. Joshua ran up to the push car, taking a hold of the back, red push rail and ran off into the living room. Colin was delighted and claimed victory in buying the best birthday present. Ka and myself laughed and joked artificially, kidding on we weren't that bothered, grumbled jealously and wandered off, heads drooping despondently.
However, after around twenty minutes of waking up time, and with a little gentle encouragement from Colin, his Granpa Dougie, and myself, Joshua was soon making his way up the short ladder and sitting himself down at the top of the smooth blue plastic slide. A little unsure at first, Joshua spun a little on his first slide down and ended up banging his head as he landed at the bottom of the blue, streamlined plastic. Joshua, being Joshua, was not put off by this minor bump though and immediately got back to his feet and made his way round the side of the chute again, giving an excited wave of the arms and a squeak of approval. Before long our wee nephew was moving in circles, running round, climbing up and sliding down, avoiding any further bumps, as his chute sliding expertise improved.
He liked it.
Ka and myself could hold our heads high, even if the balloons weren't.
Over the buffet lunch I brought up the subject of the large barrel standing in the corner of the kitchen, a third full with suspicious looking liquid. A few months ago Steven had created a large batch of plum jam from the purple fruit he had collected from the tree in the back garden. He had shared the jam out among the relatives including Ka and myself (our jar is only half empty – but still sitting in the fridge if you fancy some?) and was now branching out. He was now concocting some homemade wine in the corner of the kitchen. When I asked how the wine making was coming along Steven took a glass, unscrewed the barrel's cap and lowered his hand down into the barrels innards, a look of uncertainty almost crossing his face, like that scene in 'Flash Gordon' when Timothy Dalton put his hand down the scorpion's hole. After a little movement of the wrist Steven brought the glass back up, now half full of his alcoholic potion. His cousin John was the first to taste who almost immediately grimaced, saying something about vinegar, quickly handing the glass back. After Colin took a few drinks and nodded appreciatively, I ventured a small sip and immediately tasted Steven's jam, only laced with alcohol. With the tang of Steven's plums the wine tasted a little like a foreign brandy of some sort. After only a small taste I could feel the wine travelling down my system, leaving a, not unpleasant, burning sensation at the back of the throat like the after effects from the first taste of a strong whiskey. It was certainly nicer than some of the wines I've drank in the past.
Various members of the Reids used to create beer at home, and jam for that matter. My Gran’s jam was amazing. I could never believe that my Gran could make her own jam, although usually it was rhubard, and I hated rhubarb. Granpa used to eat it straight from the ground, a large growing patch out in his back garden. Dad ate it raw with a dab of sugar.
Dad used to make beer in our bathtub. I remember he used to buy the beer making kits from Boots and have a giant plastic barrel of his own, which would sit in the bathroom for a good few months, slowly brewing it's Lindsay ale, stinking the room out with it’s weird, pungent yeasty stenches.
I'm not sure what happened when it came to bath time?
We certainly never had a beer bath.
Apparently they’re quite big over in the Czech Republic and Austria. There are more than a few beer spas now open. Spas, baths, pools and even beer flavoured treatments are offered, such as facials. Apparently, beer is good for the skin. Good for cleansing, drying and relaxing in. Good for hair rejuvenation too. I should get over there! In the tub, the combination of water, beer, hops and yeast is warmed and bubbled around you, transforming it into a kind of mild Jacuzzi. A hot tub beer machine.
Unfortunately, back in Scotland, being the driver, I couldn’t partake in any of Steven’s homemade wine, much to my extreme disappointment, as I’m sure you can imagine, but made sure I had a glass of Pinot Grigio later, on the comfort of my own couch, where, thankfully, there was a distinct lack of grinning, chatting, relations.

