"It's pink enough!" Dad commented, as he walked into Sophie's new look room early on Saturday afternoon.
The second bedroom is currently being decorated and made fit for baby Sophie’s move from the moses basket in our bedroom in approximately a month’s time so last Thursday the carpet fitters were in. Arriving half an hour early, the carpet fitter, a friendly, bearded chap by the name of Caffrey, and his rather more impatient workmate, arrived in their beat up estate, nodding their greetings and obviously eager to get on.
The carpet men followed me up the stairs, climbing the steps behind me with their toolboxes, bags and the large folded carpet we'd picked for Sophie's room the week before in the local carpet store where we had chosen possibly the brightest, most vibrant, dark pink we could find. The kind of pink that makes you blink to adjust your vision. A pink that slaps you across the face upon first glance.
Just as I neared the top of the stairs I remembered Ka was currently lounging in the bath but with the bathroom door lying wide open for all the hallway to see. Rushing the last few steps I leaped, ignoring Ka's questioning frown in the mirror on the opposite wall, and swung the door closed just as the first carpet fitter turned the corner from the stairs on to the landing. The guys got straight to work, unfortunately leaving the bedroom door wide open, confining Ka to the bathroom, unless she fancied making a run for it across the hall in her towel, through the temporarily gathered nursery furniture, avoiding the piles of jagged carpet tack strips.
After some initial hammering and cutting the carpet fitters informed me they'd have to remove the doors from the room's in built wardrobe as they were too close to the floor and would require planing as they would not easily open over the room's new carpet and underlay.
Underlay. Something sorely lacking in the Reid household. Since purchasing we have sussed that there is no underlay whatsoever throughout the entire house. Before selling the owners kitted the whole abode out but only with a thin, cheap, pale brown carpet through which your feet can feel every floorboard. There's not a room in the house that doesn't have at least one creak, crack or complaint from the boards underneath as you walk over it.
After a mere forty minutes or so, during which Ka did manage to escape the bathroom at some point, the carpet fitters took their money packed up their tools and strips of pointed tacks and were off to their next stop somewhere in the Clyde tower, one of EK’s lovely tower blocks, leaving Ka and myself to admire their workmanship.
A floor or pure, luxurious dark pink met our feet as we stepped into Sophie's room. In fact, along with the underlay, walking on Sophie's new deep pink carpet was a veritable bouncy castle compared to the flooring anywhere else in the house. We spent more than five minutes simply walking around Sophie's room, just for the novelty of walking over such a soft, comfortable floor. No boards creaked, none dipped underfoot, none sprung up at the other end of the room when you stepped on it's opposite end.
It was great.
But Ka, being Ka, wanted the furniture back in Sophie's room immediately, so my ongoing, aimless, carpet wandering had to be cut short as there was work to be done. The furniture that my Dad and I had easily lifted out from the room the previous evening and shifted into the study and hallway had to be moved back in, but only with my own strength and Ka's help.
Mamas and Papas furniture may look small and cute for a nursery but it ain't light. It's chunky stuff, made from solid pine and not easy to lift on your own, especially when it's still full of vests, outfits, jackets, snow suits, bibs, my mum's knitted cardigans, tiny shoes and elmo slippers. Ka and myself ended up on our knees, maneuvering it back into the room slowly, lifting each end off the floor by only a couple of inches, to get it through the door, before stepping it into position once inside the large square room.
After some grunting and a bit of shunting all the white furniture was back in it's rightful place with the exception of one thing. Or rather two things. The old wardrobe doors lay against the wall, looking, decidedly sorry for themselves. One of them was looking especially dodgy after being taken down from the wardrobe frame, it's back panel shaking at one end, paint cracking and peeling from it's joints. These doors needed more than a plane, I thought, they needed a skip.
So when Saturday came around my Dad and I took a trip to Cornes, the local DIY shop whilst Ka and Sophie took a trip to the shops. At Cornes Dad and I enquired about the best ways to get some new wardrobe doors. We spoke to Bill, obviously one of the shop’s elder statesmen, but who turned out to be a great help. As I told him about my wardrobe he stood and listened, scratching his bearded chin thoughtfully, sometimes hinting for me to repeat myself for the hearing aid perched behind his right ear, and suggested we get back up the road and measure the wardrobe frame properly. At first I nodded and thought I’d get on with my day, confident I’d get round to it at some point only to find Dad driving us back home to get the correct measurements. After another drive back down to the DIY store we approached old Bill again who looked over my hastily written measurements through his thick lenses. Bill nodded, humming a little and made a few suggestions, we decided it was probably better all round to buy a normal six panel interior door and cut it up the middle. The idea sounded a bit dodgy to me but before I knew it Dad had nodded and told me to get on with it.
Bill disappeared out into the store’s back shop and sauntered back within 5 minutes with a successfully halved door. He had already slotted a block of wood into fill each of the now open wounds on both halves of the door and together with nails, hinges and glue my Dad and I left Cornes with a new job to do as Bill told his boss, Mr Cornes, he was heading out for lunch, perhaps believing that would be the last he'd see of us.
Once home we set up a temporary workshop in the kitchen, using the old foldaway dining table covered with my painting sheet as a work bench. We glued each of the wooden blocks into each of the door’s sides, reinforcing them with a small tack, headed up the stairs with each and found that neither would fit the height of the wardrobe frame and even if they had there was to be approximately an inch of space between the doors. So off we went back to Cornes, and approached old Bill again, now back from his lunch, but a little uncertain looking, as if he couldn't quite remember us. He took the two doors back off us and disappeared into the back shop again to lose an inch off their height. Within moments he was back out again with the newly shortened doors and helped pick out some strips of wood for us to run up the inside of the wardrobe frame in order to reduce it's width. Before too long we were on our way back home again.
On getting home, for the third time, we fastened the wood to the frame and sized the doors up within. We then fitted the hinges on to the doors, after a quick telephone call of help to the Cornes store again in which we spoke to the shop owner, presumably Mr Cornes, after finding ourselves uncertain as to how to fit the hinges. We then carried them upstairs and screwed the first, left door, into the slightly modified wardrobe frame only to find it would not open smoothly. We’d put the hinges on the wrong way around. Mr Cornes was wrong with his advice. We’d have been better talking to old Bill. So we took all the hinges off the doors and refastened them the other way around. Fortunately this seemed to work. Just.
After screwing the doors into place we found that the doors would not shut, unless opened and closed together, so one of them, or maybe both, still needs a little planning in order to close one after the other but it’s only a minor fault. Dad and myself finished up at around quarter past five, just in time for me to head down to the town centre and retrieve the wife and daughter from the shops.
Dad visited with Mum and Lynsey Ann for lunch on Easter Sunday, bringing his drill with him to enable us to provide the doors with their finishing touch. Their knobs.
So after a couple of wraps, a few cups of tea and a few light choice hot cross buns we drilled two holes on each door and fitted the two silver doorknobs before closing each door over with a smug satisfaction. A satisfaction that was slightly marred by the fact that each of the two silver door knobs were different sizes. According to the back of their packets there was a half inch difference, apparently. Again, another minor quibble and one that can be easily rectified...eventually. The wardrobe now looks far better than it had done before. The pessimist in me would have never thought the job could have looked so good in the end, though I doubt me or Dad will be changing our professions any time soon.
So thanks to the carpet fitters, old Bill in Cornes, and Dad, Sophie now has the best looking room in the house, and the most silent. All it needs now is for me to get to work with the gloss paint on the wardrobe and a new, correctly sized, silver doorknob.
That’ll mean another trip to Cornes. Hopefully I’ll manage without old Bill for that visit!
