Another year, another quiz and another chilli

"Why did Adele have a minor strop at this year's Brit awards ceremony?".
This was a question that caused a bit of a ruckus in the Reid household on New Years Night.
The two families were round for a buffet dinner on New Years Day. Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann arrived with a big tray of lasagne, a big box of iceland goodies and a big box of budweiser. The McGarva's then arrived in the Hood mobile. Jillian and her Mum arrived with Colin, Grace and Dougie in tow, ferrying a tray full of macaroni, a large steak pie, a large, freshly baked chocolate orange cheescake, a couple of trays of ice cream and more than a few plates of Jean's famous chocolate snowballs. Jillian's mum's white chocolate balls are now a must for any family buffet. Made with white chocolate, coconut and probably way too much sugar, Jillian’s mum’s balls are the ultimate sweet treat.
With the arrival of Steven, Angela, Morgan and Joshua a little later, the living room was now full and Ka and myself got to work warming up, cooking, or boiling in the kitchen on our rickety old cooker.
Earlier that morning, as soon as I'd got up, I had got to work on another of my chilli con carnes. Okay, it's not the hardest of meals to cook but it was my contribution to the night's buffet meal along with a big pot of rice and some nicely warmed pita breads. Whilst Ka got the three large oven dishes warmed up, the macaroni, the steak pie and the lasagne, which all took turns in our wee oven, we got to work on the pasta dish and boiled up the rice to accompany my chilli ("It's just a chilli" Dougie shrugged, nonchalantly, on more than one occasion throughout the night). Before long there was another table of food laid out in our living room and everyone was helping themselves whilst Olly Murs and Kasabian played as background music and Ka sat back in one of the corners of the room to feed baby Sophie who seemed a little disconcerted by the chatter and surrounding family members. By the time early evening came round, everyone had eaten and Sophie had been laid down in her moses basket upstairs after getting a little tired of being handed around the room, from relative to relative.
After Morgan took the names from my holiday hat, 5 teams of two were made and another Reid family quiz kicked off with a spectacular prize of a large slab of Whole Nut chocolate to play for. The quiz consisted of, what I thought, were a good mix of questions from events, people, and places from throughout the year. Plenty of news, sport, tv and music. Something to keep everyone happy. Or so you’d think.
There was one exception. One question was put in specifically for Morgan and Joshua. Unfortunately the kids chose to remain silent and weren't much help to the quiz teams. I had wanted to know the names of Thomas the Tank Engine's two blue friends. Mum and Dad, who had been paired up as a quiz team, immediately objected claiming themselves to be singled out, claiming there was no way they would know such details. These allegations seemed quite unfair considering when Kenny was a wee kid all he talked about was, yes, you guessed it, Thomas the Tank Engine. He had the Thomas the Tank Engine toys, lunchbox and everything! Mum even made him a Thomas cake for one of his birthdays. It's not my fault she didn't pay as much attention to her youngest son's interests.
The Brits question was the one that really got some blood vessels bubbling though as I had wanted the answer including Blur cutting Adele's acceptance speech short in order to play their Outstanding Contribution set at the end of the programme. Apparently this was wrong. It was James Corden who was actually to blame so although I was wanting a mention of Blur there was a minor mutiny and some of the teams started taking it upon themselves to rebel and award themselves points as long as they mentioned James Corden even though they were told clearly what the requirements of the answer had to be and they quite obviously did not have them. Colin, who had been paired with Lynsey Ann, was my only defence in the matter, but this was probably down to the fact he was the only one that answered the question to my high standard. As a result some papers were marked wrongly and even though this one troublesome question was a mere point, it caused the game's biggest ruckus. Grace and Dougie, another husband and wife pairing, had a minor ruckus among themselves about the name of Lady Diana's son, after the teams were asked who was photographed naked during August, in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for my Mum and Dad it hadn’t been Keith Chegwin but Prince Harry baring the crown jewels during a game of strip billiards in his Las Vegas’ VIP hotel suite. Another question asked what Felix Baumgartner broke when he jumped from 25 miles above the Earth. The answer, of course, was the sound barrier, at 834mph. Grace suggested that it was his ankle.
Jillian and Steven were the eventual victors and took the slab of Whole Nut chocolate as their prize which Steven kindly donated to his team mate.
Once everyone had left and Ka and myself were making our way to bed after feeding little Sophie at around quarter to midnight I received a text message from Colin.
“Michael jillian and steven cheated they looked at angelas sheet to get Gordon and shouldn’t have got point for adele so would’ve drawn wi me and lynsey ann”.
That, one sentence text message said it all. It’s a shame that people feel the need to shout, complain and, worst of all, cheat at a small, largely unimportant, family christmas quiz but it’s perhaps more of a shame that Colin was still going over it all in his head three hours after the quiz had been brought to it’s tiring conclusion.
Still, it only happens once a year, we should be grateful of that, like an MOT, a PDR or the Jackie Bird Hogmanay programme.
Thankfully Ka and myself missed the majority of the Hogmanay television as we were both in bed by quarter to eleven this year. Sophie Reid is successfully knackering us out and besides, I had to be up early the next morning to make that chilli.

Popcorn, treasure hunts and the furry pencil case

“Papa’s juice, papa’s juice!”
“No Joshua, this is my house, so this is Michael’s juice”
“Papa’s juice!”
My nephew, Joshua, and myself had this argument a few times over the weekend. Robinsons fruit juice apparently has a pseudonym of ‘Papa’s juice’, a name that is not known, at least not yet, in the Reid household. Joshua’s only allowed a certain amount of Robinsons juice as he follows a strict diet of as little sugary drinks as possible even though he had a more than healthy helping of the massive bag of popcorn I purchased for his sister, Morgan and myself at the cinema a few hours before.
Ka and myself picked the two terrors up at around 2 on Saturday afternoon for a trip to the cinema to see Madagascar 3 and Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe. We were then heading back to ours to house the niece and nephew for the night whilst Angela and Steven went out to a friend’s 40th birthday party.
As it was mid Saturday afternoon by the time we got there, the cinema was busy and crowded with families buying tickets for the latest Dreamworks animation. Ka and myself both had our cineworld unlimited cards at the ready but it somehow still managed to cost us £12? £12 for two kids to see a cartoon? Unbelievable.
It must be a flamin’ fortune to go to the cinema as a family these days.
We proceeded upstairs via the great glass elevator which moves up the corner of the building, looking out over the northern end of the city centre. Port Dundas Street stretching out ahead, leading up through the bustling crowds of buses, cars and shoppers towards the quieter streets beyond and the joys of the M8. On reaching the fourth floor, the four of us piled out into the foyer where we joined the queue for some sweet popcorn. The last time Ka and myself took Morgan to the flicks I’d tempted Morgan with a bag of Butterkist from the kitchen cupboard which she quickly rejected as her Dad apparently bought her the special cinema popcorn every time she went. So, with this in mind, I joined the queue and upon reaching the counter, asked for a bag of popcorn from the baseball capped foyer attendant.
Regular or large, I was asked. First I wondered what happened to the small. Perhaps management had rejected it as they could slap as big a price on it. I asked the becapped girl what the difference in size was.
“Well” the girl shrugged, lifting the two paperbags, holding up the small, purple paper bag and the large, A4 sized, yellow bag. “The regular is £4.45 and the large is £4.95, it’s only a difference of 50p”. I’m glad she pointed that last snippet out as I would have been there all day working that one out. Upon hearing the prices being verbalized before me, I asked her to repeat herself suspecting I had misheard.
I was wrong I hadn’t misheard her reply. £4.95 for a bag of cinema popcorn. I almost asked her to repeat herself again but then decided against it, seeing Ka, Joshua and Morgan waiting patiently for me at the side of the queue. If it’s a fiver for a bag of popcorn how much is it for one of those ludicrous looking hotdogs or those plates of Doritos and guacamole?
Why do people eat this stuff in cinemas anyway?
Doritos, okay, that’s fine, I suppose. But why guacamole? Could there be a blander condiment on the planet? And why those stinking hot dogs with the completely ridiculous amount of tomato sauce zig zagged over them? I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting through the duration of a movie having one of those giant sausages squirming about in your stomach in a pool of red sauce.
You see some people walking up the cinema aisle to their seats, hands and arms laden with hotdogs, plates of doritos, bags of popcorns and giant cokes. How can they sit and each that much stuff, never mind pay for it?
Anyway, Madagascar 3 was great. Well, for kids anyway… or if you like listening to Chris Rock for an hour and a half…

