Aunt Ann, Adventure Ted and Big Ben

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

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

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

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

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

Going Underground with Adventure Ted

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

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

Ghost trains and thrill rides

7 o'clock? It's been at least a week or so since my alarm has gone off before 7 o'clock. My eyes felt glued shut. It took around five minutes to fully open them thanks to the sleep that had encrusted them. That, along with the lingering cold that's been hanging over me for the past few days, made it a slow struggle to get out of bed.
Unfortunately, after a semi failed trip to York last week and a weekend of entertaining it was time to get back to work and the great uncertainty that is the S&UN office.
Our niece, Morgan slept over on the Saturday night, once more demoting me to the living room couch to spend my Saturday night trying to get to sleep there with only my heavy cold for comfort and the clicking of the fridge, echoing from the kitchen. After an hour of Playstation 3, which I had switched on once the girls had gone off to bed, my head was buzzing with buggies and racing trucks and it took me at least an hour to fall asleep on my makeshift bed which consisted of a dusty quilt and a sleeping bag thrown over the, usually comfy, couch.
Ka, Morgan and myself had spent the afternoon at the Glasgow Irn Bru Carnival in the SECC.
We arrived early afternoon, after hearing all sorts of horror stories of hour long waiting times for the rides, and took advantage of it's quieter hours. Colin and Jillian had waited around an hour and a half to get on the ghost train the last time they were there, so we were determined to beat the crowds. We collected our entrance ticket and vouchers at the front counter after waiting only a few minutes in the short queue, half an hour after the Carnival's doors had opened. We then handed the entrance ticket over, received an inky stamp on the back of the hand and walked through the doors into the barrage of noise and colour that is the Carnival. The large, gloomy SECC hall was lit and full of life, echoing with noises, voices, and music of all descriptions as lights of all shapes, sizes and colours, whizzed, spun, beamed, circled and shot around us.
As the three of us tentatively walked out into the hall we looked around. It was all too familiar and as I remembered the last time I'd been there, many moons ago, I realised just how familiar. In fact, it had barely changed at all. I'm not sure what I'd been expecting. Most of the same rides even occupied the exact same space they had been in those ten years ago. You'd think they could at least shuffle some of the rides about, from year to year, to make it seem vaguely different. In fact, the only thing missing was the Pirate ship at the SECC's front doors, that swung you back and forth, back and forth, until you felt like puking the van chips up. It must have sunk somewhere at some point in the past ten years.
"Right, first things first" I said, or half shouted, over the noise. "The Ghost train!".
The ghost train was Morgan's number one priority and probably the main reason we were there in the first place. This was probably due to her various trips to Disneyland, and experiencing their brilliant haunted houses.
However, as we all know, the SECC is no Disney theme park. I didn't really have the heart to tell our niece that the ghost train on the back of a lorry, parked in one of the SECC's giant, grey, barn like halls, was not going to have quite the same level of effects and frights as one of Disney's fantastic eye rolling, wall moving, hologram projecting, animatronic zombified, skeleton mirrored, fireplace swivelling, Haunted Houses.
As it turned out, they didn't allow three in a car, so Ka and Morgan braved the ghost train alone. Apparently halfway through the ghost train Morgan politely requested Auntie Ka to stop screaming which was surprising to hear as Ka emerged from the other end of the Ghost train, looking thoroughly unimpressed. We then hit the dodgems, the Dragon rollercoaster and the Bingo. Yep, Morgan was keen on the bingo so we all took our positions around the bingo stall, admiring the very unfabulous prizes on offer, and got ready to mark off the numbers on our chosen machines. Just as the Bingo man began his monotone garble there was a 'hello' from behind us.
One of Morgan's school friends was in with his Mum and Dad who started chatting away. I nodded politely and turned to mark off my first number. Since both Morgan and Ka turned to chat there wasn't really a need for me to make small talk. The bingo had started. Who decides to interrupt someone just as they're about to hear their first number in a game of bingo? It's just downright rude. There were prizes at stake! That Gillette grooming set had my name on it.
I angrily stood up, off my stool, and shouted, "Leave us alone, can't you see we're playing bingo?!".
Obviously, that didn't happen and, unfortunately, I didn't win anything. As for Ka and Morgan, we'll never know if they won anything as they missed their first few numbers, thanks to the pesky, interrupting parents.
Following this we tried a few of the game stalls which are just a waste of time. You may as well just empty your wallet out on to the gypsy stall worker's lap.
Knocking over weighted bottles, hooking moving dogs with no prize token inside them and trying to catapult rubber frogs on to moving lilly pads, were all attempted and left us cheated out of vouchers. Morgan did manage to win herself a balloon at the hook a dog stall before we headed home though which she was more than happy with.
It was just before 5 and walking out into the bright light of the SECC's main hallway, we passed the massive queue at the carnival entrance. I silently wished the suckers luck with their future wait at the ghost train.
On the way home we stopped by the shops.
"Have you seen this?" I asked our wee niece, picking a copy of the colourfully, animated, 'Despicable Me' up from the sale shelf which stood alongside the checkout. A wee movie that would have been perfect to entertain our wee seven year old niece on a Saturday night, I thought. And only £4. Bargain.
Disappointingly, Morgan nodded confirming she had already seen it.
"What about this?" I asked her, seeing another attractively priced DVD. 'Hop'. Another computer generated animation, this one based around some sort of wise cracking Easter bunny.
"Yep, I went to see that with Uncle Colin" Morgan nodded again. I muttered some abuse at Colin under my breath.
"What about this?" I asked pulling another bargain from the shelf. Morgan frowned, puzzling over the dark DVD cover.
"Schindler's List?" Ka glowered at me, from further up the checkout.
"£4!" I insisted. "Bargain. Classic movie!". The woman putting her shopping through the checkout before us, lifted an eyebrow at me.
‘Schindler's List’ is a brilliant movie. In fact it's one of my Mum's favourite movies. She remembers ‘Schindler's List’ with fond memories.
One night, over dinner, she insisted that we'd all gone to see it as a family, during our two week holiday in Orlando, and everyone in the audience had stood up, cheered and clapped at the end.
I'm not sure where Mum went to see it, but we certainly weren't with her. I suspect she may have inadvertently stumbled into a BNP conference somewhere.
Surprisingly enough, as it turned out, Mum was actually getting some memories mixed up. The film we went to see, as a family, in Orlando, was, in fact, 'Jurassic Park'. Not the story of a German businessman that, through the need for employees in his factories, saved the lives of a thousand Polish Jews during the holocaust of the Second World War but the big effects-laden, Speilberg dino flick.
Taking a break from the thrill rides and ghost trains of Disneyland, back in 1993, the family took a trip to the cinema and watched that year's big Dino release with an American audience. It was the first time I'd sat in a cinema audience that actually made noise during the viewing of a movie. I'll always remember the moment the Tyrannosaurus Rex leaned down and looked through the window of the car as I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not because of the scary eyeball I was seeing before me, but because of the girl that was sitting behind us whose scream echoed over the volume of the tropical storm and the grunting dinosaur. The american audience screamed, gasped and cheered during the movie, something completely unexperienced to the Reids at that time.
As was the silence of the audience I remember seeing Schindler's List with. Indeed it is a classic movie, though perhaps not quite suitable for a seven year old looking to be entertained on a Saturday night.
We settled for Ice Age 2 instead.

