Something to smile about

Well thank goodness that’s all over. Back to normality (well, as normal as normality gets). Just as well this Jubilee malarky only happens once in a while. As nice as it was to watch all the barges and boats on the Thames on Sunday it was far more entertaining watching the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir gaining ‘hypothermia’ whilst singing Rule Britannia at the top of their voices. Apparently the girls in the company had just had their hair done especially. Certainly looked like they’d just stepped out of a salon, even though they were only halfway through the rinse.
A wee bit of rain and everybody in England thinks they’re hard because they went out in the bad weather to see their Queen. The London Ambulance Service told of how they treated around 560 people who, because of the bad weather conditions, said they were cold. Bless.
At least it was dry for the concert on Monday.
A concert which veered from the rubbish to the surreal, to the rubbish, to the half entertaining, to the actually quite good, to the, wow, lots of fireworks.
In all, pretty entertaining, if you were drinking, and that was without Rolf even getting to finish his song. Scary Grace Jones’ skills with a hula hoop were particularly impressive. I’m lucky if I can manage ten seconds nevermind the length of ‘Slave to the Rhythm’.
We had been standing at the foot of that statue, the Victoria Memorial, in the sunshine, only a few months ago with Ann holding Adventure Ted aloft in order to get a decent picture of her before Buckingham Palace (the bear that is, not Ann).
Little did we know that by that time, the next afternoon, things would be a little bit different.
It was a cloudy Saturday March morning in London. Grey, unlike the previous days, and and as the rain had slowly started to fall, Ka and myself hurriedly took shelter from the Strand and ran through the large archway entrance into Charing Cross Railway Station. Not only were we after temporary shelter from the gathering rainclouds above but we were also after a loo and since this was a railway station this would mean digging into the pockets and coming up with 10 and 20p pieces. At least I was hoping it was only 10 and 20p pieces - this was London after all. I wouldn't have been surprised if the railway stations of the capital ventured into the 50p regions. After a brief scout around we found the required restroom archway and Ka ventured forth, leaving me sitting on a plastic bench outside, before a small card and souvenir shop. Even back in March there seemed to be more Union Jacks knocking about than usual. I sat waiting whilst eyeless members of the Royal family smiled at me from the circling stand in the shop's doorway opposite me. The Queen’s eyeless mask was particularly freaky. Without eyes behind them, these masks looked like a Royal version of Village of the Damned or, with the light of the shop behind, like Nicholas Fisk’s ‘Grinny’.
“I hate that Grinny book!” Chaz shouts at the top of his voice, his shout echoing up the corridor behind the short, striding form of Mrs. Boyd.
The teacher had laughed on previous, probably quieter, occasions in the school corridors, but this time we were walking in the vicinity of the Head Master’s office and she wasn’t amused by the echoing shout that had burst out from the corner of the corridor behind her. Mrs. Boyd spun on her heels, in mid chew of what looked like a particularly chewy piece of chewing gum, and flew at Chaz with pointed finger. Mrs. Boyd had been championing Fisk’s ‘Grinny’ for the past few weeks in her English class, much to our displeasure as we slumbered and struggled to stay awake over it’s pages, listening to the unfortunate that had been chosen to read on that particular day. Chaz had took it upon himself to voice his opinions on the chosen literature on more than one occasion in the corridors of Saint brides High School. Mrs. Boyd had always replied with a smile and a warning of how he’d be the next lucky reader, but on this particular occasion she’d obviously grown weary of the joke. As Mrs. Boyd closed in, Chaz couldn’t seem to move, frozen to the spot by that twisted, pointed finger, but the rest of us managed and darted to the safety of the nearest common room, leaving him to his fate.
The Queen grinned at me the same way the Alien Granny of that book used to grin, easily dominating the adults’ minds but unable to infiltrate the kids’ which eventually led to her downfall.
A busker strummed at a guitar in the corner of the Railway Station. A cleaner was sauntering around, lazily sweeping at the odd piece of rubbish, either mumbling, grumbling or humming to himself under his cap. A couple of guys, obviously on their way out to the Saturday of some kind of drunken weekend break, ambled up the to shop and spun the mask stand as an old couple picked a birthday card from the shelves in the small shop behind them.
