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!