An enraged Swedish Chef

Kirkintilloch looked miserable yesterday. The sky was thick with grey. The wind that blew over the hills was bitter cold. The branches on the trees swayed fiercely in the strong breeze and the streets were empty of people. That was until the Reids and the McGarvas arrived.
Yesterday was Dougie’s birthday and Colin and Jillian held a BBQ in my Father In Law’s honour and we all made our way out to Waterside. Colin donned the Chef’s hat, that Ka had found him on Amazon during the week, (she couldn’t find a turban), and got the coals lit with a little help from Dad, an expert BBQ chef himself. Steven soon provided some help with another BBQ, firing on some Chicken Tikka he’d marinated earlier, which everyone soon started munching, raving about, whilst picking the last remaining chicken from their sticks. Colin muttered jealously and then shouted abusively, waving his knives and spatulas around like an enraged Swedish Chef, as apparently we had not praised his own cooking quite so much.
Greasy hamburgers in a buttery roll with cheese and a heavy dollop of tomato sauce. Sausages fresh from the grill. Beef kebabs that nipped at your mouth with their spicy innards as you ate. Pork steaks, pasta bakes, mustards, beers, cake and wine. As Man United scored all those goals, all of the above were happily consumed although none of which were particularly ideal ingredients for a man that’s just had a heart attack.
Dad spent three nights as a guest in Hairmyres hospital last week as a result of the pains he had been experiencing on the Monday morning whilst getting ready for work. It wasn’t until Dad got to work and he was having more than a little difficulty with the short staircase outside the factory’s front doors that he realised something must be wrong. As the pain in his chest continued and he found himself short of breath, more than a little hot under the collar and building up a bit of a sweat on the brow, he googled the symptoms in work and they all gave generally the same answer. A heart attack.
One of Dad’s colleagues flung the phone over the desk towards him and he phoned NHS 24, whose advisors, after passing Dad on a few times to various, different conversationalists, eventually came up with the idea of sending an ambulance out. Gosh, that what quick thinking. Before long Dad was whisked off to Hairmyres.
Of course, once I had got to the hospital on the Monday night I told him that he should have just phoned me. After recently graduating from a three day British Red Cross course I could have told him what the problem was in moments, quickly identifying the symptoms of a heart attack (although I’m not sure if my Dad experienced the ‘sense of impending doom’… I’ll need to ask him that). I could have told him was position to sit in and everything and I certainly wouldn’t have had to hold a committee or pass the phone round my work colleagues to get their ideas on the matter.
Saying that, I may have panicked. I may even have made matters worse. I would probably have rushed out from my work, ran straight into a lamp post, dropping my car keys down a drain and then once having finally retrieved my car keys from under the street drain with the help of a passing burglar who just happened to have a crowbar on him, I would have crashed the car into a Hamilton driver.
Makes me wonder what I’d be like in a real British Red Cross emergency situation. I’m one of three first aiders in our building. I’m also one of two fire wardens for our department?!
The place is doomed.
Yes, it’s probably just as well Dad did not phone me.
Dad has now been prescribed with four pills to take for the rest of his life and a six week recovery programme to help nurse him through the coming weeks. Dad showed the large ring bound book of recovery to Ka and myself when we visited him at home on Thursday after he was eventually released from Hairmyres and Ka immediately started going through the instructions, reading out the various pills’ allowance and side affects, skipping the bit about the possible effects on the sex life.
Dad is now on a morning diet of Aspirins, statins and beta blockers to help thin his blood and keep it flowing properly through his arteries.
As a result of all this I’m now considering my own diet. If my Dad, a generally healthy, fit guy, can have a heart attack, what chance do the rest of us have?
The rest of us being me?
Just for starters, I’ve been mulling over my cholesterol intake today. I came across one list describing the food to avoid online which included all as follows:
Butter – I eat on bread, toast, potatoes, quite a lot really. It was on the rolls I had with my greasy BBQ food yesterday.
Hard cheese – Cheese is great. Brilliant toasted with a tomato on top. In fact, I had loads on my burgers yesterday…
Fatty meat – yep, eat that too. Again, had a fair amount from Colin’s and Jillian’s table last night.
Red and processed meat – yep, again on the BBQ last night.
Biscuits – yep, last night along with…
Cake – well, it was Dougie’s birthday?!
Cream – yep, we had whipped cream with it. Although Dougie kept an eye on Morgan and myself as we squirted from the can (he doesn’t like people nicking his whipped cream).
Dripping – is this grease from your food? If so, yes, again, on the burgers and various meaty products cooked on Colin’s smoking BBQ last night.
Other items on the list included Lard, Ghee (whatever that is) and Coconut oil. These three were the only three not included on Colin and Jillian’s menu last night.
Everything else we ate is on the heart attack list?!
Colin was trying to murder us!?!
Chicken Tikka wasn’t on the Cholesterol list though...
That’s why Colin was so angry at Steven for cooking some of his own recipes.
By cooking some healthy chicken, Steven was foiling his evil plan!