We were heading to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End to see the matinee performance of Stomp that afternoon and Ka had voiced an interest in seeing Russell Grant in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, an interest I chose to not hear. We still had more than an hour or so to while away, just as well really considering the time Ka was taking in the Station’s loo.
The guys decided on a freaky Royal each, fighting over who was to be Kate. One of the guys was verbally bullied into it and took the other guys’ masks of Philip, William and Charles up to the small counter where a bored looking girl took them off him. The old couple chuckled over a card and then nodded in agreement, handing it over the counter to the lady behind the till once the guys had moved back out into the Station and immediately started unwrapping the cellophane.
Ka eventually appeared through the shadows underneath the archway leading down to the toilets. Looking a little pale, she walked over the train station waiting area towards me and produced the short white stick she had been harbouring from somewhere within her jacket.
“I’m pregnant!” Ka handed the white plastic stick to me with a shaky hand. Looking down at the small screen on the pregnancy test I seen a feint but definite indication of lines in certain positions and compared them with the details on the crumpled up instructions Ka handed to me in my other hand.
“Are you finished with that?” the Railway station cleaner suddenly interrupted us, almost moving between the two of us gesturing with his pick-up stick.
“What?” I almost blurted at him as he continued to edge forward.
“Are you finished with that?” he asked again nodding at my hands. Confounded I was about to give an answer when Ka confirmed we had indeed finished with it and told the guy to go ahead. The cleaner then moved in and just as I thought he was about to swipe the crumpled paper and test from my hands, extended his pick-up stick and lifted a rolled up McDonalds bag that had been lying behind my feet. I quickly agreed we had finished with it and then corrected myself for taking responsibility for someone’s rubbish and informed the man the McDonalds wasn’t even ours. I don’t eat in McDonalds and I never discard litter in such a fashion even if there is a distinct lack of bins in London Railway stations. When we arrived in London on the Thursday I had to trail a whole carrier bag full of rubbish from the train around Euston with me until I eventually found a bin in the Shaftesbury Paddington Hotel. Okay, bins are maybe handy for bombers but it’s not an ideal situation when you’ve got some rubbish to dispose of and there are no weird cleaners hanging about.
Anyway, Ka’s latest bombshell was enough to make my head spin, without any form of explosives, and as the Railway Station cleaner leaned in and picked up the obvious emergency situation that was his crumpled up McDonalds paperbag I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d noticed what was going on before him.
Had he realised he had disturbed a teary eyed woman revealing to her husband, after coming out of the loo, in the middle of Charing Cross Train Station, that she was pregnant? Surely the white stick, the urgent quiet discussion and the look of bewilderment, confusion and then mixed emotions on our faces was enough to illustrate the point.
He could have at least congratulated us to ease the tension. He could have grabbed us at each side and happily shouted a massive ‘Alleluia!’, turned and told the shop keeper, the blokes behind the Royal ‘Grinny’ masks and the old, chuckling couple with the funny card. They could have replied with smiles and happily waved over to us. The volume of the busker’s guitar could have suddenly became much louder. A passing brass band could have joined him with a nod, a smile and a wink. The cleaner would then start up a song and dance routine, skipping and jumping with his pick-up stick, and all the passing pedestrians, who suddenly all seemed far more brightly dressed, could have suddenly started dancing transforming Charing Cross Railway Station into a floor of colour, dancing, waving and smiles. Grace Jones could have appeared with her hula hoop, a helmeted Russell Grant could then have been shot out of a nearby steam train’s chimney in a shower of glitter and stars whilst Flavia circled underneath on the platform and the Station announcer could have made the announcement over the tannoy.
Obviously that would have been asking too much, of course. The cleaner didn’t give us any congratulations. He was far more interested in the dropped McDonalds wrappers at our feet, mumbled something under his breath and then slouched on with his slow trail around Charing Cross.
That was thirteen weeks ago and Baby Reid 2 is growing well. Obviously it is quite early and happy thoughts are always going to be tinged with sadness as we think of Baby’s big sister, Lucy but fingers crossed things work out a little better this time around.