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Sunday, 24 February 2013
A chance of showers
We have shower power!
Yes, we finally have a shower in our new home.
Since moving in towards the end of August Ka and myself have been cleansing ourselves in the bathtub. Bathing in the tub every morning or night was a novelty at first but soon became a pain, especially when you had to stand around for five minutes at seven o'clock in the morning whilst the rest of the house slept, blurry eyed and shivering, whilst the bath slowly filled up with water. I'd end up kneeling in the tub, facing the taps, ducking my face forward under the water, bowing repeatedly in an effort to waken myself up, probably looking like a watery Damian Lewis.
We purchased the shower back in September on one of our very short visits to B&Q. The visits are short because the wife can't stay in a B&Q, or any kind of home improvement or DIY store, for longer than five minutes, itching to leave as soon as she can.
Whether you’re in for something essential or just a wander, Ka will get impatient within minutes.
I've been pondering on buying a drill for the past few years and always end up borrowing Dad's when there's been need of holes in my walls because of these all too short visits. If I ever get the chance to wander I'll look over the bathroom suites, the doors, the shelving and perhaps pop out to the garden department, dreaming of building a better home, all the while Ka will be huffing and puffing all the way behind me.
It's ridiculous really, considering the amount of clothes shops she drags me round when she's in need of a new outfit, and I don't even get anything out of that. At least being dragged around B&Q could lead to some stylish home improvements or new decor for our home. What do I get out of being dragged round Debenhams, Zara and River Island apart from yet another mind-numbing shopping experience. Ka’s idea of shopping usually involves finding something relevant in the first shop, spending four more hours going around other shops, and then ending up back in the first shop you started in and carrying out the purchase of the item found on the first visit, a purchase that, if made first time around, could have saved you four hours of your life.
You can get a lot done in four hours. Paint many a wall, put up a few shelves or maybe just settle back and get a good chunk of your book read.
Perhaps not fit an electric shower though.
We were told fitting a shower was going to be a costly exercise as the large electrical cable would have to be fitted into the house travelling up from the downstairs fuse box into the loft and then down the bathroom wall into the newly acquired shower which would require around £70 worth of expensive thick electrical cable. By the time January came round I was more than willing to spend the money. We needed a shower and I'd had enough of worshipping in the bathtub every morning.
After contacting various plumbers, I found that many of them showed little interest, having to rely on electricians to help them out on the wiring side thus making their part in the operation rather profitless (in so far as a plumber is concerned anyway). The last plumber we got in charged us £25 for a washer for our downstairs toilet so we wanted to make sure we got the right guy in for the job. Eventually one of the many plumbers contacted me via text and popped round to the house last week to size up the operation. It just so happened this guy took care of the electrical side as well as the plumbing so he was more than willing to help us out.
David the plumber arrived early morning yesterday to measure up, asked for £120 and then disappeared again to get materials. Before leaving the house in the morning, I’d somehow got it into Ka’s head that there was the feint possibility he was a conman as he’d asked for more than half the money upfront. Keeping this in mind Ka ended up getting a little jittery when the ‘getting materials’ absence stretched to an hour long and took it upon herself to check the toolbox he’d left behind, just to make sure there were actually tools inside and not a small note saying something along the lines of “thanks for the £120”.
Thankfully, our suspicious minds proved to be just that and David strolled up the front path at around half past eleven and got straight to work. Unfortunately he didn’t finish until half past seven, disturbing not only little Sophie’s routine but, more importantly, Ka’s with it.
David the plumber was a laid back, easy going kind of guy who managed to drive Ka a little bit nuts with his favourite phase, “slowly but surely”.
Every time I asked David the plumber how he was getting on he’d hum these three words in reply which soon had Ka growling with impatience.
By the time the shower was out it’s box and up on the tiled wall of our bathroom where it belonged the bathtub was full of dust and cement, the walls and ceilings covered in holes and cracks, some of the house’s carpets had been lifted disturbing floorboards and skirting boards and the two bigger kitchen cupboards had been emptied in order to gain access to the stopcock, so the kitchen was covered in pots, pans, Tupperware and oven dishes, not to mention the entirety of Ka’s cleaning equipment, a vast artillery of cleaning products. You’ve never seen so many Mr Muscles. As a result Ka was on the edge of her seat the whole day, fidgeting, moving around nervously and talking through gritted teeth as the dust swirled around us.
Sophie, on the other hand, was quite happy. She lay back in her deck chair, laughing and giggling at the disturbance, smiling and intermittently laughing whilst I gave my calming talks to Ka.
David the plumber smiled at Sophie and reckoned she was a cracker, revealing that he himself had four kids.
Four kids? Four?
Good gawd, no wonder plumbers charge so much for their services if they all have the same family planning issues.
Whilst David had been out getting his materials that morning I had been driving around Glasgow. The car had to get serviced and I had a sleep monitor to pick up from Yorkhill Childrens’ Hospital which Sophie had to get plugged into overnight.
The service cost me £112 at Chaz’s favourite servicing garage in Hillington Industrial estate. Whilst the car had been in, I went a wander with my latest tome, ‘Cloud Atlas’ by David Mitchell, the author, not the googly eyed bloke from ‘Peep Show’. After almost buying a new bathroom in Bathroom Continental and successfully leaving with only a business card and some growls from a grumpy looking saleslady I strolled down to the Burger King and bought a hot chocolate and read my book.
‘Cloud Atlas’ is being released as a big, impressive looking movie next week, directed by German filmmaker, Tom Tykwer, who directed the fantastic ‘Run Lola Run’ back in 1998, and the Wachowski brothers, one of which is now female, and presumably a sister, since the two of them were made famous for creating the Matrix Trilogy. Starring Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent and Halle Berry, among others, the movie looks like a bit of a ‘must see’ but unfortunately I must read the book first. I have a week. A near impossible feat which I’m sure I’ll fail in achieving but I’ll give it a shot.
After walking back up and settling down in the garage’s waiting room to continue reading, next to another car owner gent, the mechanic informed me I had a dodgy handbrake which needed attention, immediately putting my service charge up. Settling down to get on with the story of musician, Robert Frobisher, three loud women sat down in the chairs opposite. The two sisters and their mother spent the next 45 minutes chatting up the mechanic behind the reception, loudly, talking about their planned dinners for that night, noisily and shrilly berating the younger sister of the two for not knowing how to cook sausages (she had been planning on deep frying them). Once the car was ready and the handbrake in full working order, I politely refused an invitation to dinner and headed to Yorkhill.
As Sophie has been born with a cleft in the roof of her mouth she has to go into hospital for an operation at some point this year to close up the gap in her soft palate. Before this takes place Yorkhill requested that we plug Sophie into a sleep monitor for the night in order to record her breathing, her heart rate and her oxygen levels throughout a normal night’s sleep. So Sophie was wired up before bedtime, the wire sensor wrapped around her foot as it refused to stay on her big toe, which is where the doctor had advised it to be positioned. With Sophie being only three months old her big toe is not exactly big anyway so wrapping any form of taped sensor around the digit was going to be a challenge to begin with and that was before she started wiggling it from side to side in an effort to escape my fiddling hands whilst looking up at me with her big, innocent blue eyes, the hint of a smile over her lips. The wee tyke managed to get the sensor off twice during the night, making the machine’s alarm go off. The shrill, short, bleeping made both Ka and myself spring awake from our beds in shock and look around the darkened room in confusion before we realised what was going on. Sophie remained sound asleep, only flinching a little when I rummaged through her blankets and wrestled to pull her foot from within in order to get the sensor attached once more. We should find out in the next few weeks when Sophie’s operation will be. Whenever that’ll be, I’m sure I’ll still be attempting to read ‘Cloud Atlas’.
