Auldhouse folk

Off work this week and have just finished another spot of DIY home improvement. Tim Allen would be proud. Yep, you guessed it. More painting - but not of the canvas variety.
Apart from that I've been spending most of my time suffering from a cold. Olbused to the hilt and drinking hot drinks regularly while the skin of my red nose crumbles away. Very attractive. Yesterday I very much lazed about after the weekend which included a visit to Troon on Sunday, visiting Tom and Linda with Gran and a meal out in East Kilbride on Saturday night in Chows, a great little Chinese restaurant in the old village.
We decided to roll out the barrel and go down to the Village in a cab just so we could both partake in a little glass of wine with dinner. The taxi pulled up outside and as Ka and myself clambered into the car's backseat I realised I recognised the driver. It was Raymond, or Big Raymondo, as he was sometimes known, from the Auldhouse. He is not literally from Auldhouse, he was a regular in the Auldhouse Bar, in the pub I used to work in through my student days and a little beyond. Auldhouse is a very small village just north of EK and has a pub, a school and a small assortment of cottages and houses. So little houses and cottages in fact that the only people who came to the Auldhouse for a drink were all from down the road in EK. Anyway, both pleasantly surprised to see one another, we had a quick ten minute catch up as he drove us down to the Village. You know the kind. How are you doing? Where are you working now? You'll never believe who is dead? etc. Whenever I meet these kind of people with Ka and chat away, I sometimes forget to introduce her leaving her to guess who the hell they are. She quite often gets it right and before I can say anything on departing from the meeting she'd nod and say 'Auldhouse folk'. The majority of the folk up there were all regulars and mostly a good bunch and a good laugh, making the shifts pass a little easier after days full of uni. Wallace Cameron the mandolin player with his cigars and Bunnahabhain, On eyed Alan, Wee Raymond the pipe smoker, Statler and Waldorf (can't remember their real names), Scott and his crazy wife, Nigel the mustachioed teacher from across the road and loads more. A lot of characters which I could sit and writie about till the Auldhouse cows came home.
After yet another promise to one day visit Auldhouse again and show Ka the wonders of the old pub we jumped out the taxi and into the sunny evening in the Village. I've always known it as the Village but these days there are more and more people calling it the Old Village as if there is a new one somewhere else in EK. It is the oldest part of East Kilbride, where it all started around eighty years ago. From then the Village grew and mutated, spreading out over the surrounding lands and in 1947 become one of the official 'new towns' of Scotland with the growth in Industrial development and the town's divisions into seperate residential areas (Westwood, Calderwood, etc). One of the oldest buildings in the whole town is one of my Dad's haunts. The Montgomerie Arms. We popped into it after the chinese for a wee drink on our way up the road for the bus and were pleasantly surprised by the friendly, lively atmosphere. There are three main sections in the 'Monte', the main downstairs bar, the side lounge bar and the upstairs cocktail bar. My Dad occasionally drops by on a Saturday evening, drinking in the downstairs lounge area with his mates and I made sure I had a quick scout about just incase he was around. Recognising a few of his mates I nodded in greeting but moved on upstairs. The upstairs is called a cocktail bar but I'm not sure why. The only difference I can see between the upstairs and downstairs is that it has a carpet and a few more cushioned benches. With no cushioned benches left we sat at the bar and as I stood, looking around I spotted more than a few familiar faces from who knows where. Folk I knew to see but could not remember from where. Probably folk from the Auldhouse days.