Getting moving again

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

Smiley Miley's Radio Roadshow

As Coldplay's ‘Every Teardrop’ drew to a climatic conclusion on the Pyramid stage around midnight on Saturday we all counted up our miles. Dad finished with over 2,200 miles in his possession which meant he won the game, even though I had been the first to reach London after the nationwide journey around the board of the Smiley Miley Game and thus brining an end to the game.
Lynsey Ann had brought the Radio One Smiley Miley Road Show game up with her to Mum and Dad's on Saturday night to be played after we all demolished a delicious and rather impressive Chinese carry-out which included Chow Mein, King Prawns and Sweet and Sour chicken.
The Smiley Miley board game was based on the famous Radio 1 Road shows which toured the country every summer between the late seventies and the late nineties, entertaining the nation live on Saturday afternoons from various beaches and parks across the country. The young Reid family went to around three or four of them. The likes of Bruno Brookes, Phillip Schofield and the lovely Jackie Brambles would present the show live to the gathered locals. Games with lucky contestants plucked from the crowds included pop quizzes, 'Bits and Pieces' and 'Smiley Miley's Mileage Game'.
In 'Bits and Pieces' a small sample of a tune was played and you had to guess the artist, song name, or both, a game which I ended up introducing into the family Christmas quizzes I used to put together for the Big Boxing Night bashes we used to have. Mum and Dad's vinyl collection always came in quite handy for that particular round. I'd use the linked tape recorder to make cassettes up full of five to ten second clips from records that my Mum and Dad had bought over the years and apparently forgotten the sound of after a few beers on Boxing Night. I still use the old 'Bit and Pieces' routine occasionally in homemade quizzes to this day. Instead of the old tape recorder I now use the Mac's Garageband application. It's much easier to blend the tracks and even distort them but it's strangely not as much fun.
I miss cassettes. Music in a thin plastic case on a magnetic tape played when wound between two cogs. How cool does that sound? Antiquated, but cool! They were so brilliantly temperamental too.
I spent many an afternoon trying to wind a tape smoothly back inside it's cassette casing. Hours of fun! Once successfully all wound back into place, I'd plug the tape victoriously back into the my cassette player, pressing play with a satisified grin, only to hear the music start warping and morphing, after a few minutes, into a chewed up garbling noise. A wonderful alien noise the BBC's Radiophonic workshop could not easily produce.
Anyway, the BBC finally axed the Radio 1 Roadshow in 2000 replacing it with the present day, annual, festival wannabe, Big Weekend. Probably a good move in the end up as The Big Weekend now attracts pretty big, international names such as the Foo Fighters, Lady Gaga and Madonna.
Del Amitri and Status Quo were the big crowd pullers of the Road Show. Not quite the same.
The last Road Show we went to was in Arran. Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann, Kenny and myself travelled over in the wee Nissan Micra with our tents, setting up camp on the Friday afternoon, the wee two man tent and the bigger three man dome tent, alongside each other, just in time for the imminent arrival of the Radio 1 lorries and their guest artists, Wet Wet Wet.
Mum and Dad had decided to set up camp with the rest of the Radio 1 roadshow campers and as we settled down to bed, everyone else in the makeshift campsite decided to waken up and the campsite seemed to suddenly transform into a rave. Being younger and naive at the time the Reid family spent the night cowering in our tents, surrounded by crazy, wild, drunken teenagers high on drugs and juice, falling into the sides of the tents, puking on tents, shouting, dancing and ramsacking tents. Kenny and myself were in the wee two man tent which stood before the larger where Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann’s cowered, sleep deprived and helpless. Halfway through the night Kenny and myself looked up into the darkness of our tent to find some bloke staring back at us.
“Here, there’s somebody in this tent?!”, I remember the guy blurted, before reversing back out and diving off into the noisy darkness.

A young Jackie Brambles and the rest of the roadshow, eventually arrived the next morning as promised, and as Marti Pellow started belting out the hits live on air to the gathered crowd, who seemed strangely mellow and considerably more controlled than they had been the past eight hours, even with Wet Wet Wet on stage, the band they were apparently all camping out to see.
Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann, Kenny and myself sat on the grass in the open Arran park, half dozing in the Scottish summer sun, enjoying the quiet. Even with Marti Pellow warbling in the background it seemed like bliss.
The board game proved to be more of a hit for the Reid family than that particular Road Show in Arran and at the weekend proved that, although dated, it’s still a hell of a lot more enjoyable than listening to Wet Wet Wet.