Yes, we finally have a shower in our new home.
Since moving in towards the end of August Ka and myself have been cleansing ourselves in the bathtub. Bathing in the tub every morning or night was a novelty at first but soon became a pain, especially when you had to stand around for five minutes at seven o'clock in the morning whilst the rest of the house slept, blurry eyed and shivering, whilst the bath slowly filled up with water. I'd end up kneeling in the tub, facing the taps, ducking my face forward under the water, bowing repeatedly in an effort to waken myself up, probably looking like a watery Damian Lewis.
We purchased the shower back in September on one of our very short visits to B&Q. The visits are short because the wife can't stay in a B&Q, or any kind of home improvement or DIY store, for longer than five minutes, itching to leave as soon as she can.
Whether you’re in for something essential or just a wander, Ka will get impatient within minutes.
I've been pondering on buying a drill for the past few years and always end up borrowing Dad's when there's been need of holes in my walls because of these all too short visits. If I ever get the chance to wander I'll look over the bathroom suites, the doors, the shelving and perhaps pop out to the garden department, dreaming of building a better home, all the while Ka will be huffing and puffing all the way behind me.
It's ridiculous really, considering the amount of clothes shops she drags me round when she's in need of a new outfit, and I don't even get anything out of that. At least being dragged around B&Q could lead to some stylish home improvements or new decor for our home. What do I get out of being dragged round Debenhams, Zara and River Island apart from yet another mind-numbing shopping experience. Ka’s idea of shopping usually involves finding something relevant in the first shop, spending four more hours going around other shops, and then ending up back in the first shop you started in and carrying out the purchase of the item found on the first visit, a purchase that, if made first time around, could have saved you four hours of your life.
You can get a lot done in four hours. Paint many a wall, put up a few shelves or maybe just settle back and get a good chunk of your book read.
Perhaps not fit an electric shower though.
We were told fitting a shower was going to be a costly exercise as the large electrical cable would have to be fitted into the house travelling up from the downstairs fuse box into the loft and then down the bathroom wall into the newly acquired shower which would require around £70 worth of expensive thick electrical cable. By the time January came round I was more than willing to spend the money. We needed a shower and I'd had enough of worshipping in the bathtub every morning.
After contacting various plumbers, I found that many of them showed little interest, having to rely on electricians to help them out on the wiring side thus making their part in the operation rather profitless (in so far as a plumber is concerned anyway). The last plumber we got in charged us £25 for a washer for our downstairs toilet so we wanted to make sure we got the right guy in for the job. Eventually one of the many plumbers contacted me via text and popped round to the house last week to size up the operation. It just so happened this guy took care of the electrical side as well as the plumbing so he was more than willing to help us out.
David the plumber arrived early morning yesterday to measure up, asked for £120 and then disappeared again to get materials. Before leaving the house in the morning, I’d somehow got it into Ka’s head that there was the feint possibility he was a conman as he’d asked for more than half the money upfront. Keeping this in mind Ka ended up getting a little jittery when the ‘getting materials’ absence stretched to an hour long and took it upon herself to check the toolbox he’d left behind, just to make sure there were actually tools inside and not a small note saying something along the lines of “thanks for the £120”.
Thankfully, our suspicious minds proved to be just that and David strolled up the front path at around half past eleven and got straight to work. Unfortunately he didn’t finish until half past seven, disturbing not only little Sophie’s routine but, more importantly, Ka’s with it.
David the plumber was a laid back, easy going kind of guy who managed to drive Ka a little bit nuts with his favourite phase, “slowly but surely”.
Every time I asked David the plumber how he was getting on he’d hum these three words in reply which soon had Ka growling with impatience.
By the time the shower was out it’s box and up on the tiled wall of our bathroom where it belonged the bathtub was full of dust and cement, the walls and ceilings covered in holes and cracks, some of the house’s carpets had been lifted disturbing floorboards and skirting boards and the two bigger kitchen cupboards had been emptied in order to gain access to the stopcock, so the kitchen was covered in pots, pans, Tupperware and oven dishes, not to mention the entirety of Ka’s cleaning equipment, a vast artillery of cleaning products. You’ve never seen so many Mr Muscles. As a result Ka was on the edge of her seat the whole day, fidgeting, moving around nervously and talking through gritted teeth as the dust swirled around us.
Sophie, on the other hand, was quite happy. She lay back in her deck chair, laughing and giggling at the disturbance, smiling and intermittently laughing whilst I gave my calming talks to Ka.
David the plumber smiled at Sophie and reckoned she was a cracker, revealing that he himself had four kids.
Four kids? Four?
Good gawd, no wonder plumbers charge so much for their services if they all have the same family planning issues.
Whilst David had been out getting his materials that morning I had been driving around Glasgow. The car had to get serviced and I had a sleep monitor to pick up from Yorkhill Childrens’ Hospital which Sophie had to get plugged into overnight.
The service cost me £112 at Chaz’s favourite servicing garage in Hillington Industrial estate. Whilst the car had been in, I went a wander with my latest tome, ‘Cloud Atlas’ by David Mitchell, the author, not the googly eyed bloke from ‘Peep Show’. After almost buying a new bathroom in Bathroom Continental and successfully leaving with only a business card and some growls from a grumpy looking saleslady I strolled down to the Burger King and bought a hot chocolate and read my book.
‘Cloud Atlas’ is being released as a big, impressive looking movie next week, directed by German filmmaker, Tom Tykwer, who directed the fantastic ‘Run Lola Run’ back in 1998, and the Wachowski brothers, one of which is now female, and presumably a sister, since the two of them were made famous for creating the Matrix Trilogy. Starring Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent and Halle Berry, among others, the movie looks like a bit of a ‘must see’ but unfortunately I must read the book first. I have a week. A near impossible feat which I’m sure I’ll fail in achieving but I’ll give it a shot.
After walking back up and settling down in the garage’s waiting room to continue reading, next to another car owner gent, the mechanic informed me I had a dodgy handbrake which needed attention, immediately putting my service charge up. Settling down to get on with the story of musician, Robert Frobisher, three loud women sat down in the chairs opposite. The two sisters and their mother spent the next 45 minutes chatting up the mechanic behind the reception, loudly, talking about their planned dinners for that night, noisily and shrilly berating the younger sister of the two for not knowing how to cook sausages (she had been planning on deep frying them). Once the car was ready and the handbrake in full working order, I politely refused an invitation to dinner and headed to Yorkhill.
As Sophie has been born with a cleft in the roof of her mouth she has to go into hospital for an operation at some point this year to close up the gap in her soft palate. Before this takes place Yorkhill requested that we plug Sophie into a sleep monitor for the night in order to record her breathing, her heart rate and her oxygen levels throughout a normal night’s sleep. So Sophie was wired up before bedtime, the wire sensor wrapped around her foot as it refused to stay on her big toe, which is where the doctor had advised it to be positioned. With Sophie being only three months old her big toe is not exactly big anyway so wrapping any form of taped sensor around the digit was going to be a challenge to begin with and that was before she started wiggling it from side to side in an effort to escape my fiddling hands whilst looking up at me with her big, innocent blue eyes, the hint of a smile over her lips. The wee tyke managed to get the sensor off twice during the night, making the machine’s alarm go off. The shrill, short, bleeping made both Ka and myself spring awake from our beds in shock and look around the darkened room in confusion before we realised what was going on. Sophie remained sound asleep, only flinching a little when I rummaged through her blankets and wrestled to pull her foot from within in order to get the sensor attached once more. We should find out in the next few weeks when Sophie’s operation will be. Whenever that’ll be, I’m sure I’ll still be attempting to read ‘Cloud Atlas’.