Let's get the party started

Mum has just text me saying Santa has just been and she's now getting very excited. I replied by asking if she was drunk and she accused me of having no christmas spirit!
As it happens I've got more Christmas spirit in me now than I thought I would have had a week or so back. The weather outside is still beyond freezing and the streets are still paved with ice and snow, all the presents are organised, wrapped and underneath the tree, I feel like I've been watching Christmas movies all week, I've ate a mince pie a night, I had the yearly encounter with Mrs Santa in the office the other day, we've even been to a panto and at midnight tonight Ka and myself are off to Church with the Reids for a carol service followed by a nice big mug of hot chocolate. How much more Christmas spirit can you get?
Over a week ago now, just before tucking into a big meal at our local Chinese, I was told over the phone that I was one of the lucky ones to keep a job. So from April 2011 I'll be working in a new role within the Prepress department. Great news for me but news that will always come with a tinge of sadness considering so many others are losing their jobs.
There's also the imminent arrival in early January to look forward to. Baby Reid is most definately making his presence felt as Ka grows more uncomfortable by the day. Let's hope she can keep the Christmas spirit as Baby Reid kicks at her ribs from the inside.
At the panto last week there were actual tears in Ka's eyes as John Barrowman belted out another song before us. Unfortunately it wasn't tears of pure joy, pleasure or appreciation, but tears of pain as Baby bounced about inside her, whilst in the tight, less than spacious, seats of the Clyde Auditorium. The strange thing is I had similar tears of pain as John sang his heart out but I don't have a Baby growing inside me. Maybe Baby was complaining about the sheer volume of the Barrowman, who knows.
Ricki Fulton starred in the last big panto I went along to which shows how long it's been. I hadn't been looking forward to Aladdin. Barrowman wasn't bad in it though and proved himself a great family entertainer as always using the panto as a platform for some of the songs he'd sung on his tour which Ka and Jillian had dragged Colin and myself along to a few months back.
Even the Krankies, the usually gawd awful Scottish 'comedy' duo, were quite funny in their supporting roles. I never liked the Krankies when I was younger. The idea of a small woman dressing up as a wee boy with a school uniform and dirty jokes to annoy her/his older, male friend, who in real life is her husband, I always found a bit too weird.
Certainly far weirder than John Barrowman's ridiculously white teeth and accent switching skills.
Talking of accent switching, Ka and myself have just sat through the latest Harry Potter movie in which Bill Nighy puts on some kind of Welsh, Scottish, Can't quite make my mind up, accent as the Minister of Magic. Another fabulously crazy twisted accent to rival the Scottish slurs of Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. The movie itself was entertaining enough but largely for the Potter fans proving that the film was certainly not for the casual cinema goer that may not be familiar with the previous films and the whole back story shindig.
Going to the flicks has always been a tradition for Ka and myself on Christmas Eve. Afterwards we usually have a walk around Glasgow and enjoy the Christmas atmosphere. Breathing in the festive spirit, watching the panicking Christmas eve shoppers run from shop to shop, the whiff of German sausages floating up through the air from St. Enochs Square at the bottom of Buchanan Street and seeing George Square in lights as the skaters circle the ice rink. Usually we'll have a festive tipple or two as well but not this year, of course. No mulled wine or Christmas cocktails this year. With the imminent arrival I'm now on standby. I'll quite happily leave those kinds of festive spirits to the rest of the family!