Birds, breakfast and beaches

With justy over 24 hours to go now until Ka and myself start our journey back to good old Scotland we are back relaxing by the pool with the Cocoon elite. Although this Cocoon elite are not as lively as the movie characters. In fact, Ka and myself are worried that some of them may not be just lying sunbathing...
Captain Birdseye is here in the hotel too. He was lying with his Captain's hat on when we arrived around two hours ago. We know he was the real deal too as he had the white beard with the slightly crooked smile and the fact that all the waiters were saluting him put the nail in the coffin. The proverbial coffin, of course. He didn't actually die. He just sauntered off a while back, perhaps to wrestle a squid or something, as Ka and myself licked our carte d'or cones.
Last night Ka and myself boarded the Captain Nemo II, a large glass bottom ferry boat which took us a two hour cruise around the surrounding north west coastline of Ibiza, taking in the sights, including a smugglers cave, a large cliff where people get naked, a Batman logo shaped rock formation, a chance to feed the seagulls (which started following us after only ten minutes at sea and then commencing to try and shit on us after feeding - great idea Mr Tourist guide!) and, of course, the Ibiza sunset. Although cloudier than the first sunsets of the week, last nights was still great to watch from the bow of a boat, glass of 'champagne' in hand.
Afterwards we went to a local Dutch bar for dinner and after a thoroughly impressive meal there, went out for a few cocktails and then bed.
This morning we were once more rudely awoken. All through the week we've been rather rudely awoken by a villainous little bird that likes to perch on the head of the palm tree outside out balcony and tweet away like an unpleasant, highly shrill, alarm signal. The kind of noises R2-D2 would make, if on drugs. He, or she, (it may be a she for all I know, I've no idea when it comes to birds) sits on the palm tree and without fail, tweets away (no, it's not on twitter!), loudly, constantly and without fail every morning and even has the cheek to sit and look at you, if you venture out on to the balcony to confront it. He, or she, even turns up if Ka and myself decide to sit and relax on the balcony, late afternoon, and tweets away, blatantly in our faces.
On our way round a local touristy shop yesterday i spotted a rail of Ibiza sling shots that would be ideal for silencing our little friend. Of course, I abandoned the idea as we fly home tomorrow. If I'd been staying 2 weeks, it may have been a different story.
This morning it wasn't the bird that woke us up though, it was the maids. On a few morning the bird was almost drowned out by the hotel maids who seem to gather around our apartment door every morning with their mops and brushes and debate loudly, in their native spanish, about potatoes. Or at least that's what it sounds like to my untrained ears (I never took Spanish at school). They shout at each other like Spanish Speedy Gonzalezs (plural, Gonzalei?). Ka snapped this morning and shouted a grumpy "Shut up!" from her bed. Unfortunately I don't think they heard as they continued with thier noisy bustling.
I'll miss the breakfast in the hotel. Hot plate upon hot plate of sausage, egg, boiled and fried, bacon, tomatoes, fried bread, hash browns, croissants, pastries, cereals, jams, juices, fruit and crackers. Not to mention one of those cool toasters with the conveyer belts. All fantastic. The only niggly thing being that you're in constant competition with the other residents to get the best looking sausage or the last fried egg on the hot tray. If you miss the last fried egg or tomato you have to wait for the slightly scarey Head Waiter to replace the empty tray with a fully loaded version of breakfasty goodness while newly woken guests mill around you, huffing, puffing and generally moaning as to why you are holding up the queue.
The buffet dinner is even worse. the old folk are all circling the restaurant doors before they're even opened at half seven and if you turn up even five minutes later your waiting ages to get any dinner. Ka and myself have been amazed at the speed some of these pensioners eat. Some of them are diving into their ice cream before Ka and myself have even managed to pick up a fork.
I've missed out on a few puddings thanks to the elderly queue jumpers, the pudding hoggers and the guests who take a slice of the best pudding before they've even had a nibble on their main course. On Tuesday night I had my eye on the last two slices of chocolate cheesecake for Ka and myself and was making my way over to the dessert counter when I heard two women conversing loudly behind me.
"Oh, that cheesecake looks lovely"
"Only two bits left too. Count me in, hold on, I'll get a plate"
By this point I'd had enough of missing out and witha thought along the lines of "not on your nelly!", I raced up to the dessert counter and quickly cakesliced the two last peices on to my plate. With a smug look on my face, and a mental victory dance going on in my head, I turned to face the two hopefuls as I heard them come up behind me. My smug look melted as I looked round at their glaring looks of sad annoyance. One of them looking up grimly from her wheelchair. Her friend glowering at me with complete hatred.
Stuff it. I'm on holiday. I can eat whatever puddings I want. Even if I don't look quite as good on the beach as a result. Unlike the inhabitants of Cala Bassa, a beach, reached by ferry boat, which Ka and myself visited during the week. We were lying sunbathing, when I suddenly happened to notice we were surrounded by naked people.