Monday, 12 November 2012
A lovely machine
A week today.
One week. Not even 7 days away now.
Baby Reid number 2 will be born.
Ka and myself are having kittens.
No, not kittens, a baby.
We’re nervous, we’re excited. We’re sad, we’re brooding. We’re scared, we’re fearful. We’re optimistic, we’re struggling. We’re just feeling flamin’ everything at the moment and we’ve got another 6 and a bit days to go!
Baby Reid has been keeping us busy though and constantly reminding us of her presence.
On one of the first days of noises from the car's undersides, discussed in the last post, we had our 34 week scan, at which baby number two was bouncing around, quite the norm, inside Ka's not inconsiderate bump. The consultant was to give us our date for the birth at the end of the appointment but realised she'd forgotten her diary making us wait until Ka's midwife appointment the next Tuesday. It was then that it was decided that it was to be the 19th of November that Baby Reid number 2 will be helped out of her little cocoon and pulled into the world and, all going well, we'll be celebrating the birth of another baby girl.
Baby’s certainly making herself known, even before she’s made an appearance.
She's going to be a lively little blighter by the looks of things.
She's been jumping, kicking and moving around in there quite a lot in the past months, freaking people out, fascinating the kids in Ka's nursery class and keeping me occupied on an evening.
Baby communicates with me via punches or kicks from within the womb (obviously taking after her mother). I'll lean over Ka's big belly bump and talk to her only to get a near immediate response on most instances with a kick. Baby will also push a little limb out, causing the perfect ball shape of Ka's bump to grow small, lumpy shapes which bob up and down over the round surface like Clangers popping their heads out from within their moon.
Baby likes apples too. Moments after Ka has eaten an apple, Baby will move joyfully around, inside her wee shell, as if hyped up on juicy, applely goodness (Perhaps when Baby eats an apple, an amazing transformation will occur – she doesn’t get any bananas though, Ka’s went off them).
On the day of her 32 week scan the consultant began, as usual, by squirting the thick, ultrasound jelly over Ka's bump and placed the wired scanning device down on to it. Almost instantly the instrument was very nearly knocked completely from the consultant’s hand as baby gave it a damn good kick from inside giving the consultant a little fright.
On Saturday there we were sitting in the cinema, waiting to see Argo with Ka’s brother, Colin, (a pretty damn good movie, quite tense, almost inducing) when Baby started shuffling around again.
We pondered what baby was up to in there. Colin suggested Baby was tidying up. Giving the place a wee clean around, like mother like daughter, which would also explain why the wee baby can’t sit at peace for two minutes.
Colin placed his hand ever so gently on to the ball of Ka’s bump, barely touching it, as if scared of disturbing Baby in her housework, or womb work. Ka huffed taking a hold of Colin’s hand and told him that he wasn’t going to feel anything touching the bump like that and placed it more firmly down upon the belly mound. Once more, almost immediately, Baby gave her Uncle Colin a good kick at which Colin yelped, his bawl echoing throughout the dark waiting cinema.
Friday's scan marked week 36 and we now only have one more week of freedom, sorry, waiting, remaining.
Preparations are at a busy, non stop, high. After painting the newly fitted doors in the upstairs hall throughout the previous days, I spent the entirety of last Thursday building nursery furniture, a nice, bright, white, and fairly solid, Mamas and Papas wardrobe, chest of drawers and cot. Obviously the cot wasn’t vital at the present time but once I’d successfully completed the other two I thought I’d better just get on with it. As a result I woke up on the Friday morning aching, after effects from all the twisting, screwing and lifting. I also finished painting all the upstairs hall’s doors over the weekend, all of which are now nicely finished with a neat gloss white, with only a few wee dried drips here and there (hopefully no one will notice them).
Obviously Ka’s been busy too, organising her bags for the hospital, baby’s bags for the hospital and other bags for the hospital, although I’m not sure who the other bags are for? As soon as I’d finished the furniture on Thursday, Ka got to work folding away the few clothes we have already, into the large drawers, waiting on an owner.
There’s a whole drawer, of the new chest, dedicated to Mum’s knitting. My Mum’s been knitting since the summer. Cardigans, bonnets, wee jackets, skirts, blankets, teddy bears with floppy heads and even a mouse. No matter how much I insist she still hasn’t set up an etsy account to make herself a couple of quid out of her fantastic talents.
Baby is going to have plenty of cardigans even if she doesn’t have a name.
We have no idea what her name's going to be.
Lucy was one in a million.
Not only was she our first child but she also symbolised the first time Ka and myself have ever 100% agreed upon anything together. Her name. The only name. We had a boy's name in mind for the other instance, of course, but no second girl's name. And we still don't.
At the moment Baby is called Bertha.
At first it was a joke.
Bertha as in 'Big Bertha', following a sudden burst in growth at around week 30. Nothing at all to do with the large German war guns used in World War One or the big green, factory machine from the animated kids tv series that produced farting noises and cuckoo clocks.
Unfortunately family members are now calling her Bertha, the kids in Ka's nursery expect her to be called Bertha, and now Ka insists I call her Bertha.
We're going to have to think of a better name and quick.
Anyone got any suggestions?
One week. Not even 7 days away now.
Baby Reid number 2 will be born.
Ka and myself are having kittens.
No, not kittens, a baby.
We’re nervous, we’re excited. We’re sad, we’re brooding. We’re scared, we’re fearful. We’re optimistic, we’re struggling. We’re just feeling flamin’ everything at the moment and we’ve got another 6 and a bit days to go!
Baby Reid has been keeping us busy though and constantly reminding us of her presence.
On one of the first days of noises from the car's undersides, discussed in the last post, we had our 34 week scan, at which baby number two was bouncing around, quite the norm, inside Ka's not inconsiderate bump. The consultant was to give us our date for the birth at the end of the appointment but realised she'd forgotten her diary making us wait until Ka's midwife appointment the next Tuesday. It was then that it was decided that it was to be the 19th of November that Baby Reid number 2 will be helped out of her little cocoon and pulled into the world and, all going well, we'll be celebrating the birth of another baby girl.
Baby’s certainly making herself known, even before she’s made an appearance.
She's going to be a lively little blighter by the looks of things.
She's been jumping, kicking and moving around in there quite a lot in the past months, freaking people out, fascinating the kids in Ka's nursery class and keeping me occupied on an evening.
Baby communicates with me via punches or kicks from within the womb (obviously taking after her mother). I'll lean over Ka's big belly bump and talk to her only to get a near immediate response on most instances with a kick. Baby will also push a little limb out, causing the perfect ball shape of Ka's bump to grow small, lumpy shapes which bob up and down over the round surface like Clangers popping their heads out from within their moon.
Baby likes apples too. Moments after Ka has eaten an apple, Baby will move joyfully around, inside her wee shell, as if hyped up on juicy, applely goodness (Perhaps when Baby eats an apple, an amazing transformation will occur – she doesn’t get any bananas though, Ka’s went off them).
On the day of her 32 week scan the consultant began, as usual, by squirting the thick, ultrasound jelly over Ka's bump and placed the wired scanning device down on to it. Almost instantly the instrument was very nearly knocked completely from the consultant’s hand as baby gave it a damn good kick from inside giving the consultant a little fright.
On Saturday there we were sitting in the cinema, waiting to see Argo with Ka’s brother, Colin, (a pretty damn good movie, quite tense, almost inducing) when Baby started shuffling around again.