Leaks, fridges and electric hob knobs

After dinner last night I was busy carrying out my husbandly duties when there was a large crash and a horrendous scream from behind. I had to quickly abandon the pot which I had been busy scrubbing with my bubble covered hands in the sink, and turned to see what the commotion was.
The fridge door had fallen off it's hinges. Unfortunately Ka had been trying to close the large, upper door over at the time. Something had been preventing Ka from closing the door over so she looked into the fridge to make sure everything was tidied away properly and just as she moved to take her head back out from the fridge's innards, the door, complete with the weight of all it's interior shelf innards, including the milk and my Branston Pickle, collapsed into her face, banging her across the forehead.
Just as I was about to start moaning at Ka’s volume I turned to find my wife crouched over in pain, holding the fridge door up on one bottom hinge. After shoving the door temporarily back into place I got a bag of ice together from the freezer and told Ka to put it to her head as I seen the red mark now throbbing on Ka's forehead grow into a potential lump.
The washing machine has been leaking. Two of the electric cooker’s hob’s knobs have broke off (and no, they don’t taste great with a cup of tea!). A bit of the front door’s frame even fell off when I closed the door the other night. I had to superglue it back on. What else is going to fall apart? The place is turning into The Money Pit! I’m half expecting Tom Hanks to crash through the front window one night while I’m turning the hobs on with my pliers.
As Ka sat and relaxed on the couch with the bag of ice pressed to her head, giving her brain freeze, I attempted to fix the fridge door with a blob of blu-tac before deciding that the Currys website would probably be a better idea.
A quick, unexpected, credit card payment later and there is now a brand new fridge being delivered on Wednesday morning. Mum will pop by after her pilates and sit in for the delivery which I paid £15 for the pleasure of having delivered between the hours of 1 and 5 for. The one good thing about buying anything on the Currys website is you’re not hounded for guarantees and insurances when you get to the checkout.
No other time would suit unless we waited until the weekend but on returning home tonight I nonchalantly swung the fridge door forgetting all about the worn out hinge and almost suffered the same lumpy head as Ka did.
Everybody seems to be settling in to the new office in Glasgow Central Quay for the time being. Sly Bailey, the Trinity Mirror Empress herself visited Central Quay last week, moving around the various floors accompanied by her entourage. As I have my back to the always open Studio door I missed the whole procession but was informed by the ever watchful Andrea, who sits opposite me, that she had a very nice pair of shoes on. Always one to spot the important details, she said that the pair of shoes in question would be enough to make Andrea’s family go without food for a week. If Andrea’s family are anything like her that what probably be doing them a favour as all she seems to eat are protein shakes, those disgusting looking mushy substances which, apparently, you simply must base your diet on if you intend to build muscle, losing weight or keep fit in anyway, shape or form. I’m not sure what’s wrong with a good healthy diet but maybe some people just like sitting in their office theatrically shaking plastic bottles and flasks around kidding on their working at the Copacabana.
The new colleagues in our office are Graeme, Andrew, Ewan and Yvonne.
Yvonne has a liking to karaoke, singing along to most of the ditties that are played on Radio 2 in the duration of the day. Graeme dances around the office, finds nothing a problem, and occasionally picks up the phone and pretends he’s an answering machine for Andrew, beeping and even singing whilst the caller waits. The Bette Midler classic, “The Wind Beneath my Wings” was the last song a caller enjoyed whilst waiting to be passed over to Andrew, who is forever shaking his head at his colleague, as he types away frantically on his mac. Ewan is the line manager of the three who spends all his time keeping sales people at bay and a lot of his money on Peanut M&M’s which Yvonne hands out willy nilly, without his permission.
I’m enjoying the new surroundings although I do occasionally miss the rest of the S&UN gang who are out in the open plan office with the rest of the production and sales staff. Some of the sales staff I’ve known for years over the phone and only just met face to face. Some people you meet for the first time not even realising you’ve been talking to them for five years. You go out and happily start talking to someone as if you’re only just meeting them for the first time only to realise afterwards that that was the woman that shouted at you over the phone a year or so ago for not understanding her copy instructions.
Mum managed to get a wee job in the town centre last week. Mum’s been looking for a job, on and off, (mostly off) for around four years now so this is quite big news. Kenny emailed me today from Oz, rejoicing the fact (“it’s about time too”, I believe were the words he used).
Mum arrived back from a holiday abroad on Friday. She’d been away for a week with my Auntie Tricia with Aunt Ann for her 60th birthday retreat along with a bunch of pals from both Scotland and London.
Unfortunately Adventure Ted never got an invite, but did send photos of her London trip along in Auntie Ann's card which she would have opened on her birthday on the Sunday.
Mum and Tricia arrived home on Friday at the airport expecting Tommy, Tricia’s other half, to be there waiting to pick them up.
Tommy was indeed sitting waiting to pick them up. Unfortunately he was sitting in Glasgow Airport whilst Mum and Tricia had arrived home at Prestwick.
Grace and Dougie, Ka’s Mum and Dad, arrived home from their week in Turkey the same day. We popped round to see them on Saturday afternoon after seeing ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ in Glasgow.
A bunch of teenagers take a break to a holiday home beside, the river, in the middle of nowhere and unexpectedly enter a game of life and death, involving zombies, ghosts, werewolves and scarecrows. Ridiculous and crazy but surprisingly entertaining stuff if you like a good dose of the ridiculous and the crazy in your horror. By the way, this is the movie we’re talking about, not Grace and Dougie’s holiday.
No, they were living it up in 5 star accommodation, full board. All the sun, food, drink and entertainment they could possibly want. They brought us back a tea towel.
Only kidding, they also brought us back chocolates, socks and a large bag of suspicious looking white powder.
Yes, apple tea. To go with the tea towels, currently soaking up the water splashed over the floor by the misbehaving washing machine.

