Juvenile and silly

The end of my first week in Central Quay has arrived. After a week’s holiday I had to travel to Glasgow for my first day in the Daily Record building on Monday morning, unsure or what was to greet me in my new place of work. Scottish & Universal Newspapers, the regional division of Trinity Mirror, has now been merged and united, with the other Scottish Trinity divisions under one roof, a roof that is apparently newspaper shaped from the birds’ eye view. I always did wonder why the building had that strange shape about it and it was Iain, our I.T. guy, that informed us of this fact on Monday after we finally managed to get the Property computer up and running and fully functional again, or as fully functional as it can get. The Auto run Property PC computer sometimes needs a bit of a kick to get started. I sometimes wonder whether we should employ the use of an old engine hand crank to get it going.
The folk making room in their office space for us S&UN lot all seem very pleasant though I doubt I’ll be able to remember all the various names fired at me in the first week.
I found my new desk in the middle of the Design studio complete with stickered name tags. One Michael, another Mike. It’s amazing how many people assume my name preference to be Mike. Ka gives people into trouble for calling me Mike. Even Adwatch, the advert booking, tracking and management system that we work from, calls me Mike. Since when did a computer system have the audacity to become this familiar without your permission. Yes, okay, I’ve got to know Adwatch a lot better over the past twelve months since it’s introduction, got used to it’s own way of working, it’s tricks, idiosyncrasies and characteristics but I can’t remember ever giving it permission to address me as Mike. Still I suppose there must be worse names that I could be called. It’s better than TARDIS drawers anyway.
I borrowed a plate from Christine on Wednesday for my lunch. As Christine carefully unwrapped the plates that had travelled over from Hamilton, Lorna, who sits alongside Christine, informed me that if I ever required anything it was pretty much guaranteed that Christine would have it in her drawers. Christine laughed in agreement calling them her TARDIS drawers, which I suggested could be her new nickname. Obviously this took on slightly different connotations and as the other surrounding woman in the large open plan office started berating me I ran for cover, before Christine could frisbee me with another of her plates.
It was almost as bad as a time I was passing another lady in the Gillard Welch publishing office, where I used to work down south, more than a few years ago. The nice lady in question was just about to dig into a rather large, almost mutant like, item of fruit, which I quite innocently commented on as I passed.
“Gawd, that’s a big pear!” I gasped, with comic disbelief as I walked. For some reason this stopped the lady in her tracks just as she was about to bite into her fruit. By the look of her face, I’m not sure she realised I was merely being silly about the size of her mutant fruit and not at all meaning to be rude.
I don’t think she spoke to me for a week after that.
Another innocent innuendo not unlike Colin McG running down a Brussels subway train urgently shouting and offering to help a lady passenger with her melons after we’d all been at the extra strong guinness. The passenger’s melons had escaped and were rolling about, all over the carriage floor which colin, being the ever helpful gent that he is, quickly rushed to retrieve for her. Being in Brussels she probably only spoke French or Dutch so she probably wouldn’t have understood why the rest of us were laughing at Colin’s shouting as he ran after the rolling fruit whilst the other Belgian passengers looked on with furrowed brows.
All juvenile and silly, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with being juvenile and silly on the odd occasion, especially when it’s your birthday and you’re yet another year older.
Ka has now officially hit the mid thirties as it was her birthday on Monday for which I took a few hours holiday and left the office early in the blistering sunshine to be part of her family birthday carry out meal in Uddingston, this time supplied from the 4 Seasons restaurant in Hamilton to which I drove in the pelting rain. Ah, the spring weather, don’t you just love it?
It was then my turn on as Thursday as I hit 34 (thanks for all the birthday wishes by the way!). As it was my usual day off, Ka took a holiday and we had a relaxing morning, during which we popped to the shops and Ka bought her very first scratch card with which she won a tenner. Not bad for a first time. In the afternoon we headed off to the cinema to see 21 Jump Street, a very stupid film about two cops that go back to school to ensnare some drug dealers, whilst working undercover, pretending to be school kids. Silly and juvenile but a good laugh.
We then went out for dinner to the Torrance Hotel in the evening and had Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann round to the flat for a wee glass of wine and a slice of birthday caterpillar cake afterwards. Unfortunately Ka managed to put her specially bought number candles on the caterpillar the wrong way round and I ended up being 43?!
As Dad happily clicked away with my camera I refused to blow the candles out until the numerics were sorted out and we now have a couple of pictures of me burning my hands with birthday wax as I hastily swapped the two numbers around.
Friday was busy once more in the office but I did make the time to take part in the grand National lucky dip, in which you pull a horse from a paper cup for a pound. Ka had been lucky with her scratchcard so I thought I’d give it a shot. I got two horses, both of which, Andrew, my new work colleague, told me I had no chance with after reading the Daily Record’s notes on each. The horses were Arbor Supreme and Neptune Collonges.
You never know.

A trip to Brussels

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

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

DIY and a Brussels spout

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

Michael the grouch

It's not in my nature to be grouchy. So Ka has just text me. She is being sarcastic. I'm especially grouchy in the mornings. Yesterday I text her to apologise for being a grouch just, to be polite, as I was perhaps guilty of being vaguely grouchy with tiredness in the morning. She responded with a 'that's okay - I'll let you off' toned message. At first a little taken aback, I then realised she obviously did not understand. She was supposed to say something along the lines of: "You were not grouchy at all, I don't know what your talking about!".
Unfortunately I'm not much of a morning person. I'm fine once I leave the house and am even better by the time I've sat in the car, walked down the street, or jumped on the bus and am in the office wishing everyone a pleasant good morning. As soon as I wake though, I'm a grouch. I'm so grouchy I deserve to sleep in a dustbin on a suburban american street. One day I suspect Ka may just put me out in a dust bin so that I awaken, and grouch, a good distance away. This would enable her to watch her GMTV uninterupted by my moaning about the ridiculously bright eyed and bushy tailed, smiley presenters with their giant jug of orange juice that nobody ever seems to drink (if i was ever a guest I would make sure I got a good pint of the stuff). And Mr Motivator is back? Whose big idea was that? The sight of a guy in a skin tight, luminous leotard shouting and jumping about the screen only motivates me to turn the channel. He also only performs 'exercises' that seem to be simply walking on the spot with a big smile on your face. How can some people jump up out of bed and head out for a jog or the gym before work? Getting to work on time is my number one priority. If I was to confuse it by including a trip to the gym or a half comatose run round the block I'd be in trouble. I'm not sure I could operate the gym equipment half asleep. I'd probably fall asleep on the swiss ball. If jogging, I'd probably slow down into a lulled walk before collapsing back into a dream somewhere around Branchumhall.
Not sure why I'm so tired today though. Perhaps it is the shadow of invitation making hanging over me. For the wedding I've decided to create my own invitations thinking along the lines of "I'm a graphic artist, I'll do them!". Easy... Or is it? Quite like the design I'm finalising but am concerned about the printing. Either way, I'll need to get a move on with it. Ka has also been dealing with the last minute organisation her hen doo. There's just over two months to go till the actual Wedding and options do not seem to be as readily available now as they had been when she'd orignally wanted it organised. So she has been running up a good phone bill. I'll have to remember to grouch about that later. Meanwhile Kenny is currently investigating the hotels and accommodation in Brussels for the lads stag weekend. Us blokes would probably be happy enough to just take our sleeping bags or maybe find one of those aforementioned dust bins. I'll be happy as long as we don't wake up next to some big bird.