We pondered what baby was up to in there. Colin suggested Baby was tidying up. Giving the place a wee clean around, like mother like daughter, which would also explain why the wee baby can’t sit at peace for two minutes.
Colin placed his hand ever so gently on to the ball of Ka’s bump, barely touching it, as if scared of disturbing Baby in her housework, or womb work. Ka huffed taking a hold of Colin’s hand and told him that he wasn’t going to feel anything touching the bump like that and placed it more firmly down upon the belly mound. Once more, almost immediately, Baby gave her Uncle Colin a good kick at which Colin yelped, his bawl echoing throughout the dark waiting cinema.
Friday's scan marked week 36 and we now only have one more week of freedom, sorry, waiting, remaining.
Preparations are at a busy, non stop, high. After painting the newly fitted doors in the upstairs hall throughout the previous days, I spent the entirety of last Thursday building nursery furniture, a nice, bright, white, and fairly solid, Mamas and Papas wardrobe, chest of drawers and cot. Obviously the cot wasn’t vital at the present time but once I’d successfully completed the other two I thought I’d better just get on with it. As a result I woke up on the Friday morning aching, after effects from all the twisting, screwing and lifting. I also finished painting all the upstairs hall’s doors over the weekend, all of which are now nicely finished with a neat gloss white, with only a few wee dried drips here and there (hopefully no one will notice them).
Obviously Ka’s been busy too, organising her bags for the hospital, baby’s bags for the hospital and other bags for the hospital, although I’m not sure who the other bags are for? As soon as I’d finished the furniture on Thursday, Ka got to work folding away the few clothes we have already, into the large drawers, waiting on an owner.
There’s a whole drawer, of the new chest, dedicated to Mum’s knitting. My Mum’s been knitting since the summer. Cardigans, bonnets, wee jackets, skirts, blankets, teddy bears with floppy heads and even a mouse. No matter how much I insist she still hasn’t set up an etsy account to make herself a couple of quid out of her fantastic talents.
Baby is going to have plenty of cardigans even if she doesn’t have a name.
We have no idea what her name's going to be.
Lucy was one in a million.
Not only was she our first child but she also symbolised the first time Ka and myself have ever 100% agreed upon anything together. Her name. The only name. We had a boy's name in mind for the other instance, of course, but no second girl's name. And we still don't.
At the moment Baby is called Bertha.
At first it was a joke.
Unfortunately family members are now calling her Bertha, the kids in Ka's nursery expect her to be called Bertha, and now Ka insists I call her Bertha.
We're going to have to think of a better name and quick.
Anyone got any suggestions?
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Door locks, brake pads and hoover shocks
Well, whilst two blokes spend 2 billion dollars publicising themselves over the pond in an effort to control 50 states I've also been spending big money. Okay, maybe not 2 billion dollars, but certainly money that can’t afford to be spent.
In the past week or so I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds.
No, I'm not showing off.
I've spent literally hundreds. Hundreds that I don’t have.
Two weekends ago a familiar sounding grinding noise started growling up from underneath the car in transit. With little driving detective work I assumed it to be the front passenger side wheel pads, in dire need of replacement. As quickly as I could, on the Monday morning, without making the repair bill have to cover brake discs too, I took the car over the squinty bridge, sorry, the Clyde Arc road bridge, to a small, grubby looking garage on Govan Road. Within hours the little, bespectacled mechanic had called me to inform me that all four brake pads were needing replaced. The mechanic himself admitted he'd thought the noise had been coming from the front passenger side but upon investigation had discovered the noise to be coming from one of the rear wheels, and not only that but each of the car's brake pads were in need of restoration. Upon hearing me humming and hawing over the phone the mechanic must have mistook my noises for mistrust and insisted he’d keep all four of the old brake pads as proof to which I obviously insisted wasn’t necessary and sighing heavily, told him to proceed with the job.
The bad news didn't stop there though. At around 4pm that afternoon I ventured back over the squinty bridge, through the rush hour traffic. The cheery little mechanic immediately insisted on showing me the duff brake pads, (probably the oldest trick in the book – he’s probably got a drawer full of them!) and then informed me that my two front tyres were illegal.
Bald on the inside apparently. (Illegal for being bald? Surely that’s baldist?)
I had spent £130 quid on two Dunlops for the front last November and the two of them were already duff and fine worthy. So after getting back to the office I made yet another visit to tyreshopper.com, a lot sooner than I thought I'd be visiting, and sorted out another expensive pair of rubbers. On the same day, from the mild comfort of my office desk, I also paid off various bills, reminder notices and last chance saloon letters and ordered my new 6 month tax disc, successfully making it one of the most expensive days in my working history, all whilst sitting on my arse. Next up will be my car insurance, due shortly, along with the good old MOT, which, going by recent standards, will probably throw up a few surprises for me, all just in time for Christmas when you expected to spend lots of money on other people.
Days later, last Thursday, I gave a wee bloke £120 for having a large tantrum in my house.
Recently I bought new, interior doors for all the rooms leading off from the upstairs landing which all started when Dad and Colin successfully burst the bathroom door on the night of the house warming. The door was on it’s last legs, or hinges, anyway, so I don’t blame them. My Dad had went to leave the bathroom and found the door had locked him in so he ended up shouting down to Colin, who was standing out in the back garden at the time, minding his own business, smoking a cigarette. Always willing to help Colin made his way upstairs and between the two of them they managed to obliterate the bathroom door.
So while I was getting a new bathroom door I thought it’d probably be a good idea to get the rest of the doors done. Ordering them over the phone with Cornes, the local DIY store, here in EK, I asked them to book me a joiner to get them fitted. The joiner in question phoned me up a few days later and made a date to fit the doors, two and a half weeks later, at half past 8 in the morning (that was the next available date in his diary).
So, two and a half weeks later, on my way back from taking the wife to work in the morning, the joiner phoned my at 8.25am, leaving demanding messages on both my mobile, sitting alongside me in the car, and my home phone, stating he was 'supposed' to be fitting doors at my house that morning and that he had no access to the house. I dialled his number as I drove on the via the hands free speaker phone as I approached my street. Again, he informed me that he had no access to the house.
No access to the house?, I thought. I’m quite glad of that really. Is that not why they put locks in doors? A joiner of all people should know that, surely?
Immediately recognising the wee man that jumped out the van, but from where I wasn't sure, I let him into the house and he got himself set up. Through another ten minutes of conversation we eventually sussed that it was from the gym that I recognised him. I've seen him strutting about the Nuffield gym on occasion talking to folk in his loud, but not unfriendly, voice, talking to some of the bigger, muscle-bound guys on occasion who quite often are double the height of him. I wondered why this was why he spoke so loudly in normal conversation, conversation that continued as he worked at the four doors.
After an hour or so the joiner took a break to drink a protein shake, a drink which he really wanted me to know about, for whatever reason. Unfortunately I perhaps said the wrong thing by moaning something along the lines of, "you're not one of them are you?". It turns out he is (as is Andrea, my colleague in work, who models herself on Jodie Marsh) and the wee joiner has been trying to build his muscles up like some of the other guys in the gym. Refraining from stating that there probably weren't enough hours in the day, never mind the year, I got on with some paperwork and bill paying.
It wasn't until later that things really turned uncomfortable.
The joiner left the bathroom door to last. The other three doors had normal, nice silver handles bought with them, but the bathroom was slightly different in that its handle design included a lock mechanism. A perfectly normal lock mechanism which you’d find on most bathroom doors. Unfortunately it turned out to be not so normal as the wee joiner was soon swearing, shouting and jumping about in the bathroom. He's only been attempting to fit the lock handle for approximately five or ten minutes before, his face started turning a nasty shade of red and he started turning the air blue, jumping about, throwing electric screwdrivers around the bathroom whilst twisting the new handle up and down.