Unfortunately I don’t, but the film did have some other things going for it. Full of fantastic colour and craziness the story was like a speeding circus train, racing through it’s scenes and landscapes. Much to the kids amusement. Especially Joshua, whose favourite toys and tv shows just happen to be “choo-choos!”.
After the cinema we headed off home, to East Kilbride making a quick stop at the Fort Morrisons for pizza, another of Joshua’s favourites. We hunted the store for the freshly made variety, circling the entirety of the store before ending back up in the fruit and veg aisle, not two meters from where we started out.
Getting home we unpacked the boot, lifting the various backpacks, bags, guitars, teddy beds, Thomas the tanks and teddy bears into the house, reminding the kids of the last time they had visited when the place was a mess of chairs and relations, not to mention the giant bouncy castle in the back garden. Needless to say there wasn’t a bouncy castle this time around, although there was a treasure hunt which I put together in my last half hour of work on the Friday evening.
Before the treasure hunt, and as time was marching relentlessly on, we decided to ready Joshua’s bed and build the Dream N’Play travel cot borrowed from the McGarva household. Ka and myself worked at it for around half an hour, whilst Joshua continuously circled us, telling us how Papa could do it. After some struggle we ended up phoning Dougie, who informed us it was Steven who built it in their house. Not wanting to disturb Steven on his first night off for a long time we worked at it a little longer before I ended up on google and read of how a pregnant woman with a baby in one arm, could erect the folding cot with a heavy flick of the one free wrist. Needless to say we then found ourselves on the phone to Steven and just as he was about to leave the house in Bothwell to travel over and give us a hand, the cot seemed to suddenly coalesce, almost as if the thing had a mind of it’s own and had been having us on the whole time just like that moment when the Delorean’s engine roared to life when Marty headbutted the steering wheel. Almost collapsing back on to the spare room’s floor, like Doc at the end of Back to the Futrue 2, we all celebrated, high fives all round and we quickly called Steven back to tell him to continue to ready himself for the party.
So, the treasure hunt could begin. This hunt basically consisted of eight rhyming clues and a treasure map with which I led the kids around the house, on a hopefully exciting, but needlessly tiring, journey to find two bags of gold coins Ka had bought the previous week. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the most bountiful of treasures, but it did work in keeping them entertained, whilst the pizzas were baking in the oven.
After having run up and down the stairs a few times, visiting various rooms, getting our feet muddy in the garden, getting the bedroom carpet dirty from the garden, getting Ka to shout at us about it, and almost smashing the living room clock, the kids eventually ended up at the base of our dying yukka plant, digging down into it’s soil with their hands and pulling out a bag of gold coins each. A bag of gold coins and more than a few dollops of dry, crumbly soil which successfully exploded over the surrounding living room carpet. Fortunately Ka was in the kitchen and missed this. I quickly instructed the kids to run through to the kitchen and demand their coins to be cleaned, keeping her occupied, whilst I dived into the kitchen cupboard for our tall, trusty white plastic friend, the J. Edgar.
Following the treasure hunt we all sat down to watch the last ten minutes of Strictly Come Dancing and eat our pizza, the quietest the kids had been all day, and that included the cinema. Joshua was then put to his bed, the now fully functioning, or at least fully standing, Dream N’Play travel cot and Morgan set up the Snakes and Ladders interrupted by Ka giving the supposedly sleeping Joshua a quick check upstairs. He was awake and needing changed.
Oh my god.
I had never known such a smell existed. I called the army and warned them of a suspected toxic blast in the Calderwood area after I quickly disposed of the heavy white, padded bag given over to me. I had to put it straight into the wheelie bin outside. Regretting my actions almost instantly I then feared for my wheelie bin’s life. I’d probably go out the next morning to find a sizzling mound of melted green plastic that used to be our two wheeled, refuge collecting, green friend.
And there it would be sitting. Joshua’s nappy perched on top, still steaming.
On the past Wednesday mornings since moving in, when we’ve put the bin out for collection, it’s always been full to bursting and as a result the birds have been circling it, pecking at the bags exposed by the half open lid. Gawd helped any bird that dared to have a peck at that blighter.
What about the bin men themselves? They’d have to put that in their lorry? Do they get paid danger money?
If it gets out I could wake up one morning with the whole street in quarantine! Dustin Hoffman talking to me from behind the mask of a protective suit.

Anyway, whilst the nappy lay in the wheelie outside, the smell safely contained upstairs, unfortunately in the room where I was to spend the night in the futon alongside the travel cot, our Saturday night continued.
Pictionary with the furry pencil case followed the snakes and ladders.
Not two days before, whilst rummaging through some more boxes in my Mum and Dad’s loft, I found my trusty furry pencil case. Mum recognized it immediately after I’d brought it down. Mum had designed and created this furry pencil case when I was around seven or eight, for all my many coloured pencils, pens and other various drawing implements. Upon inspecting it’s innards I discovered it still held functioning felt pens so I brought it home for the weekend and for my niece to use for her drawings.
Unfortunately Morgan wasn’t too impressed and insisted on using her own black pen to draw her stories which we were obviously supposed to know. Ka used her illustrative skills to depict Blackpool as a steep pyramid built by the blind Egyptians with Christmas lights and I attempted the old woman that lived in the shoe.
That old woman had so many children she didn’t know what to do. We were looking after two for the night and we didn’t know what to do. We were knackered. Cinemas, treasure hunts, pizzas and snakes and ladders all seemed to work though. The old woman in the shoe obviously wasn’t that creative, she just whipped them all and put them to bed. If the old woman were around today she more than likely find herself getting reported to the RSPCC.
Still, it was all good practice.

Monopoly and waffles

The clouds filled the sky on Saturday morning whilst only a slight spit of rain fell through the air as Ka, Grace and myself readied ourselves to take part in another 5k Big Fun Run in Bellahouston Park. The three of us had once more donned the Sands T-shirts, complete with pinned running numbers and our pictures of Lucy. Dougie stood at the side of the track, voted bag and camera carrier as he still nursed a sore ankle from a previous misadventure in the gym. Angela was on her way into town with Morgan and Joshua but had already called to say she had once more successfully got herself lost and had had to stop at Ibrox to ask for directions. Not the best place to ask directions, I thought, considering how long it’s been since they obviously lost their way.
Ka’s sister hadn't done much better than me though. After successfully taking the turn off for Govan from the M8, instead of taking an immediate left after the first right turning at the lights, which should have taken me down Paisley Road West, I decided to carry on, past Ibrox and down Edmiston Drive. It wasn’t until we reached Southern General Hospital that I realised I was way off course and performed a swift U-turn.
After picking up our numbers and carrying out a brief warm up on the track, we were off once more, running the same route that we had done last September, except this time with a little less rain.

At around the 29 minute mark I crossed the finishing line, Dougie missing me with the camera as Angela, Morgan and Joshua had just arrived from their travels. 29 minutes was Dougie’s approximation anyway although the time it took to go around the tree lined 5k route seemed a little longer, and a little tougher, this time around which doesn’t really bode well for the 10k to be completed this September.
Ka crossed the finishing line at approximately 45 minutes followed eventually by Grace, who was walking the lap with two other girls raising money for Yorkhill Hospital. After a visit to the swing park where Joshua squatted on the spring mounted wooden animal and dropped lolly pops and a quick coffee in the Leisure Centre’s café, we headed home, Morgan hitching a ride with Ka and myself back to Kenilworth.
The pursuit of money. A game of power, greed, financial domination, property ownership, riches, taxes and possible bankruptcy. Again, nothing to do with Rangers F.C. but a minor game of Monopoly, one of Morgan’s favourites. However, if my niece was a football team I certainly know which one she’d be. She tries everything within her power in order to not have to pay her taxes, bills and other various fines imposed upon her by the board, the Chance and the Community Chest cards. I think she tried everything but the “Look Madonna!” tactic in order to avoid paying her dues. Once she realised she was playing with someone that checked the rulebook every five minutes though she got a little fed up and began to lose interest.
The two of us were crouched over the board on the open space of carpet in the living room, rolling the dice and diligently moving our pieces around the square of London locations.
As the afternoon wore on Morgan and I continued to lightheartedly argue and complain, swiping our credit cards through the banker’s calculator as Ka objected about the volume of our game busy, getting herself ready for our visit to Tommy and Tricia’s for a BBQ that night.
At first Ka shouted at us from the kitchen, her showered hair wrapped up in a towel, whilst she grilled us waffles for lunch. The waffles caused a rather confused look over Morgan’s face at first as Ka asked her if she’d like wAffles. Waffles with the double A.
With that little frown Morgan had entered into a debate that has been raging in the Reid household for some time.
“You mean waffles Auntie Ka?” she puzzled, pronounced with the ‘of’, a pronunciation I have been trying to implement into our day to day lives for years. Silently, and smugly, I nodded at Morgan and looked up at Ka’s slightly exasperated face as she struggled not to acknowledge my superior, silent, linguistic, victory.
That was before my victorious conclusion to the game as we counted up our final amounts, whilst Ka reminded me, once again, that Morgan was eight, a fact, I told Ka, that I was more than aware of.
Counting our final sums didn’t take too long as they don’t even have cash in Monopoly any more?!
In the edition we have you use credit cards and swipe them through either the plus or minus side of the calculator. I suspect I missed Morgan using the plus side of the calculator when she was paying her taxes a few times as I only narrowly won by a couple of hundred bucks when it came to the final count up just before Angela, Steven and Joshua arrived.
Our own, real life, adventures in buying property are moving a little slower than my decisions about the fate of Brick Lane.
Verbally, our offer for the house in Calderwood has been accepted. Legally, there is nothing confirmed as yet, only an official letter affirming our offer sent from our solicitor to theirs. So it looks like we’re playing the waiting game.
Claire is already looking out for tenants for us. She gave us a phone tonight to tell us that someone was on facebook that may be looking for a one bedroom flat to let. So I immediately got on the case, looking the complete stranger up and sending him a message.
We have been given a date for getting the keys to the house so we may well be in a new house by mid August. That’s one hell of a chance card.