Too old for Ibiza

According to the digital clock display on the harbour side, it's 25 degrees celcius in San Antonio today. It seems far warmer even though there is a strong breeze flowing in from the ocean, stirring the giant palm trees which line the colourful streets of fountains, cafes and shops.
Ka and myself arrived on Saturday night, leaving behind the Scottish sunshine and looking forward to an early, sunny summer holiday. A chilled week in sunny Ibiza before it's June/July busy season begins.
The plane descended into Ibiza airport around 8 o'clock in the evening, shrouded in grey cloud and as we left the airport, the rain and thunderstorm began. Almighty, jagged lines of lightening ripped through the black skies and around the mountainous hills around us, the coach full of Scots tourists (two of which were seeing lightening for the first time), as it made it's way through Ibiza's main roads to drop us all at our various hotels.
Instead of the warm, humid, foreign conditions we had all imagined ourselves to be arriving in, Ka and myself disembarked from our coach in the rain, our driver quickly ducking down into the coach's luggage compartment and chucking our cases out at us, into the puddles as ominous palm trees swung threateningly overhead, framing the front of our hotel, its entrance looming over us through the rain and wind, like the beginnings of a scarey murder mystery rather than a holiday in the sun.
Thankfully the rain quickly petered out (thanks Peter!) and after being served some, dried up remains for that night's buffet dinner, which Ka and myself politely received and politely refused the majority of, we ventured out for a short walk to check out the area and maybe partake in a wee drink to start our holiday.
We sauntered up the Promenade, home to our hotel, at five the next morning, drunk but happy. We had walked along the Promenade directly outside the hotel, which stretches the length of the beach and the harbour and inadvertantly walked straight up into the busy, hectic main bar area of San Antonio, locally named Cami de Santa Agnes or what clubbing tourists know it as, "the westend", or "the strip". Upon entering the strip we were immediately accosted by club touts of all nationalities, shapes and sizes. We ended up perched in a supposedly Scottish bar named, The Highlander were we enjoyed a few drinks with various folk including a friendly bunch of London lads over for a 21st, boviously sozzled but still a good laugh, and a hen party from Livingston, from which the chief bridesmaid happily chatted away with us. Whilst she chatted, one of her party, a slightly older memeber of the 'mutton dressed as lamb' variety, got amorous with one of the London blokes, the two of them disappearing up an alley for half an hour after claiming they were going home and appearing a little disshevlled looking not long afterwards.
Although the whole street of bars seemed lively enough you couldn't help but feel it was all a precursor for what's to come in the June July months for the strip's nightlife and the town as touts for the varrious bars bounced around the cobbled street looking a little at a loss as they struggled for pedestrians to shout at with offers of free shots, or glasses of supposed champagne.
Needless to say, the following morning, Ka and myself missed our welcome meeting and our breakfast not opening our eyes till well past the last serving at 10.
We staying half board which gives us the luxury of breakfast and dinner in the hotel as long as we eat between certain times, sit where they want us to sit, don't ask for glasses of ice and just generally behave ourselves, avoiding any battles with any other guests, including buffet battles.
Baefore we got to this sunny climate, fellow work colleagues and friends had taken great smugness in telling me I was too old for Ibiza. Well, after the first morning in this hotel, I could quite rightly say that I'd never seen so many old people under one roof. The hotel is full of old folk! I've never seen so many hearing aids.
"Perfect for couples", the brochure said. It never mentioned anything about "your last holiday EVER".
Though it did certainly feel like that as I headed down to relax at the poolside on the Sunday morning, to try and get a plastic sunbed under the suspicious gazes the gathered pensioners who had already claimed their places there. Thankfully the thunder and rain had now dispersed revealing a blistering blue sky. Even the lizards were running for cover as I took my place alongside Ka on one of the ever so comfortable plastic beds at the poolside, beside the pool's cafe and toilet hut. So comfortable in fact that after approximately twenty seconds of lying a queer feeling did come over my body. Within moments I was rushing, as subtley as I could, into the toilet hut and puking down one of the pans. Not the greatest start to the holiday but after a small portion of a toastie from the pool's cafe we were off once more to take a long walk along the , thankfully, long pier. Sunday was our first full day in Ibiza and in the evening we were to experience our first half board dinner and that's when the battles with the hearing aids almost began, Ka and myself bought the worst bottle of wine known to man and we met Ashley (no, not him from Coronation Street!).
Minor battles also commenced with small chirping birds, the lady in the wheel chair, the Head Waiter, the Hitler Ice Waiter and the wee Ice cream nicking little old lady.
But they're all other stories for another time. I'm off to get ready for a sunset cruise.

We're packing

Ka and myself are hurriedly putting the last few things in our cases. We're leaving the country. Alex Salmond's in charge!
Alex Salmond has been all over the news and the tv for the past few days thanks to the election results so it'll make our short holiday away all the more worthwhile.
If the coalition government has done one thing for Britain so far it's help push the Scottish people over the edge. The SNPs have won a majority government in Scotland thanks to the disillusionment of Labour supporters, not to mention the removal of any support of the Lib Dems and Tories. Then again with that bloke in charge of Labour, Iain Gray, Gray with a capital GRAY, they never really stood much of a chance. I think I actually nodded off the few times I seen him speaking on the news, inadvertently dropping my biscuit in my tea.
Hate it when that happens. Soggy biscuit lying in a pile of mush at the bottom of your cup as you finish. Must be even worse for muffins. Jillian managed to drop a muffin in her tea the other day?! It was a mini muffin to be fair, not one of the mother muffins you get out of the supermarket bakeries or Starbucks shops. Jillian was not listening to Iain Gray though.
I wonder how many perfectly good cups of tea Iain Gray has ruined? Maybe that's why he's quitting? Gray had wanted 'root and branch reform'. So he was blaming the tea.
Anyway, that's reminded me. Teabags. Must remember to take some good British tea to Ibiza with us (who says I'm too old for Ibiza?!). Good British Nambarrie tea.
Whilst writing this, I have just received an email from Kenny in Oz, ordering me to visit a bar in San Antonio, named Kilty's. Apparently it sells bottles of buckie. I've only had one gulp of buckie in my whole life but hey, you never know.
I'd better go and weigh these cases again. We've borrowed a luggage weighing device from my Mum and Dad in order to ensure we come within the correct weights specified for our flights. When I say 'we' I mean of course, Ka's case. I'm fine. 10 and a half kg. Easy.
Ka is coming in at just under 15. For a moment we were almost taking her big Revlon hair dryer. Ka made me phone Ibiza to make sure the hotel rooms have hair dryers. Then, after I had come off the phone, she realised she had to know whether there were ironing facilities. Ironing facilities? Just hang your clothes up, I said. But no, we need an iron. Our clothes have to be neatly pressed. Even in Ibiza. So a second phonecall to the same hotel receptionist was made. The Spanish lady sniggered slightly on the other end of the line and politely brushed my apologies aside. She'll no doubt be a little puzzled when a balding man in a creased t-shirt turns up tonight at her reception booking in under the same name.