"F**king cheap sh**e!", he kept shouting, his voice echoing through the house. I had had no idea I was ordering cheap sh*te with my phonecall to Cornes two and a half weeks ago. At the time I'd thought £13 for a lock handle was expensive enough.
After another ten minutes of swearing and raging he disassembled the lock handle, growling furiously as he went and sped off back down to Cornes to get a second under the impression we'd been given a dodgy one.
I’ve met an awful lot of wee men who seem to have a great deal of anger built up inside them. An anger that can be quite potent and unexpected when it bursts. I’ve known a few short men in my life who’ve all had similar personalities. I’m no tall person myself but each of the guys I’m thinking off were all definitely in the shorter department and all had similar, slightly unstable characteristics. I’m certainly not saying all short people have this tendency, I’m just saying I am prone to encountering them. One minute these guys seem jovial, happy and perfectly normal in conversation until something happens. The something could be an occurrence, a statement, a joke or some kind of small, not obviously major, annoyance that makes them seem to boil up and explode.
This joiner, for instance, was highly affected by the bathroom door not working, after a mere five minutes or so of trying to fit it properly. As soon as he spent longer than five minutes working on it he just seemed to explode in a barrage of abuse and Basil Fawltyesque rage.
Needless to say, after the joiner’s return from Cornes, the second lock handle was no better and as he attempted to fit the new handle he stamped his feet, slammed his tools about some more and shouted about how he had other things to do with his time.
After some discussion with the rather irked wee joiner I decided to opt for his suggestion of replacing the lock handle with a normal handle and fitting the door with a simple sliding bolt lock. So after yet another visit to Cornes the wee, unsettled, highly flustered joiner with the anger management issues fitted the bolt and the normal handle, took his money and left.
Breathing a sigh of relief I got the hoover out and started to tidy his mess up, only to discover, upon inspecting the bathroom door, that the wee joiner had fastened the bathroom door to the wall with only one screw through each hinge rather than the usual four. As hesitant as I was to have the wee nutter back in my house, I had paid for his service and as he was too busy performing his little strops he'd obviously neglected to screw the damn door into the wall properly so I phoned him up. Huffing upon receipt of this information the wee joiner said he'd be back in ten minutes and as I waited I continued to hoover, almost managing to blow myself up in the process.
As I hoovered away, twisting and moving round the hall, trying to catch all the wood shreds and splinters, the hoover wire got sucked up the hoover's front and another highly suspicious grinding noise started from the machine’s underside. Within seconds a strange burning smell started interfering with the odour of freshly cut wood and before I knew it, the J. Edgar was firing out tiny shreds of grey and black plastic.
Flipping the power switch, I pulled the wire from under the hoover only to see a rather unhealthy looking length of bare copper wire shining up at me through a thin veil of electrical smoke.
The hoover had never done that before. I’d ran over the wire in the past and it had never been sucked up in such a plastic devouring fashion. Just as I finished tidying the hoover wire shreds up a loud knock at the door alerted to the presence of the wee joiner again and in he came once more, to finish his job.
“What happened to your hair?” the wee joiner looked up at me as he climbed the stairs. I looked in the mirror. My hair seemed to be standing a little on end.
Had I been shocked? Or was I just a little overly flustered?
At least the wee joiner had regained his composure as he quickly screwed the missing screws into the bathroom door and quickly headed off to his next poor customer. Making light of the missing screws I shrugged it off, insisting he was probably just too flustered and focused on the bathroom door lock.
“I’ll let you know after my next therapy session!” he smiled as he left the house.
I’m not even sure whether he was joking.
I certainly don’t want his therapist.
In the past week or so I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds.
No, I'm not showing off.
I've spent literally hundreds. Hundreds that I don’t have.
Two weekends ago a familiar sounding grinding noise started growling up from underneath the car in transit. With little driving detective work I assumed it to be the front passenger side wheel pads, in dire need of replacement. As quickly as I could, on the Monday morning, without making the repair bill have to cover brake discs too, I took the car over the squinty bridge, sorry, the Clyde Arc road bridge, to a small, grubby looking garage on Govan Road. Within hours the little, bespectacled mechanic had called me to inform me that all four brake pads were needing replaced. The mechanic himself admitted he'd thought the noise had been coming from the front passenger side but upon investigation had discovered the noise to be coming from one of the rear wheels, and not only that but each of the car's brake pads were in need of restoration. Upon hearing me humming and hawing over the phone the mechanic must have mistook my noises for mistrust and insisted he’d keep all four of the old brake pads as proof to which I obviously insisted wasn’t necessary and sighing heavily, told him to proceed with the job.
The bad news didn't stop there though. At around 4pm that afternoon I ventured back over the squinty bridge, through the rush hour traffic. The cheery little mechanic immediately insisted on showing me the duff brake pads, (probably the oldest trick in the book – he’s probably got a drawer full of them!) and then informed me that my two front tyres were illegal.
Bald on the inside apparently. (Illegal for being bald? Surely that’s baldist?)
I had spent £130 quid on two Dunlops for the front last November and the two of them were already duff and fine worthy. So after getting back to the office I made yet another visit to tyreshopper.com, a lot sooner than I thought I'd be visiting, and sorted out another expensive pair of rubbers. On the same day, from the mild comfort of my office desk, I also paid off various bills, reminder notices and last chance saloon letters and ordered my new 6 month tax disc, successfully making it one of the most expensive days in my working history, all whilst sitting on my arse. Next up will be my car insurance, due shortly, along with the good old MOT, which, going by recent standards, will probably throw up a few surprises for me, all just in time for Christmas when you expected to spend lots of money on other people.
Days later, last Thursday, I gave a wee bloke £120 for having a large tantrum in my house.
Recently I bought new, interior doors for all the rooms leading off from the upstairs landing which all started when Dad and Colin successfully burst the bathroom door on the night of the house warming. The door was on it’s last legs, or hinges, anyway, so I don’t blame them. My Dad had went to leave the bathroom and found the door had locked him in so he ended up shouting down to Colin, who was standing out in the back garden at the time, minding his own business, smoking a cigarette. Always willing to help Colin made his way upstairs and between the two of them they managed to obliterate the bathroom door.
So while I was getting a new bathroom door I thought it’d probably be a good idea to get the rest of the doors done. Ordering them over the phone with Cornes, the local DIY store, here in EK, I asked them to book me a joiner to get them fitted. The joiner in question phoned me up a few days later and made a date to fit the doors, two and a half weeks later, at half past 8 in the morning (that was the next available date in his diary).
So, two and a half weeks later, on my way back from taking the wife to work in the morning, the joiner phoned my at 8.25am, leaving demanding messages on both my mobile, sitting alongside me in the car, and my home phone, stating he was 'supposed' to be fitting doors at my house that morning and that he had no access to the house. I dialled his number as I drove on the via the hands free speaker phone as I approached my street. Again, he informed me that he had no access to the house.
No access to the house?, I thought. I’m quite glad of that really. Is that not why they put locks in doors? A joiner of all people should know that, surely?
Immediately recognising the wee man that jumped out the van, but from where I wasn't sure, I let him into the house and he got himself set up. Through another ten minutes of conversation we eventually sussed that it was from the gym that I recognised him. I've seen him strutting about the Nuffield gym on occasion talking to folk in his loud, but not unfriendly, voice, talking to some of the bigger, muscle-bound guys on occasion who quite often are double the height of him. I wondered why this was why he spoke so loudly in normal conversation, conversation that continued as he worked at the four doors.
