Baking bad

It was the second week of April and it was party time!
People were cheering all over Scotland, there were parties in George Square and jubilant headlines adorned the newspapers. Surprisingly enough it was nothing to do with Ka and my own birthdays coming around again. Seemingly it was all to do with some old bint that used to be Prime Minister kicking the bucket.
On Monday morning Graeme strode into the studio room with a humpf, mumbling about having to put another twelve pages on to tomorrow’s Record. A supplement had to be added at the last minute. Margaret Thatcher had died, but this was nothing to do with the reason I was in a happier mood than usual on a Monday morning.
The next day was Ka’s birthday and I had taken the day off, and Friday was my own and I had been able to get that day off too, giving me a long weekend to look forward to, so it was going to be a short week for me.
The second week of April is always birthday week in the Reid household as Ka celebrates her birth date on the 9th and I usually follow on the 12th, although when you get to this kind of age you really should make less of a big deal about it, and maybe even attempt to forget about it. After the headache I had all the weekend following the red wine consumed on the Friday night I sort of wish I had.
Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann came round to join us for dinner on my birthday during which we enjoyed Ka’s famous spaghetti and meatballs with more than a few glasses of red wine. Well, Mum and I did. Dad watched patiently, being the driver for the night, whilst Lynsey Ann joined Ka in drinking the bubbly rose wine she had found somewhere in the back of the drink’s cupboard.
Not that we have a drinks cupboard. We have one of those annoying gaps between kitchen units in which nothing will fit with the exception of perhaps either oven trays, bread boards or bottles. It’s only recently that we’ve registered the existence of it again, hidden away in the dark recesses of one corner of the kitchen. Sophie has kept us more than occupied for the past five and a half months to even consider any form of glass bottle beverage and even before she did, I rarely partook in the alcoholic beverages whilst Ka remained sober. At the moment I think there is a bottle of vodka, probably bought around 2011, with approximately four measures left in it, a bottle of Morgan’s Spiced Rum, possibly bought around the beginning of 2012, with around three measures left, half a bottle of Midori, bought through Kenny’s place of work over two years ago, a bottle of champagne, a gift upon the birth of Sophie, and three quarters of a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Port, bought well over three years ago as an ingredient to a tart. Altogether not your most opulent of alcoholic stock.
So as we drank the red wine bought that afternoon, Ka worked hard in the kitchen keeping us Reids well fed, finishing the meal with the Sainsbury’s Chocolate caterpillar Cake complete with candles and the usual chorus of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song.
Yes, I am 35 now, but no matter how old you are it apparently still gets sung. Not sure why but tradition demands it.
35. Officially in the mid thirties now. Well, now in my thirty sixth year. Creeping closer and closer to the 40 mark. Very scary stuff. But not scary enough. By 35 you should know what’s coming shouldn’t you. You should be prepared. You should have accepted your fate. The twenties are long gone. Youth is now a quickly diminishing memory. Pains will now last longer. Bellies will now properly begin to form. Hair will fall.
Well, in my case, even more hair.
Middle age is here, whether you like it or not. But still the song persists and cake must be eaten, even if you are developing a belly.
If I succeed in one thing as I get older it is to maintain a sensible waist line… although after birthday week I’m going to have to work slightly harder.
That morning Ka had held the candlelit caterpillar up in her right hand and held a rather startled, wide eyed Sophie in her left arm, our daughter looking around wild eyed as if the whole room was alight.
The caterpillar was only a small part of the dietary wrong doings of birthday week.
I had performed a similar ceremony on the Tuesday morning for Ka although, I have to point out, her cake was a little more original.
A handmade chocolate sponge covered in chocolate cream sauce, a recipe hastily downloaded on the Monday night at work, just before I rushed from the office leaving Graeme and the rest of the back shift to the joys of Margaret Thatcher’s 12 page supplement.
Ka’s birthday cake was a task I had took upon myself to try and gift my wife with something extra special. When considering birthday cakes Ka always reminds me that she’s not a ‘big sponge person’. No matter how many times she reminds me of this fact the idea of a big sponge Ka seems to pop into my head rather easily whenever she does say it.
Anyway, determined to make a sponge that Ka would appreciate, a proper big chocolate cake, I set to work in the kitchen, armed with what seemed like an army of ingredients picked up in Sainsbury’s on the way home.
In fact, it wasn’t the only thing I was accused of picking up.
Whilst in the bakery aisle in the local mega store, (which has grown a couple of miles and aisles wider in recent months), my Dad accused me of chatting up fellow bakery shoppers on two separate occasions. He had been getting a lift home, as he had been working in a solicitors’ office in Glasgow that week, and came back from a wander to find me talking to a blonde women, asking her what baking powder was. He then left to make a phonecall to Lynsey Ann and came back to find me chatting away to another blonde female baker who was kindly helping me find bicarbonate of soda. Of course, as soon as Dad accused me of not making a cake at all and just using the excuse to chat up women, this second girl suddenly looked very uncomfortable and quickly finished talking to me, pushing her trolley deliberately away, further up the aisle.
“Thanks very much Dad, I was just getting somewhere there!” I thought, impatiently. “I was just about to find out where the bicarbonate of soda was!”
After around an hour and a half in the kitchen following dinner, just before Broadchurch’s repeat at 10, the cake was in the oven.
That’s another worrying sign of middle age. Some movements and activities now circle around television times.
It’s easy to see why so many people turn into couch potatoes as soon as they have kids. After a day of either work, or chasing around after children, or both, all you tend to do is collapse somewhere, and that somewhere tends to be in front of the telly. Something else I’m going to have to keep an eye on… although I did get season 4 of Breaking Bad for my birthday so that kind of scuppers that idea already.
Surprisingly enough the cake came out the oven looking rather solid and at approximately eleven o’clock I iced it all up with 500g of melted chocolate and 250g of Double Cream (it’s okay though, I made sure the Double cream was of the ‘Light’ variety, so we’ve probably saved a few pounds there).
On Tuesday morning I greeted Ka and Sophie as they entered the living room with the fully formed chocolate cake, adorned with a 36 made up of Fruit Pastilles, a favourite chew of Ka’s, a large bouquet of flowers and a couple of pressies and punctual cards. After opening her cards, the wife was then treated to a plateful of scrambled eggs and toast and a mug of coffee before we headed over to Uddingston to see Dougie, Grace, Morgan and Joshua who were busy preparing a large birthday lunch. The chocolate cake was a hit with everyone and I bet even Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood themselves wouldn’t have had much bad to say about it.
Upon coming home Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann popped round and more cake was served up to which Lynsey and Mum gave quiet approval… a little too quiet. I suspect they may feel threatened by my baking abilities (as long as they don’t get the Mexicans involved I reckon I’ll be okay). They need not worry anyway, I won’t be baking another chocolate cake for a while. Cakes have a tendency to develop bellies especially with the amount of sugar and butter that goes into one (I couldn’t believe the amount of sugar I piled into that mixute?).
Saying that, I do have an abundance of flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in the cupboard now. One thing’s for sure and that is I won’t be making any visits to the Sainsbury’s baking aisle for a long time yet.
I would recommend it to all single guys though… it’s got to be cheaper than match.com anyway.