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.

A Dings birthday

We had another family gathering at the McGarva household to celebrate Ka’s big sister’s birthday. Angela celebrated another birthday an evening early last Friday night with Grace, Dougie, Jillian, Colin, Kelly Ann and myself along with Steven, Morgan and Joshua.
Even though it’s not her birthday Ka was given a present too. Colin gifted Ka with a book called ‘Hollow Earth’ written, and signed by, none other than John Barrowman (and his sister). Colin and Jillian had made the trip to Waterstones in Glasgow one Monday, not too long ago, to meet the man himself. Photographic evidence on facebook shows Jillian leaning over the desk before the television and theatre star, grinning up at Colin’s shaky camera.
“Grannie, help me hide the cake!” Morgan shouted as she ran through the front door before her Mum had even got out on their car.
The Leckie’s had arrived and Joshua ran straight into the centre of the living room and spun around on the spot excitedly and almost immediately started throwing Iggle Piggle repeatedly up into the air. As everyone shouted and chatted with one another Dougie brought out the Ding’s take away menu.
Ding’s is a small Chinese takeaway on Uddingston’s Main Street, which is now traditionally called upon on a McGarva birthday. The shop itself houses a large open kitchen in the centre of the room in which various cooks shuffle their woks, toss their onions and boil their their noodles over the gas hobs, the large extractor fans hanging from the ceiling humming with exertion. Ding’s serves up some great takeaway grub including a rather brilliant szechuan. This time round I went for the Hong Kong style Sweet and Sour Chicken, another favourite. A favourite introduced to me by Chaz, who always used to order it on Sauchiehall Street at the end of a night out.
As the menu was passed from person to person Joshua jumped, spun and flung himself around the room, occasionally tickling peoples’ feet, looking up at you expectantly with a big toothy smile on his face whilst. He did look at little uncomfortable at one point though as he walked over to the coffee table with his plastic cup of water and stopped. A look of mild worry came over his face as he realised all the coasters were taken by all of our various cups of tea, coffee and water. He’s obviously been well housetrained. Morgan, who was feeling, and looking, a little peaky, chilled out taking a break from the games for a change settling instead for her colouring book.
After dinner the traditional cake and sing-a-long was carried out and a few photos were taken, Angela giving Morgan and Joshua big, birthday hugs. Recovering from her slightly peaky self briefly for a piece of the birthday chocolate cake, Morgan then went back to her colouring book at the dining table and Joshua went back to his toy cars, which he’d won in the all too brief game of pass the parcel.
Perhaps even the best game of pass the parcel as I managed to win a parcel without even passing!
I was sitting in the other room, at the dining table, suffering a slight headache from the strange whistling, squealing noise the living room tv had been making (a noise that caused a minor debate earlier in the night), chatting to Steven about Angela’s still secret Birthday present (an iPad!!!) as Morgan feverishly worked at her colouring book and Joshua delivered my freshly unwrapped present.
A DVD. ‘Hitch’ starring Will Smith. A little sceptical at first I soon realised Eva Mendes is in it so I accepted my prize more than gratefully before being admonished by Dougie who had been listening from the kitchen behind me.
After Steven took the two kids home to bed the McGarva siblings whiled away the remaining hours with glasses of wine, reminiscing about old times. After talking of the various drunken exploits of youth the conversation went on to Colin and Ka’s employment in Poundstretchers through their early working lives. They talked of the old Pounstretchers boss who found herself being attacked by a shutter one night, the life size dolls, Ka chasing the shoplifters, the old man that bought the condoms, and Colin entertaining the passing Hamilton shoppers in the street with his microphone and speakers.
Grace and myself listened intently as Dougie quietly tried to watch Lee Westwood play golf on the whistling television from the depths of his armchair and didn’t show much concern when Grace confessed her love for Patrick Swayze. Unfortunately she doesn’t have much of a chance now. Not a chance in hell.
Heaven, now that may be a different matter. Grace nodded excitedly when it was suggested the two of them could hook up in heaven.
“You better make sure you go first Dougie” I told Ka’s Dad. “She’s having ideas over there!”
Before long it was time to go home again and Ka and myself drove Angela up the road to her bed, well, her doorstep anyway.
Angela got out the car and sauntered up the garden path to the front door, swinging her birthday bottle of Halcyon wine (one of our favourites) at her side and pressed the doorbell. Ka and myself politely waited in the car for the front door opening, just in case there was somebody waiting in the bushes to jump out on her. After a few minutes of waiting politely Steven eventually opened the door and with a quick wave we were off home.