Aunt Ann, Adventure Ted and Big Ben

Friday morning and the sun was still burning in the London sky as Ka and myself made our way to Piccadilly Circus, or Pilladicky, as I mistakenly named it for some reason on more than one occasion, to head to the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy of Arts is an privately funded, independent institution, situated in Burlington House in the middle of Piccadilly, governed and led by a whole committee of painters, designers and artists from many different fields known as Academicians.
King Geogre III founded the Academy way back in 1768 with the help of the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and Scottish architect Sir William Chambers, who became the Academy’s first President. The membership club, known as the Friends of the Royal Academy, was set up back in 1977 to provide the museum with financial support whilst giving all it’s member unlimited access to the exhibitions housed within. My Auntie Ann is one of those friends and with her membership managed to get us some tickets for the current David Hockney exhibition, ending on the 9th April.
After arriving in Burlington House’s courtyard, Ka and myself stood in the sunshine, alongside the massive queue for tickets that had formed outside the building to await Ann’s arrival by bus.

Needless to say Adventure Ted got her photo taken outside the exhibition, again no one really batting an eyelid at the sight of a Scottish couple holding a small, colourfully dressed bear, high up into the air to get it’s photo taken alongside the large banner, which depicted Hockney hard at work on one of the colourful landscape paintings featured in his show.
Ann eventually turned up looking around quizzically under the large archway for her visiting relations after Ka almost surprised and cuddled a complete stranger who was innocently making her way up to the exhibition entrance, and who only had a passing resemblance to my Aunt. After a quick cuddle, (with Ann, not the passing resemblance), we quickly got the introductions over with, introducing Ann to Adventure Ted. Ann obligingly met Ted with a big smile before giving us our tickets for the exhibition pointing out she’d already seen it twice and was quite happy to sit in the sunny courtyard and read her book for an hour.
So Ka and myself battled our way through the crowds into Burlington House to view Hockey’s landscapes. The exhibition wasn’t what I had been expecting as Hockney is famous for being one of Britain’s first big celebrity artists, a bit of a rebel, famous for painting scenes of LA, splashes in swimming pools, portraits and creating photo collages of streets, highways, buildings and people.
With this exhibition Hockney shows a more traditional side, concentrating his painting on the landscapes of Yorkshire, collections of paintings depicting the same location over and over but in various seasons and months of the year. There are brief glances at works from different parts of the world, the giant ‘A Bigger Grand Canyon’ being the biggest, brightest, and boldest of the lot but most of the exhibition is taken up by the trees, blossoms, fields and hills of Yorkshire, some mad, brilliant, lurid, luminous and surreal and others, such as some of the smaller sketches, not quite as impressive. Not all of it worthy to be under the name of one of Britain’s most influential artists anyway.
The crowds were unbelievable. The Hockney exhibition had already been on since mid January but yet the halls were still heaving with people. A lot of rude old folk in suits and scarves made up a good portion of the crowd, seemingly believing they had a right to elbow, stop directly infront of you or ignore the few people in wheelchairs politely asking to get by from down below.
After an hour and a half we made it back out into the sunlight and after a brief stop at the local Pret a Manger made our way to Green Park for a picnic.
Looking out over the bottom half of Green Park, Buckingham Palace obscured by trees to the south, we sat in the grass, surrounded by fellow picnickers, Adventure Ted sitting in the daffodils behind.

