Nervous yet?

Less than five days to The Big Day and I'm getting a little nervous now. Everything is fine though. Everything is organised - well, there are a few niggly things but everything is pretty much there or thereabouts (wherever 'there' is). The last few weeks have had a rather damaging affect on my precious blogging time too which has not been good as I've not been able to rant online properly for a while.
Last weekend I spent getting drunk in Glasgow with around eighteen bloke friends and family members in various bars in and around the city centre. We kicked off around half past one in the afternoon with some Virtual Golf on West George Street and then headed out from there, not getting home till 5am.
The Sunday I spent recovering.
The week after that and the weekend just passed was spent working on favours, orders of service and generally running folk about, including, a shopping trip into town for presents, an appointment at House for an Art Lover, running the future wife and my sister to their hairdressing appointments and on Sunday running the Mother-in-law to a dress fitting in an obscure little rural town past Larkhall. There we ended up whiling away three hours sitting in the seamstress' sitting room playing eye spy. The chief bridesmaid has disappeared to Paris to meet Mickey Mouse so it's all hands on deck.
While all this has been going on, Iran is in chaos, Wimbledon is in full swing, Glastonbury has been and gone, Michael Jackson has died, Farrah Fawcett has died and the papers have finally stopped talking about over paid, cheating, money hoarding MPs (that should have all been sacked immediately!).
For months I have been expecting some nerves to kick in which has not happened, until now, with less than five days to go. It may well be down to the fact seemingly everyone in work feels the need to ask the question "Are you getting nervous now?" This question alone repeated constantly over the course of a day is enough to make anyone feel nervous. Meeting people at the coffee machine, "Are you nervous yet then?". Sitting down to get on with some work the guy next to me "Nervous yet?". Escaping out to lunch only to have someone sneak up behind and mutter in your ear, "Are you nervous?". If people keep greeting me like this for the remainder of the week I probably will end up a nervous wreck, shaking uncontrollably in my kilted boots (not that I'm wearing boots...).

Gate crashers, kilts and christenings

A busy weekend there with some parties and a long awaited shopping trip. The weekend kicked off with a birthday party. Happy Birthday Uncle Tommy who hit the grand age of 50 on Friday (well, his party was on Friday anyway). Family and friends gathered at the Rolls Royce Club in EK to celebrate and to help raise some funds for the local hospital. A good night was had by all as we enjoyed the food and music with the credit crunch defying bar prices. There was over ten of us at the Reid tables and the drink prices were coming in at approximately 15 quid a round. Fantastic. You'd probably pay at least 15 for five drinks in Glasgow. No wonder Rolls Royce is making hundreds redundant - they should maybe think about upping their club bar prices. It was down to the women to rescue the dancefloor again. A gate crasher from Kenny's work turned up with a girl in tow, drunk and, worse than that, dancing willingly. Trust the gate crasher to put us blokes to shame. So, as we neared the end of the night a good bunch of us ended up doing the Macarena. I say "us" because embarassingly, for some Jack Daniels fuelled reason, I ended up shaking my hips to the awful spaniards, the surrounding Aunties, alonside Ka, Chris and Martin, showing me how it was done. As far as I can remember the dance moves were extremely similar to The Time Warp, in fact, it was a blatant rip off. Richard O'Brien should sue! However, it has been a while since I have done the Time Warp so don't quote me on that...Why is it you always end up getting up and doing these embarassing dances with Aunties? When you Mum asks you to dance you give her a firm and definite NO. One which may or may not come in the form of two words but when it is an Auntie you somehow struggle to give the same response. It is as if your conscience is unable to give an Auntie a negative response. There is something in the programming that conflicts and after a short mind battle, short circuits and results in a tired "okay then".
After saying our goodbyes to Tommy and Tricia we left the party to walk straight into a small crowd at the car park exit. The gate crasher was busy insulting a passing girl's diet plan and, as a result, was causing a bit of a raucous. Ka tried to calm the girl down and usher her on but unfortunately the bloke kept persisting with his idiocy. As Dad finally managed to pull Ka, Kenneth and myself from the crowd people started hitting off the temporary metal work fence, erected around the car park, like vertical trampolines. Shortly afterwards, the numbskull that started it all dived into a waiting car and sped off into the night, not before stopping at the side of the road and offering Kenny a lift. Thankfully, Kenny declined and Mum piled us into the car and drove us all home.
The next day was the long awaited kilt hunting. Sprung out of bed, with a rather surprising springiness considering the Jack Daniels from the night before, and wolved down a bacon roll, pulled on some clothes and jumped on a bus for Renfield Street. It was kilt day and time to bite the bullet. Generally not comfortable in kilts I had been kind of dreading the kilt day but, as it turned out, did not have much to worry about. Met Dougie and Colin at Slanj in St Vincent Street, a kilt hire place that, as we found out, only hires out a vast selection of 4 grey tartan kilts. Disappointing. Just as disappointing as the rubbish service we did not really get in the place. After Kenny arrived we headed out, disappointed and a little pessimistic, and headed straight for Moss Brothers on Renfield Street where Dad caught up with us, disconcertingly sneaking up behind up us as we were talking to the tailor. Unlike Slanj, the tailor in Moss Brothers went straight to work with his measuring tape and kitted us out in the full gear disappearing through a small doorway in the corner occasionally and reappearing almost instantly through the same door with kilts, jackets and shoes, hindered only by our over pondering of shoe sizes. Anyway, after the kilts were booked up Dad, Kenny and I went, yep, you guessed it, to the pub where we had a few pints and a spectacular pub lunch watching Scotland beat Italy.
The next day it was out and about again, only this time to the christening of my cousin Sarah's little boy, Christopher. It was good to catch up with some of the other family members after the service where the priest talked in detail about the light and the dark in religion and the rejection of evil drawing comparisons with the Star Wars movies. Darth Vader, of course, being the devil incarnate. Even though I had drawn similar comparisons many moons ago I did wonder if this was the first time I had heard the dreaded name Darth Vader in a chapel before. Now the priests are using the the texts of George Lucas in their sermons. I always knew Star Wars was worth watching.