Short breaks and short lives

It’s been another rough week. Both Ka and myself have felt down, depressed and rather grumpy, our thoughts dwelling on our recent loss again, our moods spiralling up and down, like an demented rollercoaster.
Ka is now back at work, full time, and finding it all quite difficult to get back into the routine of things. Ka is strong though, not to mention stubborn and determined. Her boss is being excellent in offering her as much help and support as she needs but Ka is stubbornly getting on with things. As horrible as it is to say, life must go on, something both Ka and myself understand and have to get on with, whilst at the same time, never forgetting.
Arriving home on Friday night cheered us up a little though as waiting for us, on the hall carpet, were our holiday tickets. We booked a week away in May online, last week, with the idea of a beach holiday. A short break. An effort to cheer ourselves up, to some extent. We had not been a quiet beach holiday since back in 2007 when we went to Turkey. Even our honeymoon in 2009 seemed hectic at times, as we toured Rome and Venice. So we wanted a definite break. Somewhere we could go to chill out, get away from work, walk around where no one would know us and just generally get away from it all on a relaxed, calm, restful beach holiday.
We ended up booking a week in Ibiza. Not exactly the first place you think of when you hear the words ‘restful’, ‘calm’ or ‘relaxed’. In fact, I’m sure Ibiza has cropped up on more than a few of those television programmes which show British tourists wobbling around foreign streets, slurring their words, starting fights with their pants round their ankles. Hopefully we’ll be a safe distance from any of that shenanigans though…at least ‘the pants round the ankles’ crowds anyway.
We’re staying in a hotel in San Antonio, a good 20 minutes drive outside Ibiza town, so we do have the option for a clubbing night out if we’re feeling lively enough. It’s still pre-season in May, so it will probably still be pretty calm. Well, calm until Ka and myself get a couple of cocktails down us and then head out to Pacha to get involved, donning our shades, luminous shorts and glow sticks, starting the season off ourselves. Whatever happens, it’ll just be good to get away, even if it is only just for a week.
Something else to look forward to is the return of Doctor Who, back on our screens tonight. My inner geek, and my outer geek for that matter, rejoices. Not that I’ll be in (I’ll be out and about) but hopefully it’ll be on the iPlayer by the time I get round to watching it tomorrow (or late tonight depending on whether I’m allowed!).

It was sad to hear of the death of Lis Sladen, during the week. The Sarah Jane Smith. The Doctor’s greatest companion, whom he mat back in 1973, in his third incarnation, the great Jon Pertwee. Obviously I wasn’t around back in 1973, but on becoming the Doctor Who and sci-fi geek that I became, soon caught up with past events. Even though Sarah Jane hadn’t been in the show continuously when I was a kid, I always remember knowing who she was whenever she cropped up.
Sarah Jane set the benchmark for all female companions to follow, making them all stronger, tougher, more rounded, realistic characters, not to mention the fact she was fairly fanciable in her younger years.
My inner geek waved another accusing fist up at the heavens when I watched the news reports on Tuesday and it has only been a few months since the great Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Nicholas Courtney, passed away. Another brilliant companion of the Doc’s from around the same time, and like Sarah Jane Smith, popped up on more than one occasion throughout the show’s history to aid the Doctor in battle against another nasty alien threat.
Sladen was only 63 but had been ill with cancer. I couldn’t believe she was 63, never mind ill.
News today has also broke of John Sullivan’s death. The creator of Only Fools and Horses, another absolute classic and another of my favourites. Sullivan was surely a comedy writing genius of our time? He was only 64?! That’s nothing!
Irreplaceable, both of them. The Doctor’s greatest companion and the man that created Delboy and Rodney.
Another thirty years and I’ll be the same age. Will the next thirty go as quickly as the last thirty? I may not even last that long!
Sorry, getting depressed again…

“The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship… Everything has its time. And everything ends”.
Sarah Jane Smith

Some kind of normality

Ka's in Africa. That's the latest. One of the wee boys in Ka's Nursery turned round to one of her colleagues today and asked, "When's Ka coming back from Africa?".
This was after the kids had all been sat down last week and told the story of how Lucy went to Heaven. Obviously this particular little boy hadn't been paying much attention. Either that or he's under the impression Heaven is a northerly region of the second largest continent and Ka's joined Lucy over there for a safari.
It was back to some kind of normality this week as I went back to work for the first time since before the new year. It was harder than I thought, sitting at my computer, working on ads again after everything that has happened, so I was a little sluggish to begin with.
It just doesn't seem right. Ka and myself feel like we should be doing other things. Life should be more enjoyable, messier and more hectic after the build up of the past nine months. We should be getting used to a new way of life when, in reality, life is pretty much the same as it was nine months ago. Nothing has changed except the grief we will forever feel at the back of our minds, slowly sinking out of sight but never relieving it's weight.
Work, gym, cinema, shopping, meals at relatives. They have all been attempts at keeping us occupied but all seem vaguely different somehow. We can't escape the feeling that there should be more going on. Someone else around, keeping us occupied.
Yesterday morning I was on one of my many stridings through the wilderness that is the EK shopping centre, surroundings not unlike the wilds of Africa described by Ka's wee nursery pupil by the look of some of the folk that inhabit the place on a normal weekday morning as some of them look as if they've just escaped from cages.
Another trip to the dentist had been successfully accomplished on time with just moments to spare. After, once more, answering and grudgingly attempting to tell of recent events involving losing one's baby, in this instance to the friendly receptionist and our nice dentist, I went on my way through the mall with polished teeth..
Next stop, the post office and as I marched I spotted something whilst passing one of the larger charity shops that stopped me dead in my tracks. A large Yamaha keyboard, adorned with buttons, dials, screens and, well, keys, sat looking at me from within the Debra shop under the out of the question price tag of £35.
A hazey dream of reminiscence filtered into my mind. Back in the day, (cue Dvorak's Hovis music), during the High school years I always toyed with the idea of learning keyboard and piano. At the time, most of my mates could play some kind of instrument, to some kind of extent and were keen to form a band, of some kind. Colin sang and swung his guitar, whilst Nocker strummed and Bungle battered the drums.
The keyboard appealed to me. It made cool noises and played beats for you that you didn't have to spend hours making up yourself. I'd always thought it'd be quite cool to learn piano too. Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Rowlf the Dog, they'd all mastered the art before me. If a blind guy, a rocket with glasses, a grinning mannequin and a dog could do it, so could I.
Of course, I never did. Colin managed to teach me one song on the bass but that was about as far as my contribution to music went. I'm far better off merely listening.
Anyway, after seriously considering the prospects of buying the Yamaha for around five seconds I decided against it. I realised that if I brought that massive keyboard home to my one bedroom flat, Ka would probably take it and batter me over the head with it. The last thing she needs at the moment is me setting up a Yamaha in the middle of the living room, switching off all the lights, standing in my tie and going all Kraftwerk on her.
It's more like Kraft Foods in our house, the amount of cheese on crackers we're putting away. Great to have in the house for guests but not so great when your looking for nibbles whilst watching the telly. The calories I'm piling on must be immense!
Yes, the passing of Baby Lucy has left the two of us feeling at a loss and looking for more meaningful things to do to keep our minds busy, but I doubt bringing home a second hand Yamaha keyboard is an answer.
A break somewhere would be more worthwhile, probably not a trip to Africa though.