Pointless lovers

Being full time parents is bad for one thing.
Sitting on the couch.
Obviously the sitting on the couch phase will pass once baby starts crawling, walking, running, jumping and climbing but at the moment parenting involves a lot of sitting around, bouncing things on knees and watching tv.
In fact tv, as is probably often the case for many parents all over the world, is a saviour. Whilst it is more than wonderful to look down into the big blue eyes of your grateful baby as it sucks on it’s fifth bottle of milk of the day it sometimes, just sometimes, gets a little tiring and you need something else to look at through the sleep deprived blurred vision.
As discussed in a previous blog, my current watch is Vince Gilligan’s excellent ‘Breaking Bad’ which, strictly speaking, I shouldn’t watch with baby Sophie in the same room as it is an 18 certificate. Even though Sophie is not yet aware of the British Board of Film Classification’s rules and regulations, and hopefully the BBFC is not aware of her sitting watching, I’m still a little hesitant to have it on in the same room, even with her disapproving mother out the house.
Hoping that she won’t pay much attention though I still sneak the occasional episode whilst feeding Sophie, (I’m now on season 3!) and then deliberately turn her deckchair so that it faces away from the television in the time following her feed during which she smiles, giggles and wriggles. Usually Sophie goes for a few naps following a good feed, between wriggles, and during the covertly viewed episodes and as long as her first words aren’t methamphetamine or crystal I think we’ll be alright.
In my defence Ka watches her own fair share of inappropriate material whilst I’m out at work. This Morning and Loose Women is just the start. I had last Thursday off and had just poured myself a nice morning cup of tea in the kitchen. Ambling into the living room to see Sophie in her deck chair I immediately stopped in my tracks only to find a bespectacled man on the large television in the corner going over, in great detail, a man’s naked groin area. The man pawed and groped the dangling areas as he spoke to the camera to which I immediately spun Sophie’s deckchair around, away from the tv, before wiping up the coffee table from where I’d spat out a mouthful of tea. As it turned out the bespectacled man was This Morning’s Doctor Chris Steele going over the dangers and warning signs of testicular cancer, and while this is, of course, a very good and just cause to have a bollock naked man on morning television they perhaps should give you a bit of warning if there’s a baby about, not to mention a perfectly good cup of tea.
You wouldn’t get any of that on Breaking Bad, I told a confused looking Sophie, who was blinking, her wee mittened hands wiping at the few spots of tea that had reached her chubby cheeks from across the other end of the room.
After This Morning, Loose Women then comes on. A programme steeped in inappropriate behaviour, full of sexist, lecherous, gaggling women before an audience of easily entertained minions who laugh at the slightest inkling of a funny comment.
Other daytime highlights include the afternoon Channel 5 movie, an American budget television film usually based around some glamorous female experiencing some dreadful accident and having to live with the consequences or some attractive female being framed for a crime she didn’t commit, perhaps murdering her latest lover, and then staying out of jail just long enough to enable her to investigate and seek out the real culprit. Angela Lansbury would have had it solved in 40 minutes, not the hour and a half it takes these glamour pussies on Channel 5.
Ka's also got herself half addicted to another show called Tipping Point. This is a game show, of sorts, presented by every housewives favourite smiling lamppost, Ben Shepard, in which contestants compete to win as many discs as possible on a giant 2p machine. Ka assured me it was good, at the beginning of the first episode I seen. Within five minutes I’d turned the channel to see if Pointless had started yet.
Yes, Pointless!
Is anyone else out there addicted to Pointless? It’s not quite daytime television as such, it’s on before the news, at around five in the evening, but I see it as a great excuse to keep Ka away from the aussie soaps on Channel 5 (yes, those dire afternoon movies do in fact end, at some point) and the other awful itv quiz, The Chase, hosted by the bloke that used to be in Coronation Street. There’s even Pointless Celebrity specials on Saturday evenings now. The popularity of the quiz show has become sky high in the past few years. Both sets of Mum and Dads used to rave about it whenever Ka and myself popped round to visit and we wouldn’t have the faintest idea what they were going on about. Grace would mistakenly text Ka from work, a message meant for Dougie asking how he got on with the latest Pointless question.
Betty and Lindsay watch it on the iPlayer every night making sure it’s recorded everyday. Unbelievably it’s been on since late 2009 and episodes are now being repeated on the Challenge tv channel, unfortunately replacing The Crystal Maze and Blockbuster reruns.
It would seem that the nation have become Pointless lovers.
The two hosts even presented a Bafta the other night?! Judi Dench and George Clooney clapped when they walked on stage?! George Clooney watches Pointless?! Amazing.
Alexander Armstrong and the other big Frankenstein dude must be in that studio for months at a time, standing, or in the Frankenstein man's case, sitting, there listening to all those people struggling to come up with the most obscure, correct, answers possible. The enormously tall Richard Osman (the Frankenstein man), sits at his desk, pen in hand, behind his computer, and rhymes off exactly how pointless all the contestants’ answers are. He’s either amazingly intelligent or just a very fast googler.
Disappointingly, like ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, which I haven’t watched in years, I’ve never seen a Pointless winner. Well, with the exception of last Saturday’s Celebrity edition when that annoying cricketer with the constantly screwed up eyes and big chin hit the jackpot with his teammate after having to come up with ‘International’ Brit award winners.
Not exactly a hard question. I could have won £2,500 for that. You don’t wouldn’t need to be an egghead to get a few decent pointless answers there.
Eggheads now there’s another one. Boring as hell but strangely compelling. A bunch of regular boring folk, facing off against a bunch of ,apparently, celebrity clever folk. In fact that smug woman who won ‘Who Want to be a Millionaire’ is on that show. Yes, in that case, I did see someone win ‘Millionaire’. Then there was that Army major who cheated. His wife was coughing in the audience or something wasn’t she?
I’d had enough. I need to get out more.
Either that or just get Breaking Bad back on. Or American Horror Story… or Person of Interest… or Ripper Street. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to watch any of them when Sophie is about either.