What lives are

Whilst Ka was up in Aberdeen, staying sober at her friend, Gillian's, hen doo, I had a pretty quiet, mellow weekend. It all got off to a significantly melancholic start with a funeral. My Unle Tommy's Dad passed away suddenly last week so I joined the rest of the family at Our Lady Of Lourdes Church for the funeral service, followed by tea in East Kilbride's old Village Torrance Hotel.
Having only met Tommy's Dad a few times at family parties,or gatherings, on the odd occasion, I can't pretend to have known the man well, but what I did make of him seems to be on the right track from the way people spoke of him on Saturday. Like all funerals it made me wish I'd had the chance to get to know the man a little better. Tommy Senior seemed a very pleasant, gentle, friendly man. From what I remember at the family gatherings, he would always be found sitting back, comfortable in a couch, taking in the jokes, conversations and banter with a placid ease, taking joy in relaxing in the family environment whilst not neccessarily contributing vocally. Certainly not something the Reids are known for.
So it was with great sorrow that Tommy and his family said goodbye to Tommy senior. Tommy said that although obvioulsy upset by his Dad's passing, he felt some ease in the fact that he was there, in the hospital, at his father's bedside when it happened. A quiet closure, being with the relative at the time, that some would be grateful of.
That's always the worst aspect of a relative passing, and of funerals. The great feeling of a missed opportunity in saying goodbye in the last moments.
Sitting in the church, on these occasions, always reminds you of people now gone. It made me think again of my grandparents, the Reids, who had passed in the last few years, and the Sloans, who I sadly barely registered the passing of due to my youth at the time. There are others too, of course. Aunties, uncles, friends and other relatives that you wish you could have had the chance to talk to once again.
It's only when these people are gone that you miss them, you come up with interesting questions to ask them, jaunts to take with them or good things to say. Interesting or meaningful things to say, not the trivial or unimportant matters that you used to talk about. Well, I know I did anyway. I write a blog for pete's sake. Talking about trivial things comes quite easily to me.
But then, I suppose it's the trivial things that all pile up to make, big, mad, staggering towers of important things, and they are what lives are and what life is all about.

The Sarah scream and teddy bear violence

Mum and Dad hosted another BBQ on Saturday and this time invited the entirety of the family, including the McGarvas, Symingtons, Taylors and all. Not to be put off by the worse weather thus far this summer, Dad erected two large tents and a gazebo in the garden, fitting each of the tents out with carpets, comfy chairs and tables.
The BBQ was also the perfect opportunity to tell everyone of Baby Reid. Mum and Ka were especially looking forward to hearing the 'Sarah Scream' when my cousin heard the news. Cousin Sarah is renowned for her scream when either something really exciting, shocking or hilairious happens. In this case it could probably be described as a case of all of the above as, true to form, when Ka told Sarah in the conservatory, she let out a belter. The birds of Chapelton abandoned their branches in fright, the sheep and cows in the surrounding fields faltered in their grass munching, looking up with curiousity and Myra the hairdresser accidentally chopped someone's fringe off next door.
Needless to say, most people had a few beers through the afternoon and enjoyed the BBQ spread along with Grace's lasagne and Linda's traditional trifle. Whilst people's bellies digested the veritable onslaught, the rain kept falling but failed to put a dampener on things. In early evening most of the the blokes retreated into the living room for the World Cup runners up game whilst the kids presented various puppet shows emotionally blackmailing or forcibly bullying us into attending (I was probably one of the latter). These often descended into teddy bear violence with various Princess dolls squaring up to large teddy dogs all eventually transforming into a spinning cloud of felt and fur, whilst us viewers politely watched struggling to keep up with the show's plot. None of the performers were even puppets?! I bet Auntie Tricia preferred the puppet shows of old... When Baby Reid grows up a bit, he or she will be taught how to perform a proper puppet show.
Everyone has been great on hearing the Baby Reid news (apart from Myra's customer). Facebook has even proven itself to be almost useful in aiding with this. We did get one complaint from someone finding out on facebook, but to be fair to us, it was not actually on facebook, it was my blog at Reidnet, so there! -)
Anyway, thanks everyone for your well wishes. They're all greatly appreciated. Excitement and joy is now officially over - let the stress and panicking commence!