Getting moving again

Ka and myself are in York today, checking out the local architecture, walking the city walls, experiencing the ghost tours, taking a stroll along the Real Ale walk and checking out the view over the River Ouse.
Or at least we should be…
Thanks to the current batch of storms, spinning trampolines and transport disruption we spent the majority of our morning sitting, shivering, on the cold hard metal benches of Central Station, watching the large clock hanging from the rafters, the pigeons circulate overhead and the various Central Station Rail attendants milling about, having a good old laugh at all the waiting commuters sitting around.
After watching, supposedly, funny videos on youtube of Scottish blokes filming trampolines spinning down the street in the wind and storms before Christmas, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to wake up on one of those days finding yourself having to go somewhere, even if it a wee two night trip away to York.
On our first visit to the station, at around half past nine, there was a reasonably sized crowd of expectant passengers moving around the Station’s innards, going from shop to shop, buying coffees, taking seats on the metallic benches to await further news and queuing in the various ticket offices to try and find out more information. A looping recorded message was continually playing over the tannoy, as Ka and myself took our seats to wait.
A few hours, we thought, then everything will have calmed down and will return to normality. Like the festive season, all the fuss will be over before we know it and things will all get moving again.
The recorded voice repeated something along the lines of “all rail journeys are now suspended until further notice”, as pairs of reporters circled around arriving and leaving commuters, one reporter with a large mike and the other with a giant television camera perched on his shoulder (I’d have thought those would have shrunk a little by this day and age?).
My stomach was grumbling before I was about the trains.
We left, had a large breakfast round at The Social on Royal Exchange Square and relaxed a little before heading back to the station to catch our, now hopefully operating, train.
As it happened, the only thing operating was the 30p machine to get into the loos.
Dad had drove us in after we had stood at the bus stop for around twenty minutes in the strong winds. He had called before we had left, offering his driving services, but we had refused, underestimating the craziness of the weather that was to meet us outside, as we forced our way through the winds towards the main road. I pulled Ka’s two day supplies and my two shirts and boxer shorts in our silver case behind me.
My suspicions should have been aroused, before leaving, by the paddling pool lying vertically outside our kitchen window.
As we left the flat, it was like entering some kind of war zone. A greener Libya. Wheelie bins lay over the entirety of the street, potato peelings and lidl carrier bags ferociously circling the surrounding roads like angry animals. Things, objects, stuff that certainly wasn’t leaves, flying past your face as you walked.
As we battled through the wind we passed a large, half obliterated, giant trampoline, lying over the pavement, poles spread and shaking, netting twisted and ripped, having obviously blown from a garden somewhere in the vicinity. I briefly considered filming it but decided it had probably carried out it’s best ‘You’ve Been Framed’ moment already.
We then inadvertently stepped on to a large, jagged half sheet of glass, laid across the pavement. Moments later we came across various other debris such as blocks of wood and more shards of glass. It wasn’t until we made our way further along the street that we noticed that one of the blocks of flats had lost half of it’s close entrance porch. It looked as if it had been half demolished. One side of the close box and it’s door remained standing along with it’s security entry code box, it’s wires flapping and flailing wilding in the wind.
One of Calderwood’s biggest trees was lying sprawled over a pavement, blocking our way to the main road, it’s ripped edges still spawning shreds of splinter like a giant fresh wound.
After seeing the devastation and realising there wasn’t going to be a Number 20 along any time soon, we called Dad. He had offered, I shrugged.
Following a quiet Hogmanay with some Morgan Spice and Jools Holland, we spent New Years Day at the Leckie household for dinner, where Mum had volunteered herself as driver. Angela and Steven worked hard in the kitchen feeding the McGarvas and Reids a large dinner followed by various games and quizzes, including Pictionary Catchphrase and a 30 question 2011 quiz, cobbled together by yours truly.
Ka, Morgan and myself won the Catchphrase with two winning sketches of ‘Wearing your heart on your sleeve’ and ‘Cloak and dagger’, these whole two points fending off any competition there might have been from the other assembled teams.
The 3 Wise Men were the triumphant team in the 2011 quiz. What you may have thought to be an ironic turn of phrase for Dad, Colin and Steven’s team, turned out to be more than fair play as they beat the Christmas Belle’s, Betty, Jillian and Lynsey Ann’s team, by a whole one point. This one point may or may not have been down to the fact that the girls didn’t know that Paddington bear preferred marmalade sandwiches to Marmalade itself. An unfortunate mistake, and one that cost them dearly, causing a little dispute, a bit of an argument and a lot of noise, and any noise made in Angela and Steven’s high ceilinged living room can’t be good for the neighbours. Voices just gather in those giant, high walled rooms, accumulating at the ceiling and rebounding off the walls just like a large rubber bouncy ball of noise.
The noise was made worse by Dougie’s complaining about the handing out of bonus points for Kevin McAllister’s full name and no such point for Silvio Berlusconi’s, which he hadn’t even got right anyway.
All fun and games.
As was today, rearranging our trip to York in the Central station ticket office.
It’ll have to be a mere one night stay now, and that’s if we get there at all. We should jump on to one of those spinning trampolines! They might get us there quicker.

The finest tea available to humanity

The rain continued to fall outside, soaking the surrounding Bothwell, whilst Ka and myself took our seats in the Silverwells restaurant for our Afternoon tea. We had planned to get a bus to our posh afternoon appointment at the swanky Bothwell restaurant but, thankfully, my Dad had come to the rescue over the phone and offered us a lift, earlier in the morning. After I'd come off the phone to him I looked out the window to see the rain sweeping through our street in sheets making travelling by bus an extremely unpleasant and unlikely prospect.
I’d never had Afternoon Tea before. Angela had bought Ka and myself it, as a gift for our Wedding Anniversary, back in July. I’d always thought Afternoon tea was for either little old ladies or snobby rich and privileged housewives. Miss Marple used to attend Afternoon tea quite a lot from what I remember. It also reminds me of that great scene in ‘Withnail and I’ where Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann stote into a small English countryside tea shop, in the middle of the afternoon, and demand “the finest wines available to humanity” from Mrs Blennerhassett, the frightened little lady who was dishing out the tea and scones to the surrounding, glaring, old ladies.
Thankfully there were no old ladies in Silverwells on Saturday afternoon. We stepped into the large elegant restaurant to find it empty, each table immaculately set for the coming Saturday night.
The Spanish Maitre D’ welcomed us and sat us down at a small table for two near the front of the dining room, where the old building’s large bay window looked out into the restaurant’s car park and surrounding Bothwell streets, still suffering under the gloom of the grey clouds rumbling overhead.
We started with a glass of prosecco, delivered to us by the small Spaniard (at least I think he was Spanish, Ka and myself had a slight debate about that over our wine) who immediately started up conversation by asking where we were from and what the occasion was. We told him where and the Maitre D’ revealed himself to be a native of East Kilbride, himself, at least for the past forty years anyway. Specifically Tasman Drive, just off Rockhampton, in the Westwood. At least I think that’s what he said, his Spanish accent (or French) was still quite thick, even after 40 years. I then told him we were celebrating our first wedding anniversary. Ka didn’t seem to bat an eyelid until halfway through the Maitre D’s following conversation, at which point she must have realised what I’d said. Once the waiter had beetled off to talk to the kitchen, (I’m not sure if it was a specific appliance), Ka was not slow in pointing my mistake out to which I frowned and slowly nodded with realisation. I almost used the old, ‘how times flies when your having fun’, phrase, but stopped myself.
Not that I haven’t enjoyed married life so far, just that it hasn’t all exactly been a barrel of laughs, a feeling which, I’m sure, most husbands would admit to at the best of times and that’s without the tragedy of a losing a child.
Shortly after, our tea and coffee was delivered with a silver, two-tier, stand full of sandwiches and cakes. Sandwiches of tuna, ham salad, cheese and pickle. Scones with jam and clotted cream. Flap jacks. Meringues. Caramel shortcake. All were mounted on the cake stand before us, making us feel overweight, just by looking at them. There was even good old Scottish Dumpling. The teas and coffees also arrived with large round piece of shortbread biscuit, sitting tilted on the edge of their porcelain saucers. There was no way we were going to get through this lot.
Soon after making our way through the sandwiches the Maitre D’ was back and talked of his work in EK’s Bruce Hotel, his experience as a sales rep in a whiskey company, his wife whom he’d immigrated for, his family, his friends and the fact he knew Mr. Kennedy, the Spanish and R.E. teacher from St. Brides High, who was now living it up in a Spanish villa, just outside Alicante.
In fact, the Head waiter told probably us a good portion of his life story.
He would talk for a short time and then say he was leaving us to our tea, before coming back another ten minutes later and starting up another conversation.
At one point he asked us if we had kids. To which we hesitantly and uncertainly shook our heads but then told him about Lucy. You’d think this would shut most folk up, but no. After a short apology he was off again, talking about his son and his family and how they were off to Spain.
He was a lovely man though, even though he made our teas and coffees go cold on more than one occasion. He may have realised this though as he organised more than one tea and coffee refill for us, each coming with yet another large shortbread biscuit, to join the previous other two, moved to the cake stand.
Halfway through the afternoon, after I’d finished my share of the sandwiches and cakes, the Maitre D’ beckoned us away from our table, just as I was biting into Ka’s flapjack, to give us a guided tour of the large old Victorian house which Silverwells now occupies. The large, colourful stained glass window, standing halfway up the large staircase in the hallway, shone in what light it could muster from the skies overhead creating a calm, ambient atmosphere in the welcoming hallway, now decorated by lines of small sparkling Christmas lights. The Maitre D’ led us up the stairs and around the large function rooms upstairs, showing us the large, private dining room and the three remaining rooms which, when connected by way of the large opening double doors in adjoining walls, made up Silverwells’ largest function suite and bar, for parties of up to 80 people.
All very interesting, I thought, but my tea was getting cold.
The Maitre D’ done a good job in selling the place anyway, and my interest in the function rooms was apparently so believable that it led Ka to become a little uncomfortable, half expecting me to bring out my debit card and book one of the function suites, there and then for something, anything. Sign the dotted line for some strange, mystical party night in the future. Any event would do.
Upon returning to our table we ordered a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio just as a few more customers started arriving for lunch and afternoon tea and we soon found ourselves thankfully being neglected by the over eager Head Waiter.
As the two of us sat chatting over a fine glass of wine, and the rain continued to pour down outside, it seemed like a long time since Ka and myself had enjoyed such a lazy, calorie filled, afternoon.
A nice way to celebrate our first Wedding anniversary. Seventeen months late.

