A trip to Brussels

Well, Brussels. What can I say? What a great weekend. Plenty of booze and plenty of food in a great city. I've only now just about recovered. Dad, Kenny, Colin McG, and myself headed over on the plane meeting up with Jim and James on the Friday evening who tackled the Belgian traffic to be there on road. Colin Main then met up with us on the Saturday afternoon,jumping off the Eurostar, after much wandering around the main train station, which then made a motley crew of seven.

Greatly impressed by the city and it's people, I found the city folk all generally, very friendly towards us roaming Scots but that was probably something to do with the fact that most of the locals we did converse with were all after our money being bartenders, waiters and ladies of the night (only kidding with the last one!). The only grumpy folk we met were the rude female hotelier, who would have easily got a job at Fawlty Towers, and the tramp in the underground hurling abuse at the passers by (but all cities have one of those anyway don't they?). The Delerium cafe was a must for any visitor to Brussels with it's vast bar of supposed 2000 different beers. Perfect for a stag trip but not sure how many we tried of the list of 2000. We did see plenty of the town, hitting a few pubs in the European sector on the Friday night up beside the new Pariliament buildings. On our travels the following days we done plenty of walking through the famous medieval town square of Grand Place which houses the gothic town hall, old guild houses and market areas. Although we did not manage to see the statue of the peeing boy, Brussels' own kind of mascot named Manneken Pis, we did see the female version, the Jeanneke-Pis, a statue of a peeing girl. The only reason we found this was probably due to the fact she was sitting outside the Delerium Cafe surrounded by gawking or offended tourists.
So after another late night on the Sunday we all headed home on our respective routes with cloudy heads but entertaining memories of our time in the Belgian capital. A capital definately worth a future visit.

DIY and a Brussels spout

Mum is getting her new carpet delivered today for the new extension to their house. A whole new room, that not six months ago, was the smelly old garage, which housed everything but a car. Now walking from the same kitchen entrance you walk into a bright, airy, well painted room, with a skylight and cupboards, more than suitable of being a new living area. I say well painted because I have been helping out over the past two weekends with a bit of matt and a splash of gloss. Dad has done most of the work, of course, but has slightly overrun Mum's ridiculous 'deadline' of 6th June. He has done extremely well to turn it around in such a short time. Mum is tansforming it into a dining room so it should all look pretty stunning when finished.
While I was painting on Saturday, Ka was working at the Early Learing Unit's 10 year anniversary fair. Her nursery had a fun day to celebrate their birthday, putting on games, raffles and all the others shenanigans that go with such an event. Ka bought a fiver's worth of raffle tickets and brought home a candle that looks like a turnip(she disagrees but I say differently). Later, on the Saturday, Ka had been at her second hen doo which turned out to be a Take That tribute night in the nearby Holiday Inn followed by a trip to the local, newly opened, Downtown. A club in the local town centre which Chaz described a couple of weeks back as 'Deperate Houswives material'. Thankfully the only man Ka brought home was small, at around two foot tall, plastic and full of air. He had the words 'Ma Michael' scrawled over his six pack torso. Excluding the fact he had a bit of a Robbie Williams look about him he was pretty similar to me (I would say because of the six pack but I'm sure Ka would insist it more to do with the fact he was full of hot air).
Three more days of work this week, then it's a thursday off and the small matter of a stag trip to Brussels on Friday. Still have not done any homework on the place. Whenever I've booked to travel somewhere I tend to try and find out a bit about a place, but I've just not had the chance with Brussels. What I do know consists of five main points. The city has a large medieval town square, it has many pubs, there's a big silver monument with silver balls, Tin Tin comes from there and there's a bronze statue of a pissing boy in a fountain somewhere. It's also famous for it's waffles and the brussel sprout apparently originated there. Who would have thought? Christmas dinners all over the world would never have been the same if it had not been for the Belgian capital. I'd better do some googling and educate myself. Kenny, my brother and best man, assures me there'll be no need for any homework as there will be no museum visiting or art gallery viewing. We'll see.

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.

Calzean, caravans and sausages

We were sleeping in the tent again, over the weekend, as we stayed the night at Calzean castle, just outside Maybole on the South coast of Ayrshire. We went along and met up with Uncle Tom and Aunt Linda who were already set up in the Calzean camping and caravan park in their caravan. Sally and Jake, the two collies, were also there of course and were not slow in leading us through the forests to the castle, after we had successfully set up camp. Well, Sally did get a little slow on the way back, but she is approaching seventy.
It had been many years since visiting Calzean and my memories were more than a little hazy. We had a good walk round the grounds up to the magnificent house, turning as we reached the main building's front entrance and descending down in to the walled gardens. From there we headed out to the Swan Pond and then, after a short break on the opposite end, headed back, only making another very brief stop at a small sweet shop in the grounds so that Tom could buy some liquorice. As we approached our camp once more the rain started to drizzle down from the clouded sky above and we took shelter in the caravan where we demolished a bag of Red Sky crisps or posh crisps, as I called them. I then took a slurp of my tea and realised it was Earl Grey. Again, very posh. All this while our little tent sat shivering, patiently outside, waiting on it's occupants.
Caravaning is not proper camping anyway is it? A solid roof above your head, with cushions and sofas to lounge on? Drinking earl grey, dining at a proper dinner table? That ain't proper camping is it? You're supposed to get smelly and grubby camping, drinking cold tea from a flask and sitting precariously on a rubbish foldy stool which either buckles under your weight or sinks into the muddy puddles under your wellies. Why do we put ourselves through the misery of camping then? There must be something primal there. When the rain starts up caravans are a god send. Especially when the rain is no deterrent to a good barbeque.
Tom fired up the German barbeque in the caravan's awning - a large, metal, gas powered cooker that produced a mean steak and sausage. This was the second BBQ of the day as Tom had cooked up some rolls and sausage on our arrival at the campsite earlier. We then talked long into the evening to the sounds of U2's Rattle and Hum and Bowie's Live at the BBC 2003 concert over a good few bottles of Peroni and a few bottles of wine.
The third BBQ of the weekend then came when we arrived at Colin and Heather's place, in the Gorbals, on the Sunday evening after having got home from Ayrshire, showered and refreshed. Colin and Heather now stay in one of these heavily regenerated parts of the Gorbals were the flats look something like the exteriors of major scientific research laboratories with glass panels, large windows and elegant shapes. Upon Ka and myself finally finding the right door, Colin wasted no time in lighting the coals and before we knew it, we were eating more sausages again. I think we ate more sausages that weekend than we have done for the past two months. Afterwards we sat and done some catching up talking weddings, past school fashion statements and Morecambe and Wise. Colin, it turns out, being a bit of a fan and almost giving us a short rendition of their famous dance. Twice that night I mistook the bathroom for the boiler cupboard, the bathroom, which was of pretty good quality, apart from the Van Gogh rip off on the wall, being of excellent quality.