The scarey and fantastic

We're sitting in a small white room. A feint humming ringing through the air under the large, square tile like lighting. Agitated, I wait. The computer opposite me stares out blankly before the operator steps up to her console. Following a tap on a monitor key pad the operator adjusts the screen to suit her eyeline and settles down to input the vital information. Tapping gently on the keypad I grow impatient, waiting. Reaching the end of her inputting the operator switches the monitor to a blank, black screen, her palm rolling over the cursor ball on the right of her console. Then, taking control of the controls with her left hand a blurring vision sweeps through the blackness on screen. A grey cloud swerves through the black. Then it appeared. Through the blackness an image materialized. A small, fuzzy image formed in greys and blacks of a small rounded form. A head, large and round, curved down over a body, identifiable by the rivets of a small spine. The surrounding oval of blackness shimmers as the body moves, as if sensing the scanner. A baby. A Reid baby.
Ka smiled at me from the medical bed as the radiographer moved the ultrasound scanner over her lower half of her tummy. Ka is pregnant. 13 weeks and five days to be precise.
Obviously we've known for at least a few months now, but seeing the moving image on screen makes it all real. Properly real! After our first anniversary at the weekend, relaxing in Troon, we began to get a little nervous as the week went on knowing we had the hospital appointment on the Thursday.
As Ka sat and watched the images I questioned the radiographer about the baby's movements and it's body parts, identifying one from the other. Parts of the live image remain dark and cloudy making it difficult to make out some of the features. Baby Reid even stretched as we watched. It's arms lifting up as it tilted it's head back and seemed to straighten his back. I say 'his', but, of course, we don't know the sex yet. As we talked I tried to suss the radiographer out as to the gender but she wasn't giving anything away. Apparently one of a babies first senses to develop is it's hearing so its now time to give up the swearing. Ka had been talking to her belly occasionally in the past few months, using emotional blackmail to clinch the last magnum from the freezer and such like. While I had been previously dismissing the idea I should maybe now start talking too. Introduce myself. Time to start getting used to the idea of being a father?! Scarey. But fantastic!

Easter dinner and the waiting room

Ka had been in the kitchen since half past seven yesterday morning as we had invited both sets of Mums and Dads round for an Easter Sunday dinner. The wife was making a homemade soup to accompany her roast and her cheesecake which, as a first attempt, turned out great using a recipe from the BBC Good Food website (the joys if the internet!). I slept in on Sunday morning due to Singstar neighbour upstairs arriving home late on the Saturday night/Sunday morning with a bunch of mates and waking me up so I slept as Ka set to work. She would probably have been quite happy at me sleeping on as I wouldn't have been allowed access to the kitchen anyway. When it comes to having folk for dinner I'm very rarely allowed any kind of contribution even though there's very little wrong with my cooking (or so I reckon!). This is all down to Ka's stubborn determination to get things done herself. No matter what the obstacles. She had been bent over in pain for the previous two days,thanks to some kind of stomach infection, which was promptly sorted on Saturday with an appointment at the hospital and a perscription for some horse tranqilizer sized capsules.
Accomapnying Ka to the hospital I sat in the small waiting room, in a chair positioned under the television, listening to the dreadful american Tomb Raider style drama that was unfolding above us. Ka and myself sat facing a poor bloke in a hospital overall grimacing in pain and shivering in a wheelchair. Another small, chatty family unit sat opposite us and as we sat waiting I tried to figure out which one of them was the ill patient with the emergency appointment. They all looked fine to me, so I amused myself for a good ten minutes trying to deduce which one was the faker. It turned out to be the elder lady of the group who looked as if she was done up for a night out and didn't seem to be in any pain whatsoever. As they left the Doctor's office I even overheard them discussing where to head for a lunchtime coffee as if they were halfway through some kind of medicinal shopping trip.
There wasn't even any decent magazines or newspapers to read to take our minds of the heavy waiting room silence. It was then I noticed the small coffee table in the corner of the room which housed the magazines, behind a poor moaning woman leaning over two chairs. After making my way round the moaning woman my shoulders sagged with disappointment as I was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a week old tv section of the Sunday Mail and a month old Woman's Own. You'd think they could at least have some decent magazines or newspapers in an NHS waiting room, something to take your mind of the pain or discomfort of having to be there in the first place.
Anyway, once Ka started popping the pills she got to work the next day on the parents' dinner. It all went really well with both sets of parents having a pleasant evening made all the easier for Ka and myself by the fact the two pairs get on so well. Both have three kids and busy family lives, both like their sport, music, tv, movies, books and holidays. Both toured America in the same year about a decade ago, which leads to all sorts of holiday reminiscing. Both the Mum's have started a small, unofficial book club with each other in which they swap thier latest tomes and both watched Mash, Cheers and Hill Street Blues which later led to another heavy reminiscing session about television in the good old days. This is all great as Ka and myself can easily get on with things in the kitchen, pouring drinks, servind up, along with the necessary dish washing and drying. the dish washing being the main reason why I'm then allowed in the kitchen. All the while, we'll be safe in the knowledge that there will be no difficult atmospheres or awkward silences. There's certainly little chance of much silence in any of the Reid or McGarva households, especially when the food's so good. Well done Ka.
Thanks to various family members, Ka and myself now have a mountain of Easter eggs to eat. They probably won't do our stomachs much good!