After an hour or so the joiner took a break to drink a protein shake, a drink which he really wanted me to know about, for whatever reason. Unfortunately I perhaps said the wrong thing by moaning something along the lines of, "you're not one of them are you?". It turns out he is (as is Andrea, my colleague in work, who models herself on Jodie Marsh) and the wee joiner has been trying to build his muscles up like some of the other guys in the gym. Refraining from stating that there probably weren't enough hours in the day, never mind the year, I got on with some paperwork and bill paying.
It wasn't until later that things really turned uncomfortable.
The joiner left the bathroom door to last. The other three doors had normal, nice silver handles bought with them, but the bathroom was slightly different in that its handle design included a lock mechanism. A perfectly normal lock mechanism which you’d find on most bathroom doors. Unfortunately it turned out to be not so normal as the wee joiner was soon swearing, shouting and jumping about in the bathroom. He's only been attempting to fit the lock handle for approximately five or ten minutes before, his face started turning a nasty shade of red and he started turning the air blue, jumping about, throwing electric screwdrivers around the bathroom whilst twisting the new handle up and down.
"F**king cheap sh**e!", he kept shouting, his voice echoing through the house. I had had no idea I was ordering cheap sh*te with my phonecall to Cornes two and a half weeks ago. At the time I'd thought £13 for a lock handle was expensive enough.
After another ten minutes of swearing and raging he disassembled the lock handle, growling furiously as he went and sped off back down to Cornes to get a second under the impression we'd been given a dodgy one.
I’ve met an awful lot of wee men who seem to have a great deal of anger built up inside them. An anger that can be quite potent and unexpected when it bursts. I’ve known a few short men in my life who’ve all had similar personalities. I’m no tall person myself but each of the guys I’m thinking off were all definitely in the shorter department and all had similar, slightly unstable characteristics. I’m certainly not saying all short people have this tendency, I’m just saying I am prone to encountering them. One minute these guys seem jovial, happy and perfectly normal in conversation until something happens. The something could be an occurrence, a statement, a joke or some kind of small, not obviously major, annoyance that makes them seem to boil up and explode.
This joiner, for instance, was highly affected by the bathroom door not working, after a mere five minutes or so of trying to fit it properly. As soon as he spent longer than five minutes working on it he just seemed to explode in a barrage of abuse and Basil Fawltyesque rage.
Needless to say, after the joiner’s return from Cornes, the second lock handle was no better and as he attempted to fit the new handle he stamped his feet, slammed his tools about some more and shouted about how he had other things to do with his time.
After some discussion with the rather irked wee joiner I decided to opt for his suggestion of replacing the lock handle with a normal handle and fitting the door with a simple sliding bolt lock. So after yet another visit to Cornes the wee, unsettled, highly flustered joiner with the anger management issues fitted the bolt and the normal handle, took his money and left.
Breathing a sigh of relief I got the hoover out and started to tidy his mess up, only to discover, upon inspecting the bathroom door, that the wee joiner had fastened the bathroom door to the wall with only one screw through each hinge rather than the usual four. As hesitant as I was to have the wee nutter back in my house, I had paid for his service and as he was too busy performing his little strops he'd obviously neglected to screw the damn door into the wall properly so I phoned him up. Huffing upon receipt of this information the wee joiner said he'd be back in ten minutes and as I waited I continued to hoover, almost managing to blow myself up in the process.
As I hoovered away, twisting and moving round the hall, trying to catch all the wood shreds and splinters, the hoover wire got sucked up the hoover's front and another highly suspicious grinding noise started from the machine’s underside. Within seconds a strange burning smell started interfering with the odour of freshly cut wood and before I knew it, the J. Edgar was firing out tiny shreds of grey and black plastic.
Flipping the power switch, I pulled the wire from under the hoover only to see a rather unhealthy looking length of bare copper wire shining up at me through a thin veil of electrical smoke.
The hoover had never done that before. I’d ran over the wire in the past and it had never been sucked up in such a plastic devouring fashion. Just as I finished tidying the hoover wire shreds up a loud knock at the door alerted to the presence of the wee joiner again and in he came once more, to finish his job.
“What happened to your hair?” the wee joiner looked up at me as he climbed the stairs. I looked in the mirror. My hair seemed to be standing a little on end.
Had I been shocked? Or was I just a little overly flustered?
At least the wee joiner had regained his composure as he quickly screwed the missing screws into the bathroom door and quickly headed off to his next poor customer. Making light of the missing screws I shrugged it off, insisting he was probably just too flustered and focused on the bathroom door lock.
“I’ll let you know after my next therapy session!” he smiled as he left the house.
I’m not even sure whether he was joking.
I certainly don’t want his therapist.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Boxing robots and the shunned spaghetti
“Alright man, how’s it going?” Chaz stopped to shake hands with a bloke pushing a buggy of two small children, his wife looking on, sunglasses perched on her brow.
“Alright Charlie!” the man smiled back, as Chaz brought Pauline, Ka and myself to a halt outside the Holiday Inn’s front doors, on our way down to the cinema.
We were running late. We had finally managed to park the car, up outside the Station Bar, and were rushing down to the cinema to see the latest Hugh Jackman movie, a very silly affair, set in the future, involving boxing robots and a strained father/son relationship.
The charismatic Jackman is the struggling ex-boxer Dad, fighting to earn a living as a robot boxer fight promoter, who’d given his wife and son up at a younger, more foolish age, and now had to cope with a disgruntled youngster after his mother’s passing.
Good grief. Fighting robots, Hugh Jackman and father/son relationships? Sounds awful doesn’t it? And it probably was, but we didn’t care.
Silly, escapist fun. Especially for the likes of us, wishing to take a break from the real world for a couple of hours.
Chaz had text me on Friday to see if I fancied seeing the pic, just for a laugh, and had been surprised to receive a text back from me saying Ka had wanted to see it too. A few hours later he got another informing him that Pauline had also said yes, and on Sunday afternoon we were all in the Toyota, racing into town, discussing the price of toilet roll and washing powder.
What is it with women and toilet roll? We bought a large 18 or 16 pack just over two weeks ago and I thought that would do us until Christmas. Apparently not. It lasted two weeks and, before I knew it I was back in another supermarket buying more at the end of last week.
What do women do with it? Eat it? Anyway, I told Ka last week that if this trend was to continue we'd be buying the Asda's own sandpaper loo roll, a threat which quickly quietened her complaints of my moaning.
Another thing I've been moaning about is the kitchen tap. Our kitchen tap has been making a horrendous squawking noise everytime we’ve been pouring water from it’s innards for the past few months which I have now resolved to attempt to fix with my limited DIY skills. Over the weekend I replaced the tap's washers which, thankfully, seemed to solve the problem. The noise had gone and the water was running, but now bleeding a worrying, constant dribble.
Anyway, back to Glasgow, and, as Chaz chatted, not only were we late for the movie, but the ladies were in need of a loo, so I was trying to politely edge away from the unexpected reunion. The bloke with the buggy of two had obviously been a former work colleague of Chaz’s, and even though he had a couple of cute kids waving at us from their buggy, showing us their lizard and the blokes' conversation seemed like a pleasant surprise for Chaz, we were in a hurry.
Edging at first, then meandering, and then, as politely as I could, striding off determinedly, I led the girls onwards, away from Chaz’s fascinating conversation, which he eventually finished, and to the cinema queue,. Fortunately it wasn’t as busy as predicted and we just had the simple obstacle of a wee old lady and her grandson to make it to the front. With a quick bodyswerve upon entering the giant, glass building I dived around the wee old lady, ducked under the queue's cords and then turned to wait patiently for the others.