Another year, another quiz and another chilli

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

Gorillas, gritted teeth and grannies

£155. Brilliant. That’s the total I’ve managed to raise thanks to all those that sponsored me in my Glasgow 10k on the 2nd September. 310% of my predicted sponsor target. Fantastic. Facebook, email and twitter made using the Just Giving site so much easier so no one could have missed it really and even it they did, the sponsor page is still there, so it’s never too late!
Like I said I couldn’t have done it without you guys that gave your hard earned cash to such a worthwhile cause, Glasgow Sands, so thanks very much all of you, (you know who you are!).
The whole experience wasn’t without a certain amount of pain and hardship though as I did suffer a little for around four days. It wasn’t until the following Friday that I actually started regaining my usual walking abilities and stopped moving like a hungover John Wayne who’d been up all night. Going up and down stairs turned into an exceptional challenge, lurching up and down, like a limping Robocop. I’ve only got myself to blame, of course, it was the first time I’d ran 10k in a oner and I got very little training in beforehand. I even had to put the usual thrice a week trips to the gym on hold while we flitted at the turn of the month. If training for a 10k had included loading, lifting and the unpacking of heavy boxes, not to mention the seemingly constant use of a screwdriver, I would have completed the run in no time with no unfortunate after effects. Never before had small, menial, tasks been such hard work such as getting up off the couch and walking to the kitchen to make a brew. All with gritted teeth and noises and muttered sweary words.
The after effects didn’t actually kick in until the Monday morning when I had tried to get out of bed. I thought a gorilla had came in during the night and attacked me, refraining from waking me during the assault, as I slept.
Mysterious, nocturnal, gorillas aside, immediately after the race, under Nelson’s Monument on Glasgow Green, I’d felt great.
The run had gone well.
Later the results were published on the official website I had taken 58 minutes and 1 second.
Standing there, in Glasgow Green, I knew I had done it in around 58 minutes as I had timed myself with my trusty Rotary. I had aimed for under an hour at least so I was quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately I had no one to celebrate with.
Ka and the Mums and Dad’s had travelled into Glasgow to cheer us runners, Colin, Jillian and myself, off the starting line in George Square and, presumably, had the intention of cheering us over the finishing line. As I ran up through the last leg of the route, over Victoria Bridge and up Clyde Street and Greendyke Street into the Green, hollering crowds on either side, there had been no sign of the wife or either of the couples so I had assumed that I had missed them among the colourful, cheering crowd. As I slowed to a trot beyond the finishing line I picked up my medal, the traditional bag of runners’ goodies, and avoided the giant boxes of bananas, (I don’t like bananas… not sure why?) at the foot of Glasgow Green’s needle walked out on to the green picking a spot to stand and wait for anyone who may want to run up and congratulate me.
Nobody did.
Instead I watched all the others runners coming out through the finishing gates picking up their own medals and getting their goodie bags and then being greeted by loved ones over the surrounding temporary metal fencing.
I wasn’t bothered. I had run it in under and hour. I had seen it, even if no one else had. I kept an eye out for any of the ‘support’ but none could be seen. Not even the wife. Typical.
Around ten minutes later I spotted the familiar sight of Jillian in her Sands T-shirt, making her way through the puffed out running crowd, in the expanding queues for the medal, goodie bag and banana collection, a big smile on her ever so slightly red face. The brother-in-law’s missus to be, turned thirty that day and was celebrating by crossing yet another finishing line before she headed down to Newcastle for the Great North Run later in the month. This 10k was probably a mere walk in the park.
Jillian and myself then headed further down the park to the fencing at the side of the finishing line where we eventually met Ka and the meandering Mums and Dads who’d missed me because, on the long, tiring, arduous, walk down from George Square, they had felt the need for a McFlurry. In her wisdom, Ka had refused and walked on but had still managed to miss me, by a matter of minutes we worked out. However, minutes is everything when it comes to this kind of thing (especially 2 minutes, that’s donkeys… as long as it’s under an hour).