We discussed what to do with the rest of our day. Ka and myself had planned to take Ann to a theatre show or dinner, a treat for her big birthday coming up. Ann, however, had a better idea.
“I think we should get Adventure Ted to Buckingham Palace!”
So off we went to get the kids of ELU their photograph of Adventure Ted outside the Queen’s house, passing two large colourfully decorated Easter eggs on the way through Green Park.
London is hosting an event over Easter named the Faberge Big Egg Hunt in which over 200 large easter eggs, each decorated, painted or designed by famous artists and designers have been positioned at various points over and across Central London. Following the opportunity for an eggciting (gawd!) egg hunt the eggs were to be gathered in Covent Garden where they were all to be auctioned for charity. Ann, Ka, Adventure Ted and myself came across around ten or so on our walk on Friday. If we’d known about it we could have attempted the whole 200 and got Adventure Ted’s picture taken with all of them. Fortunately, we hadn’t known about it.
After a few shots at the gate we approached a policeman guarding one of the barrier gateways. Chancing her arm, Ka started explaining Adventure Ted and her quest for the ELU. The poor guy was obviously the unlucky one on tourist duty at the time as two of his buddies pottered around behind him, further back in the palace’s front grounds.
Before Ka could finish her explanation as to why she was offering the guy a polka dot teddy bear, the policeman quickly interrupted with a quick “I ain’t holding the teddy!”

The rather bemused but cheerful bobby did agree to pose with Adventure Ted though, obviously used to similar requests, and smiled for the camera.
After the pics at the gates Ka talked me into climbing up one of the statues surrounding the Victoria Monument for a picture. A task I accepted with a shrug until half way around the groping of the bronze lion on the Statue of Justice, I nearly slipped back into the fountain of water four feet below my behind which I had thought to be pavement not dissimilar to the side I had started climbing from. I felt like Doc Brown shuffling along the front of the clock tower.
After Ka took the snap and I made it back on to paved ground in a rather undignified landing, Ann insisted that Adventure Ted see Big Ben next. Ka and myself looked at one another wondering who was the more excited about this whole trip. Adventure Ted or Ann?
So I led the way through St James’ Park, through the willow and blossom trees up into Westminster, avoiding some brawling ducks and scary looking geese, and passing more Faberge eggs, which were attracting mild interest from similar tourists passing through the park. The only difference with other tourists was that they didn’t excitedly produce a polka dot clad teddy bear to get it’s picture taken next to the giant oval.