Fireworks, flowers and frisbees

It was half past five on a dark, breezy, autumn Saturday evening. The branches of the nearby trees on the side of the hill, shuffled and shook in the bitter, cold wind as leaves spun through the air around them. Ka and myself found ourselves running around a graveyard, dispensing flowers out between three different graves in our shorts and T-shirts like a pair of lunatic flower children spreading peace and love in a Hammer Horror setting.
We had just come out from the gym and after a quick visit up to see Mum and Dad in Chapelton, and a brief stop off at the local Morrisons, we were visiting the grave of our daughter, my Gran and Granpa and Maureen, my Aunt who had been laid to rest just over a week ago.
A year ago I would have never thought that I would be spending my Saturday evenings in such a way.
For the past ten months we have been buying bouquets and sharing them between Lucy and my Gran and Granpa. Now that my Aunt Maureen rests in the next lane along we’re going to have to start buying more flowers.
With the exception of our running around a graveyard in bitter cold winds and another trip to the cinema on Sunday to see Justin Timerlake’s latest cinematic effort, ‘In Time’, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. Ka and myself spent Saturday lying on the couch, watching The Sopranos season one, (we’ve borrowed the series 1-6 boxset off Kenny while he’s off in Oz). A movie night with a few beers, Morgan’s spiced and eating ice cream as fireworks exploded around us. As bangs, cracks and whirrs of various sizes and loudness erupted directly outside our windows for the majority of the night, it was almost as if the good people of Calderwood were aiming their fireworks directly at us. It’s a pity we can’t go out on to our roof as it would have been a fantastic fireworks display. Either that, or a terrifying version of that scene from ‘Mary Poppins’, when Admiral Boom attacked the chimney sweeps with rockets. Not that I’d be dancing at a rooftop fireworks display… not much anyway.
We’d had quite enough of fireworks by the time we went to bed. The last time Ka and myself had seen and heard fireworks was before the beginning of November was Hogmanay. The night we arrived home from the hospital.
Before Saturday’s Sopranos night, we’d been to Morgan, Angela and Steven’s annual fireworks family party on the Friday evening.
We rang the bell at the large black door of ‘Roxburgh House’ and stood back waiting. Moments later the door clicked and slowly opened. The door seemed to inch open of it’s own accord as a small figure was slowly revealed, standing in the light emanating from the hallway behind.
“Eh!” Joshua welcomed us with his usual noises and wide eyed curiosity before Steven poked his head round from behind the now fully opened door.
After five minutes of talking in the hallway Joshua took it upon himself to act as chief coat taker and after pulling at the corners of our coats for more than a few minutes as we stood chatting, the two year old took our coats from us in the hallway and cleaned Angela's laminate flooring on his way back to the porch where he dumped them over his buggy after finding he was four foot too short to reach the coat hooks.
Steven had disappeared by this point, out into the back garden where he was straining his arm muscles sawing up wood for his small bonfire. He’d lit up the BBQ and set up a buffet under the intermittent light of the backyard lamp with the dodgy motion sensor under which seemed to only activate when someone danced below it (we should have tried the Chimney Sweep dance). Candles of various sizes lit up the large buffet Steven, Angela and Morgan had prepared. Burgers, sausages and Steven’s famous Chicken tikka were all hot off the BBQ were all served up. Morgan had also prepared her own chocolate plastered marshmallows and chocolate fingers both decorated with hundreds and thousands along with a second dish of marshmallows on kebab sticks prepared for the purpose of roasting over the small blue bonfire. Ka and myself were the only ones with five marshmallows on our kebab sticks because, as Morgan explained, Ka is her favourite auntie and I’m her second favourite Uncle (and no, she doesn’t only have two uncles!).
After eating the BBQ dinner in our coats and scarves and Steven’s fireworks display of many colours, in which he still can’t get a Catherine wheel to work, it was roasting time and we gathered around the small cauldron of coloured flames in the middle of the dark garden. The small blue and purple flames, created by strange chemical colourants in among the wood, flickered and lapped at the short wooden logs as we held our marshmallows over them. My five marshmallows got slightly burnt in their proximity to the violet flames but I ate them all the same. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ate roasted marshmallows. Perhaps some long ago and distant family camping trip.
After the marshmallows Steven and Morgan announced we were then to play Frisbee around in the front garden. As we all frowned up at the pair of them Steven flicked a switch of the back of the toy and the disc lit up with UFO like colours.
At this point I would have been quite happy to head indoors but Frisbee it was to be and before we knew it we had walked through the dark, around the house and were tossing the lit up, glowing plastic disc at one another. Some literally throwing it as one of Grace’s frisbees belted off the right side of my body, Morgan almost hit my car which was parked safely, or where I thought was safe, out on the street and Joshua got a hefty bang on the top of the head. Expecting tears, Ka and myself were surprised, as Joshua merely turned around with a frown, decided he’d had enough outdoors and waddled up to the front door, mumbling and unfastening his coat as he went. At which point I thought, I couldn’t agree more, and Ka, Angela and I followed him inside for a cuppa. The games didn’t end there thought as Morgan soon brought out more in the form of Snakes and Ladders and Guess Who? before Ka and myself finally headed home, fireworks continuing to colour the sky around us.