Ka has an excuse, of course, so I let her off, the fact that she’s currently carrying another Reid lifeform in her belly, (an excuse she uses way too often to be honest), and after we cheered Colin over the line we headed off, back to George Square to celebrate Jillian’s birthday over lunch in the Italian La Vita Pizzeria. We had tried the Greek Restaurant Elie first, where we met the rest of Jillian’s family, but the staff of Elie claimed half past twelve was too early to serve 12 hungry people, on a Sunday afternoon. This was the be only the first meeting for Jillian’s birthday though as her highly anticipated Muppets and friends 30th Birthday party was to follow the next Saturday in Kirkintilloch. Unfotunately, however, this was not be be, as Jillian’s wee Gran, Helen Hodge passed away early on that week.
Helen had not been too well the previous week and had been thought to be on the road to recovery and had missed Jillian’s birthday lunch whilst recuperating. So when Saturday did come around we all sadly found ourselves attending a funeral, rather than a birthday party, remembering the little 90 year old lady, with the seemingly endless energy with which she had constantly travelled up and down the country with her family, visiting relatives and seeing the sights whilst still attending all the party’s going and even the odd clubbing night. There is no doubt Helen will be sorely missed in the Hood household, not to mention the family parties, but forever remembered.
Like all grannies. Each one a massive cog in the machine of the family.
When that cog stops turning you wonder if the rest will keep going, knowing there’ll be none, in any way, similar to take it’s place.
Somehow though, the cogs do keep turning.
It’s the remembering of loved ones lost that sometimes keeps you going.
Why else would you go to the bother of running 10k?
Certainly not for your health.
My ankle still hurts.
But it was worth it.

Monopoly and waffles

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

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

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.

The Iron Horse, the Grey and the Hammer

Dad and myself sat in The Iron Horse as West Bromwich Albion hammered Wolverhampton 5-1 on the tv's hanging from the ceiling over our heads. We had just dropped Ka and the Mums off, among the traffic, piled up outside the SECC, for the Strictly Come Dancing afternoon show and had struggled to find a space for the car in the busy Glasgow streets on Sunday afternoon. I usually park up at The Station Bar, up next to the father in law’s old work, D. C. Thomson the printers, but since we were heading into town from the other direction we ended up just of Blythswood Square, where the ladies of the night used to hang out (I believe they’re all now based further down the hill, or over it). A swanky new Hotel has just opened up there and the street prices (for parking!) have doubled but thankfully, it was Sunday. Wonderful, free, Sunday street parking.
We headed up to the cinema and bought two tickets for 'The Grey' at half three, so, finding ourselves with at least two hours to spare we decided to while away the time over a few pints and a chat in the closest drinking establishment. We didn't fancy a coffee at the Starbucks or Pret a Manger though, both of which are almost, more or less, next door to the cinema. Instead we opted for The Iron Horse on West Nile Street. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to take my Dad for a pint for a change as we very rarely get the chance. While the women were watching the likes of Nancy Dell Olio and Robbie Savage trying to dance, Dad and myself were sitting relaxing by the window of the Iron Horse, over a pint of Caledonian Best, catching up, whilst the surrounding older clientele were served large Sunday lunches brimming with chips and onion rings.
So, for the first time in many years, I went to the cinema with my Dad. We could have repeated one of my very first cinema trips, from many moons ago, of which I, unfortunately, have no memory, in which he took me to see The Muppets, but I didn't think he'd be too interested in that these days. Instead we chose 'The Grey', a survivor thriller starring the ever dependable Liam Neeson.
Neeson plays a depressed oil-rigger, working out in the Alaskan wastes, defending the camp, the factories and the workers (a ragged bunch of characters from ex-cons and thugs to disgruntled family men) from the wild wolves which prowl the surrounding desert of snow. On a trip home, not long after take off, the plane crashes in the snow covered wastelands and leaves a small bunch of survivors struggling in the low temperatures and barren lands, Neeson taking the role of leader as the wolves start closing in around them.