Volatile thoughts and hot ice cream

Hot ice cream?! That's impossible! Ice cream withstanding oven temperatures?! How can this be?! The answer, my friends, is Baked Alaska. A layer of ice cream protected in a meringue shell atop a fruit and sponge base. A dessert, I like to believe, only a few can successfully recreate. My very own multi skilled mother being one of them. After much shouting, blending, stirring and beating Mum emerged from the kitchen with a Baked Alaska which only just made it to the dinner table after a failure of kitchen blending tools. Thankfully Dad came to the rescue in building the new advanced blender at the last minute, a new piece of equipment that had lay dormant in the kitchen cupboard until last night, when it answered the emergency call. Mum is still bemoaning the breakdown of her old blender - her original number one blender and presumably this was why she has never used the new device considering the original, the best. I asked her if she buried it in the back garden and surprisingly she nodded with a yes. A vision came into my head of her holding a service for it, a gathering in the garden, singing 'Blend us together lord'.
Before all this Ka and myself had the laziest Sunday Ever. Nothing. Sheer, unadulterated, nothing was done. No gym, no painting, no shopping, no visits, no internet, zilch. Merely the odd chapter of my latest read. We did not get to bed till half six this morning mind you getting back to the flat at approximately half four only to find the living room overrun by Ka and three of her mates after a work night out, all lounging around the couches drinking vodkas, eating pringles and generally putting the world to rights.
Before this Chaz and myself had been in Glasgow, starting off in the Merchant City and ending up in Glasgow's Royal Exchange Square having a catch up over some drinks where discussions got slightly dark and deep with subjects such as life, death, religion, Richard Dawkins and Sambuca. Well, the sambuca wasn't so much talked about, just drank, quickly and sent my stomach into strange, volatile movements with which it slowly recovered after some medicinal vodkas. A trip to the casino followed and then a taxi journey home with Big Raymond from the Auldhouse at the wheel. Raymond was one of the locals from the Auldhouse bar, the famed small country pub I used to work in through my student years, and we done a bit of catching up with him on the way home. Once again the main subject of the conversation being the cheery "who was now dead and who wasn't" like that rather melancholy game they used to play on Radio 1 when listeners had to phone in and tell Simon Mayo if a certain famous person was dead or alive - a major kick up the arse to any work quiet, listening celebrities that were accused of having passed away.
Obviously, since the events of last week, the subjects of death and loss have never been far from my mind. Hopefully thoughts and conversations will get a little cheerier with time.