Team Lucy

The Black Eyed Peas woke me up from my slumber, early on Saturday morning. It felt and sounded like Fergie and will.i.am were actually standing around my bed, belting down their microphones but, surprisingly enough, it only turned out to be Angela calling on Ka’s unattended mobile phone. It was half past seven and still concussed from a weird dream, I opted to leave the phone and merely shouted on the wife, telling her of her sister’s early buzz.
It was the day of our fundraising big Fun Run in Bellahouston Park, and after Ka had spoke to her sister, it was decided that Angela would come over to EK with Grace and Dougie in her car as she was unsure of the route to Bellahouston. This meant Angela having to follow us, on our twisting route through the hills of EK, as we were picking up fellow runners, Claire and Pauline, on our way to Glasgow.
After appearing at the door in her silver Vauxhall, Angela gave me a whistle from her driver’s seat, obviously liking the sight of me in my shorts, as Ka and myself jumped in our car to begin the journey on which I drove slowly and carefully ensuring my dearest sister-in-law didn’t get lost on one of the many roundabouts of East Kilbride.
We picked up Claire first, who left a teary Olivia behind with her Dad, and then headed for Gardenhall, and Pauline, who ran back into her house for a large pile of towels, unsure of the darkening clouds above us.
On our two car trip down the M77 Pauline took a rather urgent call from a slightly stressed Angela who informed us her tank was empty. So pulling off at Silverburn we made our way to the garage were we topped up our tanks whilst Grace decided to go for a wee wander around the pumps on her mobile phone. Colin was on the other end of the phone informing her that Jillian and himself had already arrived at Bellahouston Park and were successfully parked and ready to go. Ka and Claire quickly warned Grace to put her phone away in case of an explosion.
Old myths die hard and the possibility of an explosion caused by a mobile phone call in a petrol station is still, apparently, a possibility even though nobody has ever heard of it happening, anywhere.
Imagine standing innocently locking your petrol cap up when your phone goes off in your jacket pocket. Just as you huff and shake your head at the unfortunate timing of the caller, a tremendous explosion sends you, and all the gathered motorists, up into the grey clouds over Silverburn, in a rising ball of flame.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t warned of such dangers when I bought my phone and signed the contract.
Anyway, as we left Silverburn’s Tesco station quite safely, and without any fireballs created from Grace’s mobile, we made our way out on to the first roundabout, turned left and lost Angela.
Angela had successfully navigated the streets of EK, followed us down the M77 with care on an empty tank and was now, after one left turn, nowhere to be seen. We stopped at some red lights, that were taking us back out on to the motorway, where various urgent phonecalls were made, but, by this point there was no turning back for us and before we knew it we were approaching Bellahouston, Ka shouting at me about where Colin and Jillian were park in the street from the front passenger seat. Taking my own lead and seeing one of few spaces left, I pulled the car up in the park’s Sport and Leisure Centre’s car park where we piled out to make some calls and wait on a silver Vauxhall.
Both Claire and myself were in dire needs of a loo and, finding ourselves unable to wait any longer, we left Pauline and Ka standing in the car park with the phone whilst we headed off to find the sports centre’s toilet.
There was one of each just outside the café and Claire and myself stood in the small square room between each toilet, politely waiting on the slow occupants within, Claire just missing out as a family of three entered the female toilet just as we arrived. I tried the male toilet handle only to get a huffy shout from within. Claire and myself waited politely, myself shuffling a little on my feet, but trying desperately to control myself before the eyes of one of my wife’s best friends.
After a good five minutes a toilet flushed from within the male toilet. I almost punched the air eagerly. Another toilet flushed moments later. There was a click, and a turn of a handle. But it was the wrong handle. The family of three bundled out from the female toilet and allowed Claire access, leaving me standing awaiting the male door to swing open. Five minutes passed. Suddenly the toilet flushed once more from within. More waiting. Then it flushed once more and eventually a rather tall man in glasses, a luminous yellow jacket and shorts appeared from within.
“Sorry, had a bit of trouble there!” he let me know. “I was struggling to get that clear!”. I nodded with an uneasy laugh and elbowed my way into the toilet before the question occurred to me. What was he struggling to clear? I gulped nervously as I looked at the closed over toilet seat below me.
Angela, Grace and Colin eventually arrived moments before Colin and Jillian strode over from the other side of the park and we all pinned a copy of one of Lucy’s pictures to our backs, alongside our various charities logos. Colin complimented his Dad’s athletic figure complaining about his own jelly belly as he made sure he had his iPod and cigarettes for the run whilst I struggled with the clothes pins and everyone piled their belonging into the back of the car.
Everyone was running for Sands with the exception of myself. When I booked up I thought I’d be different and try and raise money for Yorkhill Children’s Hospital, just so they didn’t feel left out. So instead of Sands’ white short sleeved T-shirts, I was wearing the Yorhill blue vest, but over a normal white T-shirt. I didn’t fancy exposing my armpits to the gathered running masses.
Approximately 600 folk were present on the day and as we all milled around awaiting the run to start we commenced a general warm up on the park path behind the sport’s centre and the Run’s Start and Finish line.
One lady asked Ka who the little girl was on all our backs. Getting a little teary mid stretch Ka she explained about our wee Lucy but held herself together well as the woman immediately apologised and then commenced to give the usual compliments referring to our beautiful wee girl.
Steven, Morgan and Joshua then turned up waving from the side of the track as ‘Walk this way’ started blasting out from the starting line’s speakers whilst the warm up girls punched the air repeatedly with their fists, photos were taken and Colin gave more of his comedy breast hooter impressions. Eventually, at around twelve to thirteen minutes past eleven, we were off. The first few minutes were slow as the crowd got going, people moving slowly apart, finding their feet and their preferred speed for the first quarter of a kilo. As I started getting into a steady pace I suddenly heard a familiar shout from behind a fence to my right.
“Yoohoo!” Mum was waving from behind the fence, Dad walking up and waving behind her, appearing at the last minute to cheer us on.
Round and up Bellahouston Park we ran, over the large, grassy but pathed flat and then up into the trees and over the steep hill which took us up and round the House for an Art Lover, past it’s back portico which leads into the large garden and the Giant foot where Ka and I spent a rather day and evening back in July 2009. After this we headed for the main road and Ibrox before turning off and moving round the perimeter of the park. I think it was around there that Jillian said she met one of her ex-boyfriends mid run. Apparently he was one of the guides, who stood at various route corners and pointed you in the right direction with some words of encouragement to spur you on.
As I neared the 3km mark I looked up to recognise one of the route guides myself. It was the tall, bespectacled man in shorts who’d had the struggle in the toilet. He seen me and looked away rather quickly, faltering on some words but then shouting encouragingly at the runner that had passed ahead of me.
Chris and her pal Sandra, who always has her camera hanging from the strap around her neck whenever I see her, were at the finish line to welcome us at the end of the race, along with a hastily arriving Mum, Dad, Steven, Morgan and Joshua who’d followed our progress from various points around our route.
Everyone finished, happy, a little tired, some a little sore, but probably a little fitter.
We all collected our goody bags and medals whilst more photos were taken, Morgan and myself got covered in mud, running back through the park and Mum met a long lost neighbour in Sandra, Chris’s photographer friend, who, it turns out, grew up in the same street as her and used to hang out with her and my Auntie Tricia. Another one of those strange, small world like incidents that take you by surprise.
27 minutes. That was my initial thinking of my time. But, due to a lack of clock at the finish line we’re all a little unclear as to what our final times were. As it turns out my time may have been a good few minutes shorter than 27, as Ka crossed the line around four to five minutes after me, and Jillian followed around a minute or so after her, and Jillian tells me her tracker tells her she took 29 minutes. So nobody knows for sure, but nobody really cared.
Pauline crossed the line moments later followed by Angela, who was last on the running track over a year ago but found it a walk in the park. Finished next were Claire and Colin and then, around ten minutes later, Grace and Dougie. We’d all ran for Lucy and the chosen charities, collecting at least a good seven hundred pounds between us, thanks to a lot of generous family, friends and colleagues.

Ka and myself have even talked of making it an annual event, making a yearly effort to raise some money for our charities in Lucy’s name. Jillian responded by text later in the day, rather optimistically, suggesting next year’s Glasgow half marathon.
We’ll see.
5km may not be a lot to some but Team Lucy did well.

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…

Hobbling around headstones

Just how flaky can a sausage roll get? One question that you don’t ask yourself a lot, I’m sure, but a question that occurred to Ka and myself as our wee nephew, Joshua hobbled around our living room. It was Easter Sunday and we had visitors. Angela, Steven, Morgan and Joshua, who is now just about a year and a half old, all trooped in for tea and coffees.
Joshua had not been in our flat since he was a little baby, so it was with great excitement that he looked around his new, unfamiliar surroundings as he was plonked down in the middle of the living room. Although the excitement may have had something to do with the fact that there was a coffee table covered in small plates of food and cakes before him. Joshua’s eyes and mouth opened in awe as if he’d never seen a sandwich before. He looked torn. What to have first? The sandwiches, vegetarian sausage rolls or pineapple cake? There was also a small plate of chocolate Mini Egg cakes which kept drawing his eyes, although, as he reached out towards the plate, you could see in his face the expectant look of his parents’ refusal due to the treacherous mini egg itself.
After a cheese sandwich, during which he obediently sat at the table, he went for a sausage roll. Then another. And then another. Munching away at the sausage rolls as he fell over, bumped down on to the floor, bounced off feet and hit off couches, circling the living room investigating this new territory, getting to know it’s geography and at the same time practising his ever improving walking skills.
The sweat grew on Ka’s forehead as she watched the crumbs and pastry fall over the living room rug and carpet. Angela began tidying up the crumbs after Joshua as he wandered round but Ka assured her it would be fine. Don’t worry, we told her, we’ll get it all later. We laughed, I, genuinely chuckling, Ka’s, a little more forced.
After Ka had eventually pulled the hoover out and scared Joshua into the bedroom (he lives in a house of smooth, wooden decking), we all headed out together to the cemetery to visit Lucy’s grave.
With some excitement, but great care, Morgan placed a small Winnie the Pooh plant pot at her wee cousin’s remembrance place. Lucy now lies near the top of a hill in the cemetery, looking out over the fields between the edge of EK and the beginnings of Busby and Carmunnock, and just across the road from my Gran and Granpa Reid’s resting place within the cemetery. A nice spot when it’s a warm, sunny day, perhaps not so nice, when it’s wet and stormy.
Thankfully Easter Sunday was dry and mostly sunny as Morgan decided where to put her plant pot. She had planted the small shoot in the pot with her Gran McGarva last week, especially for this reason and, as it was Easter, had also brought her wee cousin another gift in the form of a painted boiled egg. With her Mum’s help Morgan opened a cardboard egg box of six eggs, all painted in wild colours of the rainbow, carefully chose one and took it out, placing it in a small vase in the form of a pair of Ladybird patterned wellies, at the side of Lucy’s headstone.
All the while Joshua was staggering around the hill, at one point almost falling into a freshly dug rectangular hole at the head of Lucy’s neighbour’s grave, a hole presumably meant for a new headstone foundation but which almost had a very different kind of occupant.
Ka also commented on his waving. He seemed to be chatting away, waving, looking away further up the hill, around to back the way we came and also waving and conversing with Lucy’s headstone better than I ever had.
As Steven continued to keep a close eye on our little nephew, who may or may not have been seeing dead people, Morgan then went for the other eggs, informing us we had to roll them. Since Lucy is handily placed at the top of a hill we did seem to be in an ideal location.
As Joshua inadvertently ran around the slope of grass, Morgan rolled away, getting a little frustrated as her eggs refused to crack. The egg Morgan was rolling only decided to crack once Ka took a turn, almost smacking a nearby mourners’ car. Thankfully the two mourners, who were a little further into the cemetery, had not noticed, though they were visibly upset on returning to their vehicle. Joshua soon put a stop to that though. As the mourners arrived back at their car Joshua greeted them and immediately started chatting away. Before he could get an answer to the indecipherable question he had posed them, he fell over in mid hobble. Perhaps he had been asking which one of his new pals they were visiting?