As the small band of survivors try to make their way through the snow to some kind of safety, the weather and the wolves attack, picking them off one by one making each of the men face not only a struggle for survival but a struggle of friendship, cooperation and faith.
There were more than a few God debates and a few desperate calls for the almighty throughout the movie, especially once things started getting more than a little tough for Neeson, a man with a dwindling faith, struggling to come to terms with recent events in his life. The circumstances were different but it was something I identified with, having revisited similar big questions quite frequently in the past year or so and still coming up with no significant answers.
'The Grey' was the second visit to the cinema this weekend. The first being on Saturday afternoon on an unexpected family outing with the McGarva clan to see 'The Woman in Black', Hammer's new adaptation of the Susan Hill novel, which Ka and myself had previously seen in the theatre last year.
After attending a birthday party in East Kilbride on Friday evening, Jillian and Colin had stayed the night and together we were to go into town to see a movie on Saturday afternoon. That was only if the chaos in Glasgow had been sorted out by then.
At around half past three on Friday afternoon a man ran into the Italian restaurant Amarone on Glasgow's Nelson Mandela Square, demanding drink. Nothing particularly unusual there but when the waiters refused to serve him the guy claimed to have a bomb under his jacket.
The Police were called. Streets were closed. The nearby underground was closed. Trained negotiators were called in with shield bearing officers. Police cars and helicopters swooped into the area. Fire engines, ambulances, the Royal Navy bomb disposal team. All were called in before the nutter was quietly taken away in the back of a van at around midnight.
During the ruckus people were either diverted or forcibly kept in surrounding streets and shops whilst others, including all members of the restaurant staff, were all evacuated. A local student complained when the police told him to remain in a nearby branch of Subway, the sandwich shop. Surely any students dream come true?
I was in Subway for the first time in years yesterday. I met Ka for a Valentines lunch and bought her the £3 lunch special, a half baguette with whatever filling she could possibly wish for(as long as it was in the glass cabinet), plus a drink for a mere £3.
Not bad at all.
I text Ka from the office, wondering when her lunch break was, and asked her when she’d be “on the street”? Apparently this made her sound like one of those Blythswood Square ladies.

Anyway, as we sat on the high stools in Subway I realised the last time I had been in a Subway restaurant had been in New York, just off Times Square, in December 2003. The quality of that baguette was nowhere near as good as Hamilton's, but then I was probably slightly hungover back then and I may have been in a better mood yesterday as it was Valentines Day.
It’s a lot of nonsense. Another commercial card factory created piece of money making tomfoolery.
Valentines Day is supposed to be the day to celebrate your love for your significant other, shower her, or him, with love, affection and appreciation.
What’s wrong with any other day then? Do we slap them about for the other 365 days of the year? (it’s a leap year!)
Ka got a bunch of flowers, a card and half a chicken tikka baguette. I know how to treat my woman (none of your Greggs sausage rolls here, thank you very much!).
Anyway, back to Saturday’s cinema trip. As it turned out, the McGarva seniors were also invited to the flicks, so Jillian drove the four of us over to Uddingston to pick up Dougie and Grace and from there we headed into town, parking in possibly the most excpensive car park in town.
Jillian was driving her Mum's car, a large Scooby van like Volkswagen, with an abnormal number of seats, which housed us all among the bags, heavily wrinkled books, wrappers, abandoned crisp packets, long empty juice bottles and an almost full bottle of Absolut Vodka that was rolling around the floor at our feet. As the journey went on that vodka became more and more attractive.
It had been a rough morning.
The cinema was packed. With a 12A certificate I didn't expect too much from this new supposed horror starring the slowly maturing Daniel Radcliffe. In fact, I suspected a lot of the younger members of the audience to be there because of the mere presence of Harry Potter.
After taking our seats, we relaxed, sitting back to watch everyone else pile in after us, people soon struggling for places together as seating became more and more limited. Upon sitting, Grace quickly produced Cadbury's Fudges, brunch bars, trebor mints and tin foil parcels full of sandwiches from her handbag. All were passed up and down our line of six as we awaited the lights going down and the usual onslaught of adverts.

This new version of 'The Woman in Black' was pretty good and a decent enough adaptation of the ghost story with plenty of freaky effects and jumpy moments. Radcliffe was even passable alongside the excellent Julius Ceasar, sorry, Ciaran Hinds.
Unfortunately some of the viewing experience was marred due to the younger elements in the crowd who apparently found it hilarious whenever they jumped with fright. Quite often they'd be laughing, giggling or talking among themselves long after their initial jump of fright, enough to put you off what was going on in the movie long after the jump.
On one occasion, moments after one of the film's jumpier moments, a voice echoed from one of the seats behind me.
"A pure shat maself there, by the way!"
The young guy's voice echoed throughout the cinema as the film's dialogue went on. As entertaining as this ned shitting himself may have been, I was rather more interested in what the following effects of the sudden blur, moving shadow or face in the window was on the big screen before me.
After the film we made our way home, getting lost in the car park across the road, unable to find the Scooby van. We got the elevator up and then back down again after realising the payment machine was at ground level. After waiting in a short queue, behind a snobby woman that sniffed in our general direction (I’m not sure who she was sniffing) we were then charged a grand total of £6.60 for the two and a half hours we’d been parked there (it may have been an NCP, robbing gits). Following this we then hit two different floors before finally arriving at the correct floor to find Jillian’s Mum’s car patiently waiting.
We should have just parked at the Station Bar.