After a few pictures in and around the red telephone boxes on our approach to Westminster square (Ted waving from inside whilst on the phone. Perhaps to the male Adventure Ted? There is a bloke version too, he just wasn’t lucky enough to get to go to London. He was probably in the pub, enjoying himself while the Mrs was away) and a few shots of Adventure Ted with Big Ben we crossed Westminster Bridge, heading for the South bank where we would grab a coffee under the shade of the London Eye before heading back over to hit Westminster Abbey as Ann suspected that Adventure Ted would really like to see where William and Kate got hitched.
Back over the bridge we went, stopping briefly outside the gates of the Houses of Parliament where a couple of coppers were guarding the barrier in a small, sparse huddle of Japanese tourists. Ka reached in to get Adventure Ted back out for another pic but stopped when the two coppers gave some rather blunt, bored and almost angry responses to some little Japanese ladies requesting photos alongside them with Big Ben in the background. These coppers obviously were not as tourist friendly at the Buckingham Palace lot. The Parliament coppers simply shook their heads gruffly and grumbled “We’re busy”.
So, leaving the Parliament coppers milling around at the gate twiddling their thumbs, Ann led us onwards to Westminster Abbey, our final stop before we jumped on a busy tube back to Fulham where we made a pit stop at Ann’s place to see a rather grumpy Bandit the dog and discover how red and burnt my balding head was. Within an hour we were walking again, now along to Putney and Ann’s favourite Tapas restaurant.
Our last and best stop of the day. Well, before Ka, Adventure Ted and myself headed back to Paddington, of course. And no, I don’t mean the bear.

Going Underground with Adventure Ted

5 minutes to midday late on a Thursday morning and I’m standing at the bar ordering a pint. Possibly the earliest pint for a long while.
Ka and myself were in the Arrol Bar in Glasgow Central awaiting our train, due to leave at 12.40. It was the start of our holiday weekend in London so we thought we’d while away the half hour awaiting the arrival of our Virgin train with a pint and a glass of wine. Adventure Ted came out of the handbag for a tipple too. She came out for a sip of Ka’s wine as we sat in the pub’s front window watching the early afternoon world go by.
Yep, I did say ‘she’ as Adventure Ted is a girl. Her usual abode is, of course, the ELU Nursery, Ka’s work, but as one of the current projects for the kids involves London, the Queen and all things Jubilee, Adventure Ted thought she’d make the trip to London with us, her weekend goal to get her picture taken outside the gates of Buckingham Palace.
We perched Adventure Ted on the stool at the side of the table, moving Ka’s glass of wine to within her grasp, and snapped a photo of her with the phone, texting it to Vicki, who was hard at work back in dreary old Hamilton in the Early Learning Unit. There were a few fellow early drinkers in the bar around us but none seemed to even bat an eyelid at the appearance of a medium sized teddy in an all in one red polka dot outfit and sunhat perched, smiling on the barstool close by. Then again, perhaps the appearance of a bear in polka dots drinking at the next table is not a particularly strange sight for some of the folks that drink around midday in the middle of town.

As the announcement was made over the Central Station tannoy, we made out way out and up to Platform 1 where Adventure Ted obediently posed with our luggage, sitting before another of Richard Branson’s wonderful machines, one of the 390 Pendolino’s, which would deliver us successfully, in around 4 and a half hours, to our destination of the country’s capital.
Once we arrived in London Euston it was around half 4 and by the time we got down into the Underground to make our way to our hotel in Notting Hill it was the height of rush hour as we shuffled our way through the London crowds with our two cases.
Tuts, sighs, conversations, murmurings, all in various different languages, circled us as we made our way through the claustrophobic tunnels and trains of the London Underground, all with their own fantastic fashions, faces and furrowed brows. Singing and guitars echoed along a few of the more acoustic tunnels with the occasional announcements from the tannoys overhead as escalators struggled to ascend to the various different warm station levels carrying the massive crowds piled on top.
It always takes a few wee trips to get back into the London Underground mode when you visit the capital but nothing much has changed.
Spinning adverts and movie trailers on digital screens have now replaced some of the Underground’s escalator posters which follow your ascending or descending to the next level which I thought was quite a cool change though a pretty pricey one, I would have thought.
Never mind the aged track and train replacement, let’s get some 50 odd flashy digital display screens installed on this one escalator.
That can’t be very cost effective surely?
Anyway, after finally arriving at the Shaftesbury Premier Notting Hill Hotel we were helped up into the reception with our cases by a concierge and greeted by a friendly receptionist who got us to fill out our accommodation form and then informed us that we could not stay.
Ka and myself had been ready for a spanner in the works. We had been gearing up for it. Something had to go wrong.
Apparently there was a problem with the air conditioning in our room and, as a result, we would have to be moved to a sister hotel. The receptionist swiftly called a taxi.
A large merc soon pulled up and swept us along to the Shaftesbury Premier Paddingstion Hotel and after a short ten minute drive, in which we seen a biker get his moped trashed after braking too heavily at a corner infront of a car following it from the rear, we were dropped off in the middle of the far busier Westbourne Terrace, five minutes walk from the Paddington Underground station and it’s surrounding shops and restaurants.
The room, and hotel in general, was very nice and we had been promoted to a higher bedroom and would now be welcomed to breakfast on the three mornings of our stay, for our inconvenience.
After quickly unpacking and getting ourselves settled, we hit the streets of Paddington for dinner, ending our walk in the Villa Rosa restaurant on Craven Road, greeted by a pair of stinking armpits and salads with no lettuce. The cannelloni was good though. Ka, however, was put off by the mince being a suspicious grey colour. In retrospect, perhaps not one of our best choices of restaurants.
After our wonderfully average meal we jumped on the tube and headed into town, aiming for Covent Garden. Unfortunately I mistook the Victoria line for the Piccadilly line and we ended up disembarking at Oxford Circus surrounded by shoppers heading home. Moving onwards we ended up in Carnaby Street eventually finding a small bar and a couple of seats for an after dinner beverage.
Another short walk later, we ended up in the bustling Piccadilly Circus where we were to return on our first stop the next morning on our trip to the Royal Academy where we would meet Ann in the sunshine filled courtyard, see some David Hockney, whilst battling pensioners, go out on a tourist quest to see as many sights as possible with Adventure Ted, annoy many a policeman, watch battling ducks, argue over whether it was a pelican or a stork, stand in red telephone boxes and come across more than a few Easter eggs on our way.