Clean cut chips

Just had my first fish supper for around two years... shockingly greasy but fairly enjoyable. A guilty pleasure I very rarely partake in. Will probably regret it in the morning. When I do naughty things like that I often wake up the next morning with a strange taste in my mouth and a feeling of absolute guilt. Not to mention the bad feelings in my gut of the calorie additions. A calorific hangover.
Ka was over in Hamilton trying on her wedding dress with her Dad and wheel chair confined Mother. After making my way through the hectic Hamilton traffic I picked them up and took Grace and Dougie home. Upon arrival we opted to join the in-laws for a quick chippy. They've never been the same since they stopped coming wrapped in newspaper (the chippys - not the in-laws). The chips with half a greasy ink news story printed over them somehow seemed to taste better, I suppose it must have depended on how tasty the news story itself was. If you were ridiculously lucky sometimes they'd even come with a page three girl. The chips are all too clean cut nowadays. Another casualty of the health conscious crazy world we now live in. Not that I'd go more often if the suppers still came in yesterdays latest classified section. In times of deadlines Davey Clyde, in the office, often shouts things inferring his latest work's preferred use. He'll be sitting in his seat mumbling away to himself as he plans his last classified page and suddenly bellow "Right, let's get rid of this chip wrapper!" Probably not the most complimentary remark to make about our treasured weekly newspaper titles and sadly no longer even accurate.

Blue lagoons and Bolognese day

A pretty relaxed weekend there except from various painful gymnastic manoeuvres before dinner last night.
After a quick meeting with the Wedding photographer on Saturday morning Ka was out and about again hitting the shops with Beth leaving me to my own devices. My device on this occasion being my iMac with which I was adding more photos to reidnet. Unfortunately I did not get everything finished as various meetings, dinners and movies interfered. Saturday evening we met up with my Mum and Dad as they delivered a bottle of champagne with a wedding gift before they flew off to sunny Turkey. Oludeniz to be precise.
Ka and myself went to Oludeniz for the day when we went to Turkey two years ago. A great little resort on the south coast with beautiful beaches, a fantastic blue lagoon and the whole resort bordered by giant hills and cliffs including the Babadag mountain, popular for cliff jumping opportunities. By that I mean, paragliders of course and not people that want to end it all. The blue lagoon was particularly impressive. A large pool of deep blue circled by the Turkish hills, the nature reserve and the weaving paths through the palm trees running through it. In the Lagoon you could swim a good distance out into the water and still see your feet kicking below you. Far more relaxing than ocean swimming. Especially if, like me, your one of those paranoid swimmers that still grows uneasy after swimming out into the middle of the ocean and realise there's nothing below your feet but the dark, unfathomable ocean life. Your former relaxed self disappearing as you look around urgently for shark fins and blobby jelly fish rising out of the ocean. Images of that severed leg in Jaws drifting down to the rocky sea bed flitting through your mind.
On Sunday we were treated to Dougie's Bolognese special after Morgan put us through some gymnastics in the living room whilst Angela tried on a bridesmaids' dress with Ka upstairs. I certainly would not go to any fitness class run by Morgan after that. Even after a trip to the gym in the morning I was knackered by her maneuvers. Ka's Dad then treated us all to one of his culinary specialities. Bolognese has always been a favourite of mine anyway although my Mum's recipe is better than Dougie's but maybe I'm just biased. Dougie's was great but Mum's is better. Perhaps something to do with her secret ingredient - a glass of red wine (not so secret anymore!). Anyway, I always look forward to a bit of Bolognese. I woke up on the Sunday morning like one of those puppets that advertise pasta sauce on daytime telly:
"It's bolognese day!" I grin as I awake on Sunday.
"It's bolognese day?!" Ka frowns as she opens her eyes.
In Uddingston Dougie shouts excitedly "It's bolognese day!" as he leaps from bed and pulls the bottom tomato from the cupboard of stacked tomatoes.
Grace, in her stookie, shakes her head with a smile as the tomatoes tumble down over Dougie from the cupboard, "Papa always get so excited on Bolognese day!"