Out of the office

Well, after a blissful two weeks off it was back to work this morning. Back to the Monday morning faces. Faces struggling to look cheerful, happy or interested after their own blissful two days off, enjoying the Scottish sun (not the newspaper), more than likely a few glasses of beer and a Sunday of laughing at the english football team.
Finally growing a bit fed up of the footie, Ka and myself went to the flicks yesterday afternoon and seen Woody Allen's latest effort, 'Whatever Works' coming out of the cinema into the rain.
The rain! The long forgotten, wonderful rain. People were once more walking around glasgow with umbrellas, taking shelter under shop archways in their shorts, some stumbling around with twisted faces, eyes stinging as their facial suncream ran into their eyes with the raindrops. Yes, the clouds are back, just in time for going back to work so I was quite happy to spend the day in the office, cheerfully greeting folk on my way in as always and getting the afore mentioned grunts of greeting (if that).
My, usually cheerful, 'hello' as I walk down the office to my seat is always nice to keep going. To most it's the only time of the day I speak to them, something I'm quite glad of depending who it is and, I'm sure, something most people in the office are quite glad of.
It's always very boring though when someone asks you what you done with your two weeks off. No I didn't go abroad, no I never went away anywhere nice, and yes it was nice just to be out the office. Okay, okay, in other words I done nothing! Nothing, okay! Nothing! And I'd do it again I tell you! Hahahahahaha! (Jump out the window...)
Of course, that ain't strictly true, I got up to lots of things but things I'm not going to tell anyone at work about. Not because it could be damaging to my career or anything, just because they wouldn't be the slightest bit interested. Some of them were, it has to be said, impressively polite today by pretending to be, bless 'em. But why would they? And quite right, as soon as you start rhyming off some of the 'lots of things', they start moaning internally, chastising themselves for being polite and then drifting into dreamland, a glazed look coming over their eyes as they start wondering when their next tea break is. Recognising this, I kept it brief, cutting it down to the 'best of' moments, trying to make it all sound just as exciting as two weeks in the pirate infested waters of the Caribbean or a hand gliding trip over Europe. "Oh well, at least you weren't in here" they'd say. It may not have been the most exciting of holidays but it was certainly pretty nice just to get out the office.

Someone's nicked the beach!

I'm still getting burnt as the sun is still out over Scotland. The clouds were quite heavy looking when we got up this morning for Ka's last holiday but by two o'clock the sun was back out once more, blazing away, incinerating many a Scottish skin cell. It's been a great week. We've went to the beach, attended a school sports day, watched a fair bit of the old World Cup, enjoyed a few pub lunches, had a few pints in the sun and seen a few movies, including the severely odd 'Greenberg'.
On Saturday Ka and myself drove down to Largs to visit the seafront once more only to find someone had nicked the beach. I was sure there had been a sand beach there when I was a kid. I had vague memories of visiting the shows of the seafront when I was wee and going to Nardini's for an ice cream before running down to the sandy beach. However, I must have been getting my coastal towns mixed up again (I hate it when that happens!). Largs has never had sand, only pebbles.
Not to be undeterred I spread the car's rug out over the rocky beach and lay down. It took a short while to shuffle and squirm around until I had made a decent Michael shaped indent in the pebbles underneath in order to lie in some degree of comfort, but I got there in the end, convincing Ka to join me. We ended up relaxing in our indents for a few hours, watching the ferry come and go for Millport more than a few times and people of all shapes and sizes attempt skimming stones over the shimmering waterfront. I barely managed 3 bounces with my stones but according to the World Skimming Championships, (http://www.stoneskimming.com/), it's all down to the distance the stone travels rather than the amount of bounces. From what I could tell I skimmed just as good as the rest of them. It would have been a different story if Dad had been there.
Needless to say, Ka and myself came home a little burnt, even though we had been applying the sun cream. My prominent forehead shining a magnificent shade of luminous red which has, thankfully, now calmed down. From the looks of it the sun won't be going anywhere quite yet though.