It was now ten or fifteen minutes past the showtime. We swiped our cards, took our tickets and raced back across the road to the small convenience store to buy some popcorn. We followed Chaz into the shop, only to stumble as he stopped dead before us and turned around.
“Wrong one!” he stated flatly and led us back out, leaving a shopkeeper frowning after us, and three doors up the street we entered the right one were we purchased our crisps and drinks from a smiling shopkeeper. Ka and myself, even at the age of thirty plus, are still wary of the old myth of cinema staff, when feeling particularly vigilant, swiping any shop bought goods off you, so we quickly hid our crisps in her handbag, whilst Chaz, who bought the kingsize bag of silver Butterkist and a massive litre and a half bottle of water, merely filled a blue carrier bag and shrugged something about taking his shopping home. Before we knew it we were back in the cinema, I was buying the coffee, the girls were doing the loo and Chaz was handing the tickets over, before we finally got seated and enjoyed the crazy, feelgood, family film.
The girls waited patiently and expectantly for Hugh Jackman’s bare torso, which he eventually presented at the side of a boxing ring. Chaz and myself didn’t particularly mind, however, as Kate from Lost was in the movie, acting as his stressed but highly intelligent, robot building, girl. So, everyone was happy.
At least for a time, anyway. I’d said yes to my Mum’s offer for Sunday spaghetti, which, needless to say, we did not make, so I was in trouble for that one. I phoned Mum up, half an hour before we were expected and explained that we were still in Glasgow and had a change of plan for dinner and thusly would now, not make it. Unfortunately, Mum wasn’t happy.
Dejected, disappointed, and in a huff, my Mum said her goodbyes over the phone and apparently went to bed at nine o'clock. Ravaged with guilt I drove Ka, Pauline and Chaz to dinner. With Mum's grumpy goodbye alone she made, what would have usually been a lovely piece of Salmon, taste rotten and cold. Salmon stuffed with scorn and betrayal.
As it turned out my Mum and Dad had been writing my Aunt Maureen’s eulogy and were in need of some cheering up. Thankfully Kenny phoned from Australia yesterday and sweetened them up sufficiently, just in time for me to phone after I got home from work and apologise once more for not going up for Spaghetti (Thanks for that Kenny!).
What made matters worse was that, before I plucked up the courage to phone them, I had arrived home to find the kitchen tap unable to run any form of cold water. So my limited DIY skills are even more limited than I had originally thought.
Still, that's all minor concerns, considering what's happening tomorrow.
“Alright Charlie!” the man smiled back, as Chaz brought Pauline, Ka and myself to a halt outside the Holiday Inn’s front doors, on our way down to the cinema.
We were running late. We had finally managed to park the car, up outside the Station Bar, and were rushing down to the cinema to see the latest Hugh Jackman movie, a very silly affair, set in the future, involving boxing robots and a strained father/son relationship.
Good grief. Fighting robots, Hugh Jackman and father/son relationships? Sounds awful doesn’t it? And it probably was, but we didn’t care.
Silly, escapist fun. Especially for the likes of us, wishing to take a break from the real world for a couple of hours.
Chaz had text me on Friday to see if I fancied seeing the pic, just for a laugh, and had been surprised to receive a text back from me saying Ka had wanted to see it too. A few hours later he got another informing him that Pauline had also said yes, and on Sunday afternoon we were all in the Toyota, racing into town, discussing the price of toilet roll and washing powder.
What is it with women and toilet roll? We bought a large 18 or 16 pack just over two weeks ago and I thought that would do us until Christmas. Apparently not. It lasted two weeks and, before I knew it I was back in another supermarket buying more at the end of last week.
What do women do with it? Eat it? Anyway, I told Ka last week that if this trend was to continue we'd be buying the Asda's own sandpaper loo roll, a threat which quickly quietened her complaints of my moaning.
Another thing I've been moaning about is the kitchen tap. Our kitchen tap has been making a horrendous squawking noise everytime we’ve been pouring water from it’s innards for the past few months which I have now resolved to attempt to fix with my limited DIY skills. Over the weekend I replaced the tap's washers which, thankfully, seemed to solve the problem. The noise had gone and the water was running, but now bleeding a worrying, constant dribble.
Anyway, back to Glasgow, and, as Chaz chatted, not only were we late for the movie, but the ladies were in need of a loo, so I was trying to politely edge away from the unexpected reunion. The bloke with the buggy of two had obviously been a former work colleague of Chaz’s, and even though he had a couple of cute kids waving at us from their buggy, showing us their lizard and the blokes' conversation seemed like a pleasant surprise for Chaz, we were in a hurry.
Edging at first, then meandering, and then, as politely as I could, striding off determinedly, I led the girls onwards, away from Chaz’s fascinating conversation, which he eventually finished, and to the cinema queue,. Fortunately it wasn’t as busy as predicted and we just had the simple obstacle of a wee old lady and her grandson to make it to the front. With a quick bodyswerve upon entering the giant, glass building I dived around the wee old lady, ducked under the queue's cords and then turned to wait patiently for the others.
It was now ten or fifteen minutes past the showtime. We swiped our cards, took our tickets and raced back across the road to the small convenience store to buy some popcorn. We followed Chaz into the shop, only to stumble as he stopped dead before us and turned around.
“Wrong one!” he stated flatly and led us back out, leaving a shopkeeper frowning after us, and three doors up the street we entered the right one were we purchased our crisps and drinks from a smiling shopkeeper. Ka and myself, even at the age of thirty plus, are still wary of the old myth of cinema staff, when feeling particularly vigilant, swiping any shop bought goods off you, so we quickly hid our crisps in her handbag, whilst Chaz, who bought the kingsize bag of silver Butterkist and a massive litre and a half bottle of water, merely filled a blue carrier bag and shrugged something about taking his shopping home. Before we knew it we were back in the cinema, I was buying the coffee, the girls were doing the loo and Chaz was handing the tickets over, before we finally got seated and enjoyed the crazy, feelgood, family film.
The girls waited patiently and expectantly for Hugh Jackman’s bare torso, which he eventually presented at the side of a boxing ring. Chaz and myself didn’t particularly mind, however, as Kate from Lost was in the movie, acting as his stressed but highly intelligent, robot building, girl. So, everyone was happy.
At least for a time, anyway. I’d said yes to my Mum’s offer for Sunday spaghetti, which, needless to say, we did not make, so I was in trouble for that one. I phoned Mum up, half an hour before we were expected and explained that we were still in Glasgow and had a change of plan for dinner and thusly would now, not make it. Unfortunately, Mum wasn’t happy.
Dejected, disappointed, and in a huff, my Mum said her goodbyes over the phone and apparently went to bed at nine o'clock. Ravaged with guilt I drove Ka, Pauline and Chaz to dinner. With Mum's grumpy goodbye alone she made, what would have usually been a lovely piece of Salmon, taste rotten and cold. Salmon stuffed with scorn and betrayal.
As it turned out my Mum and Dad had been writing my Aunt Maureen’s eulogy and were in need of some cheering up. Thankfully Kenny phoned from Australia yesterday and sweetened them up sufficiently, just in time for me to phone after I got home from work and apologise once more for not going up for Spaghetti (Thanks for that Kenny!).
What made matters worse was that, before I plucked up the courage to phone them, I had arrived home to find the kitchen tap unable to run any form of cold water. So my limited DIY skills are even more limited than I had originally thought.
Still, that's all minor concerns, considering what's happening tomorrow.
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