The cheese salad roll and the resurrection

An enjoyable Easter weekend with more birthdays. Ka celebrating on Thursday followed by my own on Sunday. So not only was there plenty of Easter eggs but there was plenty of cake to go round. Certainly not good for the diets.
On Saturday night Ka treated me to dinner in Toni's, a small, cosy little Italian restaurant on Renfield Street that generally serves great food with cheery service. We first went there for dinner around three years ago and have been meanings to revisit it ever since. The birthdays seemed like the perfect opportunity. Although the italian gent serving us was slightly loud and brash, throwing parmesan and pepper around rather haphazardly, he was friendly and efficient up until the third and final course. On the menu this course simply consisted of tea, coffee, chocolates and biscuits. We got our tea. We got our coffee. We did not get our chocolates or biscuits. Although disappointed, we let it go though considering we had had so much cake to eat over the weekend. The waiter then neglected to give us our change, presumably assuming it to be a tip or service charge, leaving us sitting, twiddling our thumbs at the empty table. We had intended to leave more than the meagre amount left over from the bill and eventually managed to get our change back in order to leave a more substantial tip. Anyway, niggles aside, it was a nice meal, and as we dusted the parmesan from our hair we proceeded on to Amber, underneath St. Vincent Street's Bar Buddha. Another small and cosy place with a late bar playing great music which had a special on of £2 a drink. Not too bad in these credit crunching times. As a result we both ended up quite merry and headed off for a bus home. For a change the bus journey was pretty pain free with no unpleasant, slobbering drunkards onboard, except from me.
On Sunday I entered my early thirties and rose from the dead, hungover, and still feeling more than a little zombie like. After making myself feel vaguely human again we left for Uddingston. Ka was driving and succeeded in being very patient with my moaning and mumbling from the passenger seat. After a quick visit to the McGarva household we then headed up to the Leckie household to visit Angela, Steven and Morgan who gifted us with special personalised Thorntons Easter eggs complete with our names in icing across their front. In this instance my name being 'Uncle Michael'. For them, we had a bunch of tulips and a couple of creme eggs. Maybe not a completely fair transaction but they did forget my birthday so I considered that to be fair enough. We sat and watched Morgan paint her boiled eggs, the kitchen table, and the majority of her hands while Steven cut dresses and shirts from sheets of felt and inserted arms into each of the small, card, toilet roll holders which were acting as the eggs' bodies. We suspect Steven was enjoying this egg painting more than Morgan was. While all this was going on, Angela created, possibly, the greatest cheese salad roll I have ever tasted. After eating I was back on the trampoline in the Leckie's back garden thanks to Morgan's persistence. Strangely enough, the trampoline coupled with that amazing salad roll made me feel a hell of a lot better - not the results you would expect with a hangover.
After a quick visit from the globetrotting Tricia and Tommy, who are just back from a Caribbean cruise and were now on their way to see Dougie MacLean in Dunkeld, we headed up to Chapelton for dinner with the family. Kenny picking Gran, Ka and myself up from EK. Mum had made another feast including smoked salmon for starters, a sunday stew for mains and a lemon meringue for dessert. Gran drank a giant Brandy, Dad fed me with a fair amount of his Jack Daniels, Kenny sat and watched the golf on the big screen and we reminisced, chatted and gossiped before heading home after nine to collapse and fall asleep on the couch watching Damages.
Back in work today, missing all the Bank Holiday Monday movies. Maybe a good thing. Looking forward to going home tonight and relaxing, there's a choclate egg with my name on it.

Time flies

Happy New Year!
2009 already?!
Hogmanay and New Year flew by in a whirling blur of drink, parties, food, dancing, and the inevitable slight anti climax of a usual New Year. Waking up on New Years Day, I had a few moments of wondering where the hell I was before I slowly recognised the surroundings. Room 202 of the Premier Inn, Glasgow. A comfy bed, in one of the comfortable enough cloned rooms in the supposedly cheaper hotel chain (although they slap on a extra £20 for New Year). Not quite the exciting adventure Ka and myself had last year in Paris but it brought in 2009 with an enjoyable night and a brilliant meal at Mama San on Bath Street, an Asian themed restaurant and bar. Serving us with a cocktail on arrival we were then presented with some great food in the form of Asian tapas with spices, vegetables, chicken, salad, tofu and noodles. Way too much for our stomachs (and the space on our table) to contend with. After eleven the rear of the restaurant was then opened out to produce a dancefloor on which we brought in the bells, ten minutes late. By my watch it was at least ten past twelve before we got the familiar doomladen bell chimes of Big Ben played through the speakers. No countdown, no party poppers on the stroke of midnight, no hip hip hooray, no 'Auld Lang Syne' just a constant 'is it not time yet?' look of puzzlement running over the faces of everyone in the bar. We could do nothing but shrug and get on with enjoying ourselves. At around one I fell into a bit of a stupor suddenly feeling the effects of the cocktails and decided that to cure this I would turn to Vodka. Probably not the best of moves but on these nights out people rarely make good moves. Espeically the tall, bespectacled bald man on the dancefloor, alongside Ka and Chaz, who thought he was Michael Jackson and started working on an elaborate version of the moonwalk. On seeing this Chaz took it upon himself to try and out-moonwalk the guy. Not sure who won, but I'm sure I got some photos.
New Years Day was largely quite quiet as a result of the previous night's excesses and after luch at the Counting House Chaz drove Ka and myself back home to EK, feeling better after our food but still slightly stoned. Ka and myself relaxed the rest of the day, eyes dragging shut as we sat on the couch infront of Joanthan Creek in the evening.
The next day, the second, was brighter and busier as we were once again entertaining. The McGarva clan and the Reid clan were visiting at five so preperations had to be made. The meeting of two great families, coming together for the first time on the year of our Wedding. Another great night was had with more food, drink, and fun, involving pass-the-parcel, with Morgan's own portable stereo system, that had tormented the kitchen since she had arrived, and a three hour game of Cranium in which team members hummed at one another, drew for one another and generally shouted at one another. A board game that, I suspect, should be played with a few drinks in you in order for you to enjoy it (and perhaps understand it). The night drew to a successful close with music requests including The Stereophonics, The Kinks, Elvis, Take That, ELO, Roxy Music, REM and The Killers, to name but a few.
On Saturday was the inevitable. The dismantling of the Christmas tree and the taking down of decorations. Back to normality now... though I have a sneaking suspicion 2009 will be no 'normal' year.