118 118

Desperate Housewives is blaring away in the background as I sit in the bedroom writing this. Ka has curled up on the bed to watch the programme but has, rather unsurprisingly, fallen asleep. I suspect she's had a little too much of the old vino and the soft comfort of her pillows has lulled her off to dreamland. Wherever her dreamland maybe.
It's back to work tomorrow after a pleasant week off, half of which was spent walking round London and the other half recovering. Ka and myself travelled down on an overly busy train, first thing on Monday morning, after just managing to catch the Number 20, the bus that writes its own timetable.
That morning Kenny was making his own way to work, sitting on the top deck, leafing through the ever essential Metro when he just happened to see two early morning numpties running frantically over the Calderwood footbridge, one struggling with a large silver case, which may or may not have contained a kitchen sink. At half past six in the morning Ka and myself gave Kenny something amusing to watch on his morning bus to work, wondering if we'd make it to the bus stop in time. After the disappointment of us making it he went back to his Metro.
We arrived in London around half one and immediately headed for the underground and towards our hotel on Primrose Hill, just west of Camden. The Hampstead Britannia Hotel, a rather grand name for a rather dismal hotel. When I say dismal, it wasn't ALL bad. It was mostly clean and tidy and served its city stay purposes, however, the brochure claimed it to be a three star when two would have proven more than generous. Most of the foreign staff were marginally helpful and unsmiling, the windows dotted over the whole tower were all filthy and the rooms were all in serious need of an overhaul, decor and utilities. The baths were grimey and the shower curtains at least five years old. Ka commented on the fact that we had no idea how many big hairy things had used those shower curtains. As I immediately started pondering what big hairy things Ka was referring to I quickly decided it was probably best not to dwell on it. One of the elevators also squealed alarmingly, in the best Tower of Terror like fashion, when you pressed the button for reception, which rang out through the corridor, surely waking up any late sleeping guest nursing a hangover.
Upon arrival a scary, warty, hooked nose, foreign receptionist handed over our room key, speaking with the kind of accent that sounded like she was suffering with a bad case of catarrh. As I took the key I couldn't help but stare at the woman's warts. Paranoia pinched me and I realised I may have been staring and shifted my gaze. The woman's hooked nose reared into view and I then jumped impulsively scanning the room for any flying monkeys. We were off to see Wicked the next night so perhaps my thoughts were elsewhere. As the woman eyed me with her beady eyes, and I considered asking for a bucket of water, I looked down. The key was to Room 118.
118 is perhaps what we should have called when we seen the room. Gawd awful wallpaper, bumpy mattresses, ancient television and a door in the wall to the next room, locked but still clearly linked by the voices from the other side. We did not get to sleep till around three listening to the couple next door through the card thin wall seperating our rooms. Thankfully they were not partaking in anything too cringe inducing. The english couple were only talking to each other about the television serial they had on, what seemed like full volume, wishing their home bedroom was as big as Harolds (whoever Harold was) and the all important decision of what drawer she was keeping her socks in. At two in the morning, after a pretty good but tiring day, I lay in the dark listening to a long half hour discussion of what drawer this woman was going to keep her socks in. I snapped, pulled my jeans back on and stomped down to reception demanding a new room for the next night. We got our key to the new room the next morning. Room 321. They're having a laugh, I thought. That's where Dusty Bin lived isn't it?!

Safaris and Stevie Wonder

Over a week since my last post! Good grief - what's happening to me?! I have been off work for a week and enjoying myself in posh hotels, trips to safari parks, eating out in the town, relaxing in the sauna and jacuzzi, spending Wedding gift vouchers and visiting graves. Well, I wouldn't class the latter in the 'enjoying myself' category but it is one of these things that you always mean to do and never get round to doing. I've carried out a few of those 'meant to do' jobs and trips having the whole week off and to myself and it has been great.
Ka and myself stayed in Malmaison last weekend for a five year anniversary treat - and also because we had a voucher given as a Wedding gift by a parent in Ka's nursery. You know your in a posh place when the bathroom sink is on a table and the toilet comes out of the wall and not the floor. A floating toilet seat - amazing. I did manage to pull myself away from the posh toilet seat to go down to Humming Bird on Bath street after our splendid two course meal in the Malmaison restaurant. Another trendy overcrowded bar with a mix of music, cocktails and clientele.
Blair Drummond Safari Park was surprisingly impressive too. We arrived at five to ten on Monday morning with Morgan, the neice, singing in the back seat, eating cheese sandwiches. Blair Drummond proved to be a great day out with talks, shows and enclosures for elephants, lions, tigers, giraffes, chimpanzees, meerkats, penguins, guinea pigs and a dead bear. Morgan informed us the bear was now in heaven. Watching the sea lions wave and jump was quite fun, though a little disappointing if you happen to have already been to any Deep Sea World abroad, the Sea Lions best skill being their rather accurate impression of Stevie Wonder as they stood swaying on their plinths.
The Birds of Prey talk was far more entertaining as a giant eagle of some description done it's best to take our heads off. Morgan seemed unfazed by it all, apparently the overfriendly lamas were far more frightening. Driving through the lion enclosure was surprisingly intimidating too especially when one of the lions jumped up and broke into a run, heading straight for us. I nearly chocked on my chocolate button but fortunately refrained for jumping on the accelerator as the lion in question then decided to slow and settle down at the foot of a tree in the shade.
Tonight Ka and myself are off to another ELU fund raiser involving the old wooden horses on strings ordeal. You never know I may even win some money out of it... certainly more than a visit to the Shawfield Stadium anyway.

Blue lagoons and Bolognese day

A pretty relaxed weekend there except from various painful gymnastic manoeuvres before dinner last night.
After a quick meeting with the Wedding photographer on Saturday morning Ka was out and about again hitting the shops with Beth leaving me to my own devices. My device on this occasion being my iMac with which I was adding more photos to reidnet. Unfortunately I did not get everything finished as various meetings, dinners and movies interfered. Saturday evening we met up with my Mum and Dad as they delivered a bottle of champagne with a wedding gift before they flew off to sunny Turkey. Oludeniz to be precise.
Ka and myself went to Oludeniz for the day when we went to Turkey two years ago. A great little resort on the south coast with beautiful beaches, a fantastic blue lagoon and the whole resort bordered by giant hills and cliffs including the Babadag mountain, popular for cliff jumping opportunities. By that I mean, paragliders of course and not people that want to end it all. The blue lagoon was particularly impressive. A large pool of deep blue circled by the Turkish hills, the nature reserve and the weaving paths through the palm trees running through it. In the Lagoon you could swim a good distance out into the water and still see your feet kicking below you. Far more relaxing than ocean swimming. Especially if, like me, your one of those paranoid swimmers that still grows uneasy after swimming out into the middle of the ocean and realise there's nothing below your feet but the dark, unfathomable ocean life. Your former relaxed self disappearing as you look around urgently for shark fins and blobby jelly fish rising out of the ocean. Images of that severed leg in Jaws drifting down to the rocky sea bed flitting through your mind.
On Sunday we were treated to Dougie's Bolognese special after Morgan put us through some gymnastics in the living room whilst Angela tried on a bridesmaids' dress with Ka upstairs. I certainly would not go to any fitness class run by Morgan after that. Even after a trip to the gym in the morning I was knackered by her maneuvers. Ka's Dad then treated us all to one of his culinary specialities. Bolognese has always been a favourite of mine anyway although my Mum's recipe is better than Dougie's but maybe I'm just biased. Dougie's was great but Mum's is better. Perhaps something to do with her secret ingredient - a glass of red wine (not so secret anymore!). Anyway, I always look forward to a bit of Bolognese. I woke up on the Sunday morning like one of those puppets that advertise pasta sauce on daytime telly:
"It's bolognese day!" I grin as I awake on Sunday.
"It's bolognese day?!" Ka frowns as she opens her eyes.
In Uddingston Dougie shouts excitedly "It's bolognese day!" as he leaps from bed and pulls the bottom tomato from the cupboard of stacked tomatoes.
Grace, in her stookie, shakes her head with a smile as the tomatoes tumble down over Dougie from the cupboard, "Papa always get so excited on Bolognese day!"