Fireworks, flowers and frisbees

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

Team Lucy

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

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

Restaurants, rehearsals and running

We’ve not heard back from Chaz yet. Both Ka and myself text him a message yesterday to ask him how he got on with his casting audition to be in the next big Brad Pitt movie being filmed in Glasgow.
Chaz and myself ordered dinner in the Crooked Lum on Thursday night, two three course meals, taking full advantage of a 25% off voucher Chaz had procured from a taxi driver. I ordered a fillet for my main but Chaz had to do better. He challenged himself by ordering the steak platter, a massive square plate of food which included a large sirloin, fillet and ribeye along with a mountain of chips, a massive mushroom and a giant half tomato that looked like it had been grown in some kind of mutant vault in a local Nuclear facility.
Over dinner Chaz informed me that he was to go along on Saturday in a suit and tie for a movie audition to be an extra in a forthcoming Brad Pitt movie production which apparently involves zombies, being zombies or being attacked by zombies. I’d always thought Glasgow was the perfect setting for a zombie movie – although I’m not sure we need more of them diving about Glasgow than there is already.
By trade, Chaz is a car salesman but I’d also always thought he’d have made a rather good actor. Chaz lamented the end of his drama days over dinner. His best part to date being the role of Lead Pharisee in the school Easter play in the late eighties. Chaz managed to turn the part of the Chief Pharisee into a sort of flamboyant Police Informant type Government spy character. His biggest scene, pivotal to the capturing of Jesus, included Chaz skidding on to the stage and informing the gathered characters that:
“It’s alright, he’ll do it, at ten o’clock tonight!”
Unfortunately his adventures in drama ended during the final rehearsals for that particular scene with the skid on to the stage not quite ending where it should have, resulting in a continuous skid off the stage and the bashing of an eye off the end of a gym bench below.
Let’s hope he gets on better with his zombie audition. I hope he’d done his homework and watched Sean of the Dead, Land of the Dead or has just simply walked up Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night.
Or the Hamilton town centre on a weekday, for that matter, a strange, destitute place into which my work has just moved and is taking some getting used to. Ka and myself met for lunch last week, my first week in the Hamilton office, and we sat on a bench in the middle of the local shopping precinct to eat our lunch. Strange, smelly, lonely looking characters soon began to circle us like vultures, eyeing either the bench, our lunch or the very flesh which clings to our bones. I wasn’t sure which, but it was enough to put me off my ham sandwich and Irn Bru.
Thankfully, Ka and myself ate in far nicer surroundings yesterday. Once again, we found ourselves dining out, once more in a restaurant, Grace and Dougie treating us to a meal for our anniversary, which was then followed up with a few coffees and shandies at a local pub.
With all this eating in mind we woke this morning finding our usual trip to the gym a bit of a stretch, so instead opted for a run round Calderwood and St. Leonards, circling around the neighbourhood, one lap being just over 5km. It went well considering it was our first jog in months, since before Ka fell pregnant. So Ka and myself are feeling rather pleased with ourselves. Next time we’ll make it two laps. Mum, Dad and Lynsey were popping round for a cuppa though so we had an excuse today to make it a single lap. We’ve promised ourselves to go running more often, especially in the run up to Ka’s run for charity in October (details of which can be found here http://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Ann-Reid).
There is a turn off, halfway round, where you can trim a good half a mile off the whole lap. Ka was tempted to take this route as she was knackered, struggling for breath and generally getting grumpy after fifteen minutes running and stressed that she may have to ease herself back into the running by taking a shorter route round. When I refused to go this way and told her she would be fine with various other words of encouragement she swiftly replied with a barrage of abuse, just as we passed a row of quiet houses. The occupants of these houses had probably been enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon up until that moment when they spilt their teas, woke from their naps or jumped from behind their Sunday papers to the loud, shouting couple jogging by their front window.
No pain, no gain, they say. Although I didn’t believe it was the pain of the hurling abuse from your stressed wife as she runs around the block after you. So with little argument after this I reluctantly agreed to take the shorter route only for Ka, not more than 5 minutes later, to agree to carry on with the full lap, missing the halfway point turn off. Typical Ka. She was either fiercely determined to complete the planned route, or was simply refusing to go along with anything I agreed to.
It’s all well and good running for miles on a treadmill in a gym but when it comes to real outdoor running it’s very different. Hills appear on your route spontaneously before you, inclines that you did not even realise were inclines when you usually drive along them in the car. Midges and bugs are everywhere too. On passing various clusters of bushes and foliage various sizes of insects would instantly decide to aim for you face, particularly the eyes, nostrils, or even worse, the mouth. You’ll be chatting away to your fellow jogger, or arguing, as you tackle the latest incline when all of a sudden a passing midge that had previously been buzzing about a local bush, would take a notion for a kamikaze mission with your tongue, stopping and firing itself straight into your oral cavity.
Something a little more pleasant is the nodding to and greeting of fellow joggers. You notice this when you’re out walking on the hills too. You’re all complete strangers but you follow some sort of unspoken code with which you nod or greet passing joggers, as if acknowledging each others’ athletic prowess and sportsmanship tackling the dangerous pavements and grass verges.
A greeting of a different kind I received today was a wolf whistle. I’ve never been wolf whistled before but managed not to get too excited about it as it was from a trio of giggling 12-13 year olds who passed by me giggling. A few moments later their giggling was interrupted by the jogger they’d failed to notice behind me, elbowing them off the pavement. Ka mumbled some more abuse as she caught up, running up behind me just as the rain started to fall and a jeep carrying our former neighbour Kay, passed by. The horn tooted as the neighbour waved at us, grinning smugly over her phone from behind her windscreen in her nice, warm, dry 4x4.
With the exception of the interfering insects, the threatening rain and the teenagers, the 5km was a bit of a breeze to be honest and I was pretty surprised at how easily I managed it.
Well, when I say easily we did finish the run with faces the colour of tomatoes. I was suffering with weird blurred vision after coming to a stop outside outside our front door, wiping the dead midges from my face as the old legs began to quiver a little with exertion. The walk I performed going up the stairs to our front door wouldn’t have looked out of place in Chaz’s zombie movie.