Weddings, weans and waiting

Well, once again in the streets of Britain, people are panicking. Driving at 3mph, schools closing, trains cancelling, people leaving the supermarkets with supplies to stock in their garages, weather reports going on for too long. In the office people drift up to the windows every ten minutes to mumble about the scenes outside and folk squawk and complain about how long it took them to drive to work, their colleagues all more than aware the person is half an hour late just by looking at the clock. Yes, it is snowing again and people are losing all sense of reason once more.
Ka and myself woke up on Saturday morning to an unnaturally white light beaming in through the bedroom curtains and before I'd had the chance to fall to my knees and scream for pity at the visiting alien lifeforms, Ka had swept the curtains aside to reveal the snow that had fallen overnight.
"Fantastic", I said clambering up to the window. "Better get the Jack Daniels poured!".
I was not celebrating the arrival of snow though, I was filling the hip flask I was taking along to Wendy and Rob's Wedding on Saturday afternoon at the Bothwell Bridge Hotel. Whilst Ka dried her pants with a hair dryer and I sneaked Belgian Chocolate Cake from the bread bin (we've got a spectacular bread bin!), I filled up the hip flask expecting the worst of the hotel's bar pricing. Another Wedding. Like the Number 20 buses that all come along at once. We had Gillian and Craigs' four weeks ago and now another, but more family affair, this time around.
Wendy is one of the three daughters of Lorna, an adopted 'Auntie' to the McGarvas, and thusly a cousin whom Ka grew up and sang with each other into stereos with. Wendy, Pamela and Susan, who are all lovely girls and, until recently, I constantly got mixed up with, accidentally calling each by their various sisters' names at various times and places. Fortunately I'm over all that now and can successfully recognise each (something which, I'm disappointed to say, I've never been commended for). Even after the Jack Daniels, and with two of each wearing the same dress, I was successfully able to nod to and greet in full confidence without making a fool of myself. Something which I can do in many other imaginative and wonderful ways.
Doing the Time Warp, for instance. The third weekend in the space of a month that I've sang and danced to the Time Warp in public (not that I ever dance it in private, I should point out...).
Anyway, Wendy was beautiful in her elegant white dress and Ellis, her son, the star of the show, with a great speech with which he gave his mother away (but stipulated that he wanted her back).
The next day, it was back through the snow to Bothwell once more and to Joshua's first birthday party at which our wee nephew got his hands on more cake, a new course to his slowly expanding dietary menu. A cake so full of sugary goodness that even Willy Wonka would need to go into rehab after eating a slice.
Cake or no cake, Joshua is growing up fast. He zooms around Angela and Steven's floorboards now at a rapid rate and loves investigating all floor based items such as wires and radiator pipes. A reason why we bought him a wee car to pull along the floor. Not only does it have string but it has wheels, music and shaped blocks to slot into it's boot (sounds almost like my old Clio). Joshua seemed to like it anyway and after a quick trip abroad with Morgan, a snowball fight in the front garden and a tasty M&S buffet created by Steven, Joshua waved us goodbye. He's getting much better at the waving goodbyes for some reason. Some people would maybe even be fooled into believing he 's happy to see the back of us.
Something I'll be glad to see the back of are the dreaded work interviews. My various work colleagues, of all shapes and sizes, and I, have all to apply for the 12 positions going in the newly streamlined S&UN which will be formed in March of next year. So we've got the horrible job of competing against one another for a job, whilst doing our jobs. The first is tomorrow. Thankfully, I've got some of that Jack Daniels left.

Clowns and carrot cake

We were surrounded. Screaming, shouting, running, bursting, waving, dancing, wrestling, kids. It was the wonderful Morgan's sixth birthday over the weekend.
Ka, myself and the rest of the Leckies and McGarvas went along to our neice's special party in the church hall on Sunday. Around 26 small children in their best party gear hesitantly moved into the hall, after being delivered by parents and greeted at the door by Morgan and her Dad, Steven, who handed each a sticky name label. After the initial disappointment of not being assigned a name tag I went through to the hall and started taking photos of the party goings on, which were largely centred on a female clown hired for the occasion.
The clown was called Giggles and used to be a Procurator Fiscal. One hell of a career change, I thought, she must have wanted a break from the silly costumes and funny wigs. Giggles didn't have a wig. She wasn't even wearing a red nose!? How can a clown NOT have a red nose?!
Giggles spent the next three hours talking through a headset microphone at the kids gathered round, singing songs, playing games and basically controlling most of the kids extremely well in the potentially excitable party environment.
For three hours the clown's amped up voice went on. Kids sitting, shouting up at her. I wondered if this was the kind of thing I'd have to get used to as a father to be. Kids birthday parties. Bunches of yelling kids, chattering mothers and an over excitable Procurator Fiscal who thinks she can get away with being a clown without a red nose.
Only two of the many Dads who delivered kids actually stuck around for the party, the rest were Mums eithering talking away at each other or sitting, quietly watching their small child being entertained. Unfortunately I got bored halfway through and entertained myself by nicking marshmallows, eating carrot cake and talking to Colin McG about The A-Team and The Karate Kid movies. We took care not to speak too loudly though as you ran the risk of Giggles pulling you on to the dancefloor and giving you a job to do, a fate which befell some of the louder gabbing mothers.
Ka and myself once discussed the possability of kids entertainment for a living. Together with Colin and Jillian, who were both members of the Hopscotch travelling theatre group, we could make a bomb - and there wouldn't be any of this namby pamby everybody wins at pass the parcel or musical bumps mentality!
Giggles kept asking us viewers, sitting around the hastily seated kids, who was the last to get their bum on the floor during musical bumps. No matter how much I kept shouting out to Giggles she kept blatantly ignoring me, insisting it to be a draw when it so obviously wasn't. I had been watching. I pinpointed her in the small crowd of kids from my chair at the side. "Her with the pigtails!" I was yelling. "She's out! O - U - T, out, I tell ye!"
I'm looking forward to hosting the kids parties. The kids will get a giant bag of smarties to gee them up, a bouncy castle, if I'm feeling extravagant, and a run about the the back garden (even if it's raining!). Maybe the odd pinata up on the washing line... and there'll be no politically correct and boringly fair clowns! There'll be a winner at pass the parcel. The rest of the losing kids can go home bubbling if they want. If it turns out my child's going to be a bubbler then it'll do him good. It's best he, or she, learns how to be a good sport in life as early as possible and understands that sometimes they'll end up a loser. Just like their old Dad!... That didn't sound right...

The new Leckie

The latest addition to the Leckie family arrived on Tuesday. Whilst I was running about the office on one of the busiest weeks I've ever worked in S&UN, Baby boy Leckie arrived early afternoon making Morgan a big sister. Ka and myself popped round after work to see the new Leckie with a parcel and got treated to a mug of tea and a slice of pineapple cake. He is still known as Baby Leckie as a name has not yet been decided upon, Steven and Angela going through the various possibilities as the baby slept on his Dad's lap. Various names are being hummed and hawed over, some being inspired by a certain football team's current lineup (most of which I failed to recognise being my usual ignorant self when it comes to facts of the football variety). Angela, surprisingly willingly, let me hold Baby Leckie for a time but, of course, he took an instant dislike and cried till Ka took him off me and after a few words from her quietened down into another sleep. Morgan then pulled us through to her room to see her playmobil collection which consisted of a large family house complete with various sizes of family members and a number of pet cats and dogs. We attempted to have a BBQ before we were interupted by a bunch of lassies from another toy set who liked to go swimming with dolphins. That was all before the earthquake hit and they ended up in Oz and the Prince turned to the dark side. As you can probably tell, Ka and myself got a bit carried away.
After all that excitement I left Ka in the bath and Chaz and myself took a trip to the flicks to see Michael Caine in 'Harry Brown'. A pretty good movie about an elderly guy who, after the death of his wife and the cruel killing of his old mate in a local underpass, takes it upon himself to go after the thugs that are terrorising the neighbourhood. Caine is brilliant in it and the film very believable thanks to the great pacing, characterisation and atmosphere. Embarrassingly enough the film even made me jump in my seat, twice. Thankfully a few others jumped with me. Unfortunately, from what I could tell, the others were women, so I just laughed at myself to hide the shame of it all. It brought back memories of going to see the Alien trilogy in the GFT more than a few years ago. Even though I knew the first movie like the back of my hand, I still managed to jump as the facehugger leapt from the innards of the egg on to poor John Hurt. Still, you'll only get jumps like that in the cinema, never sitting on the couch watching a movie at home. The atmosphere is never quite the same as it is in the dark under the giant projection of the cinema screen. Will hopefully go and see the new movie, 'Paranormal Activity' in the cinema at some point. Apparently it's taken 'America by storm' with it's frightening content and 'Blair With' like production techniques. Unfortunately I was never impressed by the Blair Witch Project with it's endless grainy forest views, babbling American students, trickling snotters and general lack of scares but I am curious about this flick. Unfortunately Ka refuses to accompany me and I'd rather not go with Chaz as he probably thinks I'm a big jessie as it is for jumping during Harry Brown.
Angela liked the name Harry too. What about Michael? There's a good name. Michael from the hebrew Mikha'el meaning "Who is like God?". Not a lot of people know that.