Just a branch of science

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

Tabs, shelves and loop-de-loops

Christmas Day is over once again. Boxing Day now and I'm back in the flamin' office putting a Paisley newspaper together. Hopefully won't be hanging around for too long though.
Another enjoyable Christmas Day yesterday, even though I stayed sober for driving duties. Not that I was desperate for a drink or anything. Sometimes you just feel slightly left out when everyone's enjoying a glass of wine with their dinner and you're on the Shloer or the Irn-Bru. Enjoyed breakfast in Chapelton with Mum, Dad, Lynsey-Ann and Kenny. Mum and Dad serving smoked salmon and scrambled eggs accompanied by a celebratory glass of buck's fizz. Afterwards the usual exchange of presents with christmas carols ringing out from the tinny radio in the kitchen in between music on the living room stereo from Duffy and The Killers. Mum and Dad spoiled us again. Amongst other things they bought me a rather impressive amp and speakers for my Mac. At least I think it's an amp of some sort. Will need to check it out when I get home. Not bad at all. Uncle Jim and James, my cousin from London, arrived a little later, each greeted with a bottle of beer, just in time for photos, much to Jim's displeasure. Leaving everyone around two, Ka and myself then headed over to Uddingston for dinner with Dougie, Grace and Colin. After a quick game of guess who - involving sticking notes to each others foreheads and waiting for obvious clues - we sat down to dinner. After dinner the McGarva's went outside for a quick chat with the neighbours which ended in Grace getting Dougie's shoes covered in dog sh*t. Needless to say Dougie was not too chuffed and the first Chrimbo arguements ensued. Colin claimed it had been the neighbour's dog, Megan, as she was now old and finding it difficult to control herself, leaving her deposits in their front garden more often. Must have been one hell of a poo as Dougie was shouting about it being all over his laces. We were all laughing about it later, of course. Once that was concluded we then headed up to Bellshill for Supper at Ka's sisters. Angela, Morgan and Steven were waiting patiantly at the window when I taxi'd the first lot of McGarva's up to their drive. Steven cooked us a splendid buffet while Morgan entertained us with her new guitar, yelled at us for a few hours, ordered Colin and myself to build her new game, the classic Mouse Trap, and then eventually got grumpy with tiredness. The Mouse Trap was a lot more complicated to build than I remember what with all the tabs and elastic bands. Lynsey Ann owned it when we were young and I couldn't remember it being as difficult to set up as it was last night, and I was sober. Eventually got it built and ready to go just in time for Morgan to head for bed. Determined to get some use out of it I ended up playing the game with Grace. The loop-de-loop never worked. Something must have went wrong in the construction process. The ball bearing was not gathering enough speed to go right round the loop track. Grace ended up winning the game by a whole four peices of cheese. Damn that loop-de-loop. It wasn't as good as it used to be. The game's design had changed and was, as a result, flawed. Gone are the bathtub and rickety staircase. Now there are wonky shelving, a toy box and the loop-de-loop. They don't make 'em like they used to. We finished the night on the Wii, on the Mario Kart, laughing at Ka fail to navigate the mushrooms with the Wii's excellent cordless steering wheel and Grace's difficulty in performing a U-turn without burning her tyres against a fence. Ka and myself then headed off home, collapsing in a heap as we got in through the flat's front door.
This morning I left Ka snuggled up in bed whilst I forced myself out again to get into the office for ten, managing only ten past ten. Work will then be followed by the Boxing Night gathering tonight where I will have a wee beer, finally.