The crunch and kilts

Well, the world has not imploded yet... but there are tough times ahead as we were told this morning that the North East of England offices of Trinity Mirror are being merged into one, in Newcastle. What does this spell for us in Scotland? Speculation is rife, as you can imagine, but we'll just have to take each day as it comes. If redundancy does loom this will be the second time I have been through it. The last time was with the Scottish Standard, a short lived newspaper project based in Paisley back in 2005. That project was run by a fairly unpleasant fellow with an ego the size of Scotland who, for some reason, refused to advertise his new newspaper, thus making it's sales figues horribly low. There probably was not the market for yet another newspaper anyway but still I am sure the promotion was to blame for the whole disaster. Is there any job out there that is safe nowadays though? There was news today of Seguro Holidays and XL Leisure Group going bust and leaving thousands of passengers stranded at holiday destinations. The economic crisis being blamed and the high cost of fuel. Another victim of the credit crunch. Still, at least they have got an excuse for the boss if they can't get home on time and have to spend another arduous day on the beach or by the pool.
As a result of all this I'm feeling slightly depressed about money at the moment. I'm supposed to be getting married next year?! Ka and myself may end up in Ayr for the honeymoon or taking the tent to Whithorn. I may end up having to get one of those towel kilts from Clinton cards and a 'Hey Jimmy' hat for my wedding outfit. Or maybe Lidl are still selling their kilts. The German supermarket chain were selling cheap kilts for Burns Night back in January for £25. Critics said they had a tendency to itch. I'm not a fan of wearing a kilt at the best of times. I remember wearing the whole kilt outfit to my Uncle Laurence's wedding and feeling uncomfortable the whole day. The whole thing felt lopsided sitting on me. What made matters worse was I had to do a flamin' reading as well. I hobbled up to the podium feeling like a scottish hunch back.
Why is it that your not a true Scotsman if you wear anything under the kilt? Who says?! It's tradition, they say. Tradition, my arse! It's a myth invented by the military. When you were younger you'd wear a kilt to these weddings and all you'd get was drunk people staggering up to you and asking in a slurred, leery voice, "Are you a true scotsman then?". Another question you get is "What have you got under there then?". I always wondered why people would ask this question with it's fairly obvious answer. If it's a bloke what you should reply, "Same as you, only bigger". If it's a woman you should say "My mum once told me a real lady wouldn't ask - and she was right". Women like kilts though. Chaz wore a kilt one New Year on the streets of Glasgow and barely survived the night. The women of Glasgow seemed to transform into crazy tazmanian devils! Needless to say he loved every minute and needless to say, there'll be none of that nonsense at my wedding (I mean the lifting of kilts not crazy Glaswegian women).