Tail ends and tall tales

Uncle Laurence and Auntie Maria have a really cool bell on their front door. You push it and jump as a tremendous shout blasts out from somewhere in the interior hallway yelling:
"Michael, get down here and take this dog out - the living room's stinking!".
Within moments Maria was opening the door and greeting us with her usual big welcoming smiles and hellos. Thankfully, by the time we got into the house's living room, Taz, the dog, had scarpered, or had been kicked out, one or the other, and Michael, Maria's eldest son, (or 'Big Michael' as he's now called in the family, whilst I, apparently, am now, 'Old Michael') was ambling down the stairs behind us. Megan and Lauren, my two younger cousins, were sat at the foot of the television stand, scribbling away with their pens and pencils, creating more colourful masterpieces (another pair of Reid artists, like their Dad, cousins, uncles and aunts before them). Once Michael had got rid of the dog and the coast was clear, Laurence appeared from upstairs and added to the speculation, perhaps started by myself, that Maria had been blaming poor Taz for her own misdemeanors to which she adamantly objected.
Laurence and Maria had invited Ka and myself round for Sunday dinner, which involved the ever popular joining of tables and the gathering of different sized seats. Before dinner, Michael kept us entertained with stories from sixth year involving many strange characters from his class, including 'Big Stuart' (whose apparently around eight feet tall) and 'Wee Cheesy' (whose around three feet tall). Michael, who counts Home Economics in his favourite subjects and makes the greatest birthday cakes known to man, stood at the kitchen door, telling us his tall tales whilst Maria slaved away in the kitchen and Laurence nipped out for the trifle's missing ingredient - custard. Most of Michael's tales involved folk farting and others inhaling, Big Stuart making things break by merely standing next to it or the teachers giving Michael and his mates attitude and vice versa, including one teacher who allegedly 'looks like a pedophile, but isn't'.
Michael then went on to rave about his favourite programme, a BBC three effort called 'Coming of Age'. This series is based around a bunch of school pupils who seemingly spend their time farting, breaking things and giving their teachers attitude. And who says the young are not easily influenced by the media?
Once Pauline arrived in from Ikea, we all sat to dinner. A fantastic sunday stew with puff pastry and veg. As we ate, Taz the dog and the cats circled the table, occasionally sniffing around to see if anyone would be foolish enough to give donations. The conversations ranged from the Blair With Project, other rubbish horrors and shadows in the dark to up and coming First Communions and receiving a more admissible Virgin bill.
Trifle was then served as pudding, which Big Michael demolished within seconds, before waving a quick 'Adious' and disappearing upstairs to his playstation.
As I finished my last spoonful of trifle, I just happened to look down at my feet. Moments before, Megan had abandoned the chair beside me in the search for shortbread and her darting away had revealed the lounging form of Taz lazing below, his arse pointed straight up at me. Nervously, I gulped the last of my trifle down and was just about to start edging away when the inevitable happened. With a gentle hiss, (like the subtle spray from one of those fancy automatic air fresheners in the ads that make the passer by smile and nod), the pungent, familiar stench of eggs rose up into the air from Taz's rear end. I groaned and after a short quizzical look from those gathered around the table everyone yelled in objection, diving for cover, using the bottom end of their cardigans, T-shirts and tops as last minute, makeshift gas masks as Taz was quickly evacuated from the living room once more.
With nose firmly covered, Maria yelled through her blouse and fingers at the ceiling, "Michael!! Take the dog out! He's stinking!".

Ongoing birthdays

Off to London tomorrow to see the Queen. Well, not really to see the Queen but hey, you never know. Ka and myself are catching an early train and heading down to Kings Cross, staying two nights on Primrose Hill and heading to the theatre on Tuesday night to see a bunch of singing Witches in the West End musical, Wicked. All part of Ka's ongoing birthday. Let's hope they're no problems with the seating on the train journey considering the continuing travel chaos caused by the clouds of volcanic ash disturbing the European skies.
The family were at Brian's 40th last night in the Crowwood Hotel just outside Stepps. The birthday boy himself almost never made his own party as when the Greenland volcano decided to erupt, Brian was in Munich on a business trip. With at least two trains, a ferry, a cab and finishing with a lift from his Dad he managed to arrive home just in time, much to the relief of his wife, and my cousin, Sarah. One things for sure he would have slept last night. While Brian managed to stay awake the family all had a good time catching up over some drinks, talking houses, walks, photos, dating agencies and how many helium balloons it would take to make a stuffed cat fly. As it turned out, Kenny, in an effort to entertain the younger cousins, Lauren and Megan, didn't quite manage to collect enough balloons to help the cat fly but at least it still had more chance than a British Airways plane.