Where there's a will

On Saturday afternoon my Dad started reading us his will. He had went hunting for my baptismal certificate, which I apparently need for some sort of pre Wedding religious check up, and had come across his final wishes. Ka and myself had popped up for a visit to show my Mum the honeymoon destination and the intrinsic cuppa and after mentioning the baptismal certificate my Dad had disappeared upstairs. Moments later he had reappeared with his black filing box. One of these plastic extendable filing boxes not unlike some sort of felxible plastic accordian. He settled down in his chair and started rummaging through it, producing report cards from school, old newspaper clippings, souvenir booklets and the aforementioned certificates. He then started reading through his will which we did not particularly want to hear - not that we ever will want to hear it. I'm sure there will be one occasion, hopefully in the far and distant future, when it will be read out to us by some rusty old mumbling solicitor in a big office with oak furniture but not not on a Saturday night as we show off our honeymoon destination.
Talking of our honeymoon destination it is shocking to see the pictures of the effects of the earthquakes to have hit central Italy. The death toll has risen to 250 people. Depressing. It's also depressingly typical of us to have booked our honeymoon where the latest catastrophic disasters are occuring (be them natural)! Creamy Chicken John left for an Easter holiday in Rome at the beginning of the week. Hopefully the devastating effects will not affect his break in the Capital.
John is off to Rome, Andrea is still off, and is due to leave for maternity leave in two weeks time, DVD Andy is on holiday, (probably off walking a hill somewhere or hanging around Tesco for strangers' discarded receipts) and the office is quiet without the bosses around, who have all seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. As a result, we have been quite busy in the office covering for all the absentees and holiday makers. The weather is getting better though and it definately seems that summer, in some form, may be on its way.
Sheesh, I'm feeling optimistic now, considering I've spent the past ten minutes writing about disasters and wills. Maybe it's also something to do with the fact that it's Ka's birthday tomorrow and I'm surprisingly organised and prepared.

Fry and apple tea

Have just sat and watched the second episode of 'Stephen Fry in America' and what a great series it is turning into. Throughout the series he is to visit all 50 states of America, some of them way too briefly but it has proven to be a pretty entertaining watch. Fry is usually pretty honest, witty and interesting in all television projects he has been involved in, so to see him hit the big U. S. of A. has got to be engaging viewing. He's so english he looks quite out of place walking about in some of the situations and surroundings he finds himself in and does not shy away from being blatantly honest infront of the camera. Tonight he was up in a hot air balloon in North Carolina, gliding slowly over the giant tree tops, at first gripping the sides of the basket. No camera work could disguise the guy in a state of absolute fear. He did seem to relax a little as the slow flight continued, however, collecting a few leaves from passing trees. I've always wanted to go up in a hot air balloon. Ka, I'm sure, would say something sarcastic such as 'how fitting' but it's true. I've always fancied it. I'm not great with heights so it's probably not the wisest thing to hanker for but that slow glide through the skies, over a mile above the ground, looks great on tv. In Tenerife I did do some paragliding so it can't be much different can it? Well, it probably is very different and generally much higher but still vaguely similar! The rest of the folk I was on holiday with at the time certainly didn't seem too keen and preferred to sit around the pool side all day. Personally, I hate holidays like that. Why spend a couple of hundred pounds to go abroad, to a different country, only to sit by a pool all day? It's great to walk and soak up the streets, try and experience a bit of the culture, the marketplaces, speak to the people, and just generally learn more about your new surroundings. You just don't get that with an uncomfortable plastic bed and a bottle of sun tan lotion. Don't get me wrong I've ended up in a few dodgy situations before in recent years, the most recent being in Turkey when a 100 year old Shopkeeper trapped in his shop in an effort to make me buy something to gain my release - which of course I did. Ka and myself were walking down from the tombs in Fethiye and in dire need of a drink so we strolled into a small corner shop to see if there was any fanta in the fridge. As we hummed over the contents of the fridge we were aware of a gnarly old man in a white hat, not unlike a very ancient man from Delmonte, getting up from a wooden stool behind the counter and walking round to the front of the shop. Ka and myself turned to see the old man grinning into out faces asking us if we would like a cup of tea. Never one to deny a cup of tea off hand, I considered, as Ka ran out the shop, ducking round another old man that had emerged from the shadows at the back of the shop, who seemed even older than the first, who growled through his tooth. Being a little slow in the uptake, as usual, I sensed danger and doffing my hat made to leave. But the old man sprung forward and almost tripped me with two small plastic crates which he upturned and offered as seats, producing another in between us to act as a table. As Ka and myself hesitantly sat down the second old man offered us some apple tea, which we gingerly accepted. Suddenly the first old man went up to the front of the shop, reached up and flicked a switch. The shop's front shutter shivered into motion and started to close before us. Ka and myself looked at each other in alarm over our apple tea. Grabbing the hat on my head I readied myself for a dive under the descending wall, imagining an Indiana Jones like dive followed by a quick grab of my hat from the ground level of the otherside of my escape. Fortunately the old man stopped the shutter and was only lowering it a little so shield the sun which had been shining in our eyes. How kind. After this Ka and myself drank a few more sips of our, admittedly, rather refreshing apple tea and went on our way, of course, not without a packet of apple tea under our arm, doubled in price thanks to the slightly unsettling table service. Looking back at this as I sip on my apple tea, I'm considering that maybe I'm actually better off just staying at home...