Hobbling around headstones

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

Quiz show hosts and lumpy custard

35 years is a long time. Imagine being married for 35 years? Amazing. That's my Mum and Dad, as of last Monday.
35 years married and still together. Even more astounding is that Grace and Dougie, Ka's Mum and Dad, are hitting the big 3-8 this year. All these years and yet both couples still get confused over some of the most basic facts about their lives together. Facts such as the first thing they do when they get out of bed in the morning, their most romantic holiday destination and the mother in law's birthday.
Following the game Tricia hosted on the previous Sunday, I, in my eternal wisdom, thought it would be a great idea to have a Mr & Mrs game following dinner on Friday night. We were in dire need of a soundproof booth as the two Mums and Dads battled it out whilst I did my Nicholas Parsons, asking the questions, like the family quizzes of old (not diving about in suspenders, I might add, which was the last time I seen Nicholas Parsons, playing the narrator in The Rocky Horror Show).
Things got off to a slightly confusing start as I started asking the questions incorrectly, leading the Mums and Dads to think that the two answers they had to give for each question was their answer and what they think their partner would answer about them, rather than simply answering their answer and what they reckon their other half's personal answer would be (if you get what I mean?). I bet Derek Batey never had these kind of problems.
Derek Batey, as I found out by visiting a Mr & Mrs website, was the original presenter of the quiz show on tv, not Parsons. According to the website he once tried to calm an Irish couple before appearing on the show:

Batey: Did you have a good trip over from Ireland?

Irish contestant: Yes, thank you.

Batey: Did you arrive today or did you stay over last night?

Irish contestant: We came across yesterday.
Batey: Did you fly or take the ferry?

Irish contestant: I don't know - me mammy booked the tickets.

I'd always thought it had been Nicholas Parsons that hosted Mr and Mrs but apparently he only presented Sale of the Century (A Sleeper song?). Both of these shows were before my time, or just finishing a few years after I came into the world, so it's no wonder I can't tell one from the other. In fact, looking at these online pics, Derek Batey looks a lot like Nicholas Parsons. Same grins, same silver hair, same suits, same ties.
Could there have been a giant Quiz Show host factory somewhere, perhaps in Dagenham, in the seventies, churning out these cheese grinned, middle aged maestros?
A giant machine, not unlike a steampunk Bertha, sitting in the dark factory innards, a giant conveyer belt running from the machine's mouth like exit. A small army of silver haired, stripey tied, Quiz Show Hosts, straight and tall, only leaping into action after stepping down from the end of the conveyer belt, grinning with a tooth twinkling grin and immediately shouting "Come on down!".
Leslie Crowther, he was another one. The guy in the blazer and glasses who was the father of Thin Lizzy's girlfriend. He'd call audience members down on to the stage with that ecstatic call through his big square Deirdre lenses. What was that one..? The Price is Right! (I looked that one up too...)
And Bullseye of course. Now there was a quiz show. I'm not sure Jim Bowen was produced in the same factory though.
Bullseye reminds me of lumpy custard. It was always broadcast on a Sunday after the footie and we usually got custard with our Sunday pudding. That and Super Gran.
Gawd, Sundays were rubbish.
Together with Paladin the talking lamp I'm surprised I could bear to watch the telly at all. I hated most of those Glen Michael cartoons. You could tell, even at that age, they were all cheap rubbish. Like those cartoons your Mum or Gran used to buy you on VHS from the Poundshop or What Every Women Wants. Fantastic titles such as 'The Book of the Jungle', 'The Beauty Sleeping' or 'White Snow and the Seven Wee Men'.
Anyway, Friday nights Mr and Mrs game went well and played with great enjoyment considering there was no prize.
They certainly deserve a prize for 35 years of marriage. I wonder if Ka will put up with me for 35 years?
Maybe we'll have more of a chance if I stop spending my time writing about Nicholas Parsons, ancient quiz shows and complaining about lumpy custard.

The woman in the back

After escaping from work early yesterday evening, Ka's Mum and Dad, Dougie and Grace, took us out. We were off into town and after a quick stop to buy some wine gums and jelly babies, were diving through the Glasgow traffic to the Theatre Royal to see the stage production of 'The Woman in Black'. A dark, chilling tale of a solicitor who gets inadvertantly cursed by an evil spirit, spawned from a client's family history.
'The Woman in Black' is an adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 novel and has already been playing in London's West End for many years and is now on a Nation wide tour. An entertaining production with only three actors, two chairs, a door, a large wicker basket and an invisible dog which together served as the main players on stage to illustrate the ghostly tale. The actors were great in their roles and the audience watched with a quiet unease as the story unfolded with a few gentle scares along the way with appearances from the mysterious screaming woman in black.
As the story began, the elder of the main players walked out on to the stage and began reading quietly from a script. The audience of the theatre quietened down to a complete stillness as we all struggled to hear what was being murmured. As we strained to hear the words in the theatre's silence the audience began to wonder if we were actually supposed to be hearing the man's words. Ka took her bag of wine gums out from her pocket and very quietly started peeling the bag's glued top apart. Slowly, slowly, she prized the plastic bag open taking care to make as little noise as possible in the silence. The creaks of the old theatre seats and the odd, inescapable cough were the loudest noises in the large room as the man's words mumbled over us. Suddenly a loud voice yelled from the the back of the theatre shattering the concentrated silence into which the stage actor's mumbles had flowed. Many people jumped at the sudden loud shout from the rear of the stalls. Some screamed. One woman in particular, seated further behind us, screamed such a great, tremoring, 'oh my gawd!' that her voice broke out and above all the other noises of shock. Her screech seemed to echo louder than the actors, as the younger of the two actors strode from the back of the stalls to join his companion up on the stage. He talked as he walked but I think everyone was still suffering the aftereffects of the initial surprise to concentrate on his lines. I certainly could not stop myself from laughing for the first five minutes of the story, subtley trying to pinpoint from where the terrible screech had come from in the audience, perhaps waiting to catch a glimpse of a rather embarrassed lady slinking off to the loo. No one moved from their seat though and the woman remained anonymous . Her scream was so loud the woman must have, at the very least, spilt her jelly babies all over the place.