Photo update

Finally finished putting together and uploading some new photo pages for Reidnet. The new pages include a collection of photos from the Wedding kindly contributed by Uncle Tommy, Aunt Trish, Aunt Ann, Chris, Martin and last, but certainly not least, the wonderful Jillian. Thanks very much to all of them for supplying me with a good amount of photos - especially since I did not take any. The most important day of my life and I barely clicked a camera button!
The other new pages include photos from our holiday in Rome and Venice. Both of these collections having been heavily filtered as I think I went kinda camera crazy after taking none on the Wedding day. Hopefully both collections show, to some extent, how beautiful Rome and Venice are and what a great time Ka and myself had walking around the Italian streets.

Father Gaffney and the video nasty

Thankfully Auntie Patricia held back the tears at the weekend when we all settled down to watch the wedding video that my Uncle Tommy had been spending the week working on. Apparently Tommy had plugged the camcorder into the tv on the Sunday after the wedding and had Tricia and my other Aunt, Ann, who had had been visiting from London for the occasion, both in tears as they watched what he had recorded. Personally, I'm not sure I believe them and think they may have been exaggerating a little. My mum and her sisters were born in the Gorbals which makes me believe it must take a hell of a lot for them to shed any form of tear. Thanks to Tommy though, the wedding now exists in televisual format to help us remember our special day (I certainly hope I never wake up one morning and wonder who this female is that I'm living with). Of course, it also exists for women to cry and gossip over which is what will probably happen next week when Ka's female friends all pop round to the flat for a viewing. I very much doubt I shall hold such an occasion especially since my brother, the best man of the piece, turned down his invite to the BBQ/film showing on Saturday night describing it as a video nasty. Thankfully it was not so nasty, except from the fact that I looked as if I had a bean pole stuck up my arse as I spent the whole time in the church standing straight and rigid with a look of extreme seriousness on my face, seemingly unable to move without some great difficulty. Kenneth laughed, Ka cried, Angela cried and laughed and the priest, a rather entertaining Father Gaffney, forgot my name, at least twice. He even called the ceremony a baptism at one point. In fact, I'm sure Father Gaffney may well require the video to remember the day more than the rest of us.
Ka picked up the phone to him on Monday night and he asked her how the holiday in Paris went. Paris was great thanks but that was two years ago now - we were in Rome and Venice for our honeymoon! Father Gaffney would no doubt have took a trip at one point to go and see the Pope? I wonder at what point it was climbing up the Eiffel Tower that he realised..?