Oooooo, aaaahhhhhh

Thus were the noises the family were making last night. Steven was in charge , entertaining us with many a blast, fizz and burst of firework spectacles. We went round to Angela and Steven's house for seven o'clock, Ka and myself arriving just ahead of Colin, Jillian, Grace and Dougie. Steven had went out and spent a fortune on fireworks which we all enjoyed, whilst slagging off his firework ignition skills, then went into the house and used up all his living room seats, drank all his hot chocolate, ate all his pizza, devoured all his biscuits and left. Poor Morgan was a bit off colour and feeling the effects of a cold and lay in her dressing gown during the hot chocolate supping whilst Colin and myself sat and howled at Tom & Jerry on the Boomerang channel. What a fantastic channel - must remember to check if I have it on my Virgin TV package. Tom & Jerry cartoons must have been on for a solid four hours last night. My favourite of all the shorts and surely the best from Hanna and Barbera. This fired up some more reminiscing as Colin and myself talked about Saturday eveings in the eighties with Tom & Jerry always on after the footie and before Rolf's Cartoon Club. Which led on the talking about Glen's Cavalcade in which Glen Michael sat behind a desk introducing shorts, mostly from the cheaper end of the animation market, alongside his dog and a talking gas lamp. I wonder who came up with the idea of a talking gas lamp?
Both Colin and Steven also confessed to being one of few people that have actually read some of this blog. So I'd better be careful of what I'm writing about them from now on certainly must not mention anything about a lack of catherine wheel expertise... damn. I just did didn't I? I wouldn't do much better myself anyway. Maybe next year Steven.

Crates full of fairytales

I'm ever so slightly achey today after the torture that was Ka's sister's house move at the weekend. Angela, her partner, Steven, and our niece, Morgan, were moving from Bellshill to Bothwell involving many a trip in the hired white van on Saturday and more than a few journeys with my own car filled to the roof with 'stuff'. 'Stuff' is actually quite an accurate description as it seemed to me there was a suspicious amount of 'stuff' kept especially for those infamous, mythical times when things might come in handy. Not only that but Dougie and myself had to deal with possibly the messiest garden shed I'd ever seen in my life. A garden shed which held pick axes, crowbars, thousands of coloured plastic balls, thousands of nails, spanners, skipping ropes, spades, hoes and at least five spirit levels. That was before we tackled the garden with it's collection of inflatable animals and balls of all shapes and sizes.
The presence of the spades along with the pick axes, drills, mallets and other nasty looking tools inside the nail floored shed made me suspect that Steven was perhaps slightly more than the innocent family man that he makes himself out to be. I was almost expecting to be knocked unconscious at some point and wake up strapped up in some horrible mechanism, surrounded by spirit levels, sawing my own hand off and chatting with a freaky looking puppet on a tricycle.
Don't get me wrong I'm a bit of a hoarder myself, at least, according to Ka anyway. I've still got hundreds of Empire, SFX and Q magazines lying around in large piles, some at home, some boxed up in Mum and Dads but I'll keep them. Boxes of issues soon to be stored away up in Mum and Dad's loft turning their attic into a smaller version of the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse. Just in case. You never know. Someone someday may ask me who played the supporting actor role in suchandsuch a film and I'll be able to spring up, go to my Empire collection and pull out the relevant issue, flick through the dusty pages and find the details after scouring through a large feature of that particular month. Either that or I'll just google it. In that case hanging on to the issues seems rather pointless. Better not let on to Ka... I don't think Steven had any mag collections though he certainly had some hefty books. As did Morgan who has at least two crates full of fairytales along with her many castles, dollshouses and plastic cars. Later in the day, at the new abode, whilst busily unpacking from the rear of the van, I almost dropped a box with fright as, squeaking out of the shadows inside the van trundled a tricycle.

Bolognese and badgers

On Friday night there was a desperate search for organic beef. We travelled to three different supermarkets, throughout the wilds of Hamilton, seeking organic produce with which to feed Angela, Steven and Morgan who were due to visit on the Sunday. We went to Asda, Morrisons and then finally, Sainsburys where we managed to find some organic beef mince. Asda were useless with only a few organic beef joints which would have struggled to feed three people, and Morrisons had one lone organic chicken on the shelf. At least Sainsburys had one or two shelves devoted to the cause but with such little food available either we had just went in to the supermarkets at the wrong time of day or the organic food market is just not catching on, no matter how much Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall rabbit on. I did manage to make a cracking spaghetti bolognese with the organic meat for the visitation though which, I was told, was my best ever, so maybe there is something to all this organic carry-on after all. Personally I'm not sure it tasted any different to my usual 'conventional' bolognese, it just cost more to make this time round. Ka made the most expensive soup ever. £1.50 for four carrots?! I'd rather buy the non organic, pesticide riddled, insect protected full bag of ten carrots for 70p thank you very much and risk the possibility of Whittingstall knocking angrily on my front door. But then, that's the problem with the general population at the moment - too concerned about the holes in our wallets than the environment and what effects conventional food production is having on it?
Before the Spaghetti cooking we travelled down to Hawick on Saturday to visit Morven, Sean and Leo and see Morven's brother and his band play at the town's annual 'Party on the Pitch'. 'The Honey Budgers', sorry, 'The Honey Badgers' were excellent, though suffered the type error on the day's playlist and the support of a dreadful Elvis tribute act. Luckily we had our picnic lunch to divert our attention while he warbled. We sat on the green eating rolls, sausage rolls, Morven's vola vons and Sean's Mars Bar cake. After the Badgers, the dance outfit QFX took to the stage and the surrounding Hawick locals seemed to get a little overly excited about the beats blasting out over the Cricket grounds. Personally I thought 'The Badgers' were far more deserving for such a reception but there's just no accounting for taste. Shortly after, Ka and myself took our leave ending the day, after the long drive home, falling asleep on the couch with a bottle of champagne. Not sure what we were celebrating exactly but the bottle had been in the fridge for weeks and so Ka and myself decided that it deserved to be drunk!

The disappearing wife trick

On Saturday Ka kicked me out of bed to attend Morgan's birthday party (not true, I was actually more excited than she was!). Morgan was five on Thursday and Angela and Steven had a party to celebrate at a large indoor play area in Blantyre with thirty other kids of similar age. Finding myself surrounded by around ten mothers and the odd family member I volunteered as chief tea and juice pourer. Any husbands that had dropped the kids off had quickly scarpered whereas any Mums were quite happy to sit, chat, gossip and drink teas and coffees producing the usual Mum gabble. At times I looked over at all these Mum's sitting blethering to one another and wondered if they were even listening to what each other was saying. They all just seemed to be talking instantaneously. While I poured the teas the kids had all run off into the play area which, I have to say, looked great. Ka's brother, Colin, and myself were genuinely disappointed we were not allowed into it. They never had play areas like that when we were kids! A huge towering construction that filled one end of the warehouse sized room, this blue tower of plastic and rope had slides of varying steepness, punch bags, ladders, bridges, climbing frames, rope swings, helter skelters and even a giant tub of hovering balls. Amazing. I looked on disappointedly as I poured the teas, sighing as I put up with the Mums' ongoing jibba jabba in the background.
After the play area the kids were then called into the hired room for some entertainment in the form of a 'magician'. Unfortunately I'm using the term 'magician' rather loosely. Personally, telling the kids he's going to make my new wife disappear, putting her in hand cuffs and then simply shoving her out the room's back door was not quite as impressive (or effective) as I had hoped. Especially as Morgan immediately rushed out the entrance door, sped round the corridor outside and brought Ka back herself, before the 'magician' had the chance to announce any form of magical reappearance. He couldn't even make a half decent balloon animal?! After bursting one on his first attempts he opted for swords which were basically a long balloon with a short tie at the end to act as a hilt. Okay, maybe I could not have done a better balloon myself but, if given the chance, when sitting listening to the Mums' continuous jibba jabba I could have done a better disappearing trick.