Later on Friday night

Ka and myself took both pairs of Mums and Dads to see the fantastic Jools Holland with his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra on Friday night as an early Christmas present. After a brilliant dinner by Ka's hand (her very first home made steak pie) we all jumped in a taxi, and went into the Clyde Auditorium in time for Camille O'Sullivan's support act. This was the first time I'd heard Camille and was surprised at how good she was. She sings with a passionate, slightly growling, vocal, singing her own tunes and covering the likes of Tom Waits and David Bowie. Nice pair of legs too.
Unfortunately you can't say the same for Jools but what a performer. It was the first time I'd seen him and his band live and they were even better than I thought they'd be. Jools strode out on to the stage ten minutes before he was expected to begin and immediately started hammering out the tunes, his fingers dancing over the piano keys like grasshoppers on speed. From blues to rock, from jazz and on to swing, Jools and his band covered them all along with Eddie Reader, Dave Edmunds and the "Queen of Boogie Woogie" herself, Ruby Turner who all made guest appearances throughout the night.
As that Monster coming over the hill that is Christmas approaches we went out on Sunday and completed the majority of our Christmas shopping. On the way home I dropped Ka off at the local Morrisons to get the Big Christmas shop. Whilst she was in there I ventured up to B&Q to get this year's tree. I walked out into B&Q's massive backyard to pick a tree, four or five different kinds stacked up out in the damp, each tied up in their netting. I choose a Noble Fir that looked the perfect size for our living room which had no net, and stood, leaning against one of the metal fences begging for an owner. However, I could not find any members of staff to pack the tree up through the netting machine. As always all B&Q staff seemed to mysteriously disappear before I had a chance to ask for assistance. When I had originally walked out into the DIY store's garden centre there had been at least two orange aproned members of staff milling around in the dim lit yard. Now they had gone, faded into the shadows among the trees and plant pots. In the end I had to opt for an already wrapped Noble Fir that seemed to be a good enough size for the flat. After completing the Big shop (Buy one box of mince pies, get two free!) went home and commenced another annual wrestling match with another tree. It's slightly bigger than last years and you have to do a Mission Impossible like sliding manoeuvre to switch the lights on but it looks great in it's corner so let the Christmas spirit commence!

Oooooo, aaaahhhhhh

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

Moos and monkey nuts

Trying to talk Mum and Dad into starting up a blog for their Grand World Tour of Austrailia. They're off to Oz on Monday for a month to travel through the cities, beaches, deserts, tropics and barbies meeting various distant relatives along the way. They've even been invited to a Wedding while they are over there.
Not sure if they're keen on the whole blog thing although Mum is talking about keeping a journal in a small notebook I apparently bought for her many moons ago. Mum came across the book the other day finding a small message on the inside cover, written by myself. Turns out the notebook is a nice little hardback number with illustrations littered throughout it's mostly blank pages depicting scenes from, none other than, The Wizard of Oz. Let's just hope they don't get hit with any tornados while they're over there. Or meet any Witches, flying monkeys or pumpkin headed men. (I've never met most of the austrailian relatives before so who knows).
Talking of pumpkin heads, it's halloween this weekend and Ka's nursery are having a party today, three days early. No doubt there'll be loads of monkey nuts and apples flying about.
Halloween was always bad for monkey nuts. Who came up with the idea of monkey nuts at Halloween? Who wanted monkey nuts for telling folk your best jokes? You knew you had to walk a little further afield on your trick or treating if all you were getting for your trouble was flamin' monkey nuts. Sometimes you'd get really lucky on you way round the houses and start getting actual money for your jokes, usually from folk that were either unprepared or just rich and generous. Nowadays, if you were to give money out to the kids you'd probably get reported for suspicious behaviour.
Anyway, today Ka is dressed as a cow with a pink skirt and a ginger fringe. This was the only costume that came to hand for her nursery party. Her brother, Colin McG, wore this cow costume, one of two, at his drama group's panto last year and on Saturday Ka and Jillian borrowed the costumes for a trip to Motherwell. As you may or may not be aware, a bunch of cows stoating around Motherwell on a Saturday is nothing too unusual but on this occasion the cows were panto versions of the actual animal, large and furry with the afore mentioned ginger fringes. It was an animal themed Singing Kettle show which Grace took them along to with Morgan. The lengths these girls go to to entertain Morgan is quite extraordinary. I dropped them off outside the theatre, driving off speedily as they pulled on the furry black and white cow costumes and posed for Grace's camera alongside Morgan, who was a Giraffe. As if this wasn't confusing, or embarassing, enough for Morgan, she was then pulled up on stage during the show to be a penguin.
Saturday is Halloween and will hopefully be the same as last year with no visitors and no rubbish jokes told by seven year olds from under rubbish costumes as they stand muddying up your hall carpet. We live in a flat so we can easily shut and lock the close door to stop any of the kids into our block. This is assuming, of course, that not all the kids are down the swing park boozing or mugging each other. We've only had trick or treaters at our door once and I don't think they've ever come back. They couldn't have liked their monkey nuts.