Pierce Brosnan singing and Italian arse pinchers

Friday again and the week has sped by in time for another weekend. Forgot to mention my mother's birthday on the blog which was on Tuesday. Working late I was unable to get up to Chapelton to see her but we all had dinner together on the Sunday night with Gran, which also encompassed the commercial Mothers Day, so we hit two birds with the one stone there (the phrase - we were not literally throwing stones at the elder women around the dining table). Ka and myself bought her that dreadful looking Mamma Mia film on DVD and the new DVD/CD collection from the great Annie Lennox. I'm sure the Mamma Mia film is not that dreadful - it just looks it. When it was originally released last year I suspect ever woman in Britain trooped out to see it as it had to be in the cinema for months. There was even a sing-a-long version released a month after the original, enticing the same women to go back out and see it all over again, filling cinemas all over the land with screeching housewives. The Reid women themselves all went for my Aunt Linda's birthday which is when my mother first seen it. Ka was invited but opted to go with her Mum and neice instead. Not a fan of Abba or Pierce Brosnan, Ka had not been keen up until then. What's worse than Pierce Brosnan? Pierce Brosnan singing! To Abba?! No thank you very much. Maybe it was the whole Colin Firth thing too? Women seem to have a thing for Colin Firth? Still insisting on calling him Mr Darcy and talking suddenly like they're out of breath? The swedish actor, Stellan Skarsgard was the third possible Dad in the film. The third Dad? As far as I know the plot revolves around Meryl Streep's daughter getting married and three Dads being at the wedding. The Meryl Streep Mum was obviously a bit of a tart in her younger days and she does not know which one is her daughter's father and invited all three former lovers along to be safe (being safe obviously not something she was used to 20 years ago). Anyway, all this takes place on some wonderful looking greek island. The beautiful shots of the idyllic Greek town ruined only by the processions of women waving their washing around their heads.
Talking of foreign destinations Ka and myself still have to sort out our honeymoon. We've got some vague ideas about Italy but nothing wholly decided yet. We did quite fancy Venice with romantic notions of journeys on candle lit godolas passing under the many beautiful buildings and bridges, singing about ice cream. As long as we avoid any dwarves in red raincoats we should be alright. Rome is also a place we'd be keen to visit with it's spectacular architecture. Apparently there's more to do in Rome too so we may end up visiting the two of them. On the phone to my Aunt Ann, down in London, the other week she did warn us of the Italian men. Apparently they have a habit of arse pinching. She told us her bottom was red raw by the time she got home from Italy. Not sure what areas of Rome she was staying in or when she was over there but I'm sure the arse pinching is probably no longer accepted as etiquette. I suspect I would be safe from the arse pinchers anyway. Florence, in the Tuscany region, has also been recommended to us, again with it's rich assets in architecture, art and its history with the Renaissance. My other Aunt Anne (or Mad Auntie Anne, as she was known to my mates - not that the other Aunt Ann is not mad but for some reason this particular Aunt Anne has been labelled for life!) and Uncle Ian are continuously raving about Florence as they have spent more than one new year there. Both Ka and myself have never been to Italy at all so it should be great wherever we end up.

Dire states

Does anyone still care about the whole presidential election in America? How much longer must it go on for? Along with the seemingly repeated news flashes of how global shares are in dire states, the panic on Wall Street and how our country is suffering as a result with banks, building societies and airlines slumping or closing all we hear about is moaning and fear mongering from the press about who is running what country. If it's not about Barack Obama and John McCain over the pond, it's about Gordon Brown and what a disaster he is making of his first year in office as PM. Give us a break and give it a rest. Let these guys do their jobs and get on with it. What can we British possibly do about any American elections (Obama! Obama! Obama!) and what is the deal with everyone attacking Brown? Is he solely responsible for the state of the financial market in the UK at the moment? Of course not! I almost wish they'd go back to the latest on Amy Winehouse, where she's been, what she's been doing and what she had for dinner last night. No, in fact, maybe it's not quite that bad yet... As my Aunt Ann said to me last week, the UK has seen a lot worse financial times (thanks to the Tories mostly) and probably will again. This ain't the worst of it. We still may have another year to go, at least.