Mr Topsy-Turvy and Hannah Montana portraits

After having the parents round for a thank you dinner on Saturday night, which involved boring them with many a Wedding photo and Rome or Venice snapshots, it has been birthdays all round in the first half of the week with Aunt Linda's on Sunday, Colin McG's on Monday and my cousin Megan's yesterday.
So on Monday we were round at the McGarva's to celebrate Colin hitting the grand old age of 29. He got a doll of Mickey Rourke as the Wrestler for his birthday and a Nintendo Wii. We didn't get a shot though as we were all too busy eating (not that I wanted a shot of his Mickey Rourke figure anyway - humpf!). Grace and Dougie treated us all to a Chinese take-away which caused a few arguments as people tried to taste other people's choices, nick other people's rice and nick chips from other people's plates. As a result many people were shouting, complaining and slagging in true family fashion. Colin himself even stooped to the level of nicking chicken from Morgan's plate while she was looking in another direction. His very own niece! Can you believe it? He gave the excuse of "I'm the birthday boy", with which he managed to get away with it.
More chaos ensued when the pass the parcel started. The now traditional pass-the-parcel for birthdays was introduced as Morgan got a little older and liked winning the funny prizes Grace buys in for these occasions. The last time I successfully finished a game, narrowly beating the father-in-law, I won a plastic thermometer shaped like a guitar. Bearing this in mind, I hurriedly volunteered to control the music on Monday night and thusly opt out of the actual passing of the parcels. It then turned out that Monday night's prizes were far superior with actual novels being won. As I stopped and started a Small Faces track I grumbled jealously, complaining under my breath about rubbishy, guitar shaped, plastic thermometers.
Thankfully there was no pass-the-parcel last night when we popped round to my Uncle Laurence and Aunt Maria's for Megan's party. Instead there was bowls of chilli, sausages, meatballs and cakes as well as a game of tennis on the Nintendo Wii. It was the first time I'd attempted the tennis and it proved more difficult than it looked as Megan played me off the court as Lauren (Megan's little sis) done her very best at impersonating one of my Mum's cackling laughs. Before this there was arguments about chicken and why it tastes better eaten from the bone, realisations of having worn a ripped shirt to work the whole day and not having even noticed and a test of my Hannah Montana portrait drawing skills. Unsurprisingly, I'd never drawn Hannah Montana before and have barely seen her on TV (the only time was a Jonthan Ross interview in which she talked him off the set) so my Hannah ended up looking a little like Miss Piggy. Luckily, I don't think Megan noticed (she probably doesn't even know who Miss Piggy is!). Megan was also fairly impressed with my Mr. Men knowledge as I knew Mr. Strong was red and had eggs for breakfast while Mr. Funny wore gloves and drove a shoe. She did catch me out with Mr Topsy-Turvy however, as I thought he was a green man. Turns out he is actually orange. Fancy that, Mr Topsy-Turvy - an orange man, who would have guessed?

Eat more cake

More job losses in BT now? Will this ever end? Things seem to be getting more and more depressing with all the redundancies and recession talk.
On a happier note it was my wee cousin, little Lauren's, birthday today. She was three. Ka and myself popped round to Laurence and Maria's after the usual Thursday night gym workout to deliver her present. We walked in to discover my Dad, Mum and Gran already there, lounging on the couch eating pizza and drinking Laurence's very own brewed beer while kids ran about the living room, followed by the two cats and the dog, Taz. Named Taz presumably because of his Tazmanian Devil tendencies of which I seen no sign of. He seemed perfectly at ease and calm, except from getting a bit 'excited' when Megan, Lauren's bigger sister, started having a tickling competition with Ka. Megan fell to the ground at one point only to be jumped on by a, let's say, over enthusiastic, Taz. Needless to say Megan made sure she quickly escaped. Lauren had her birthday cake presentation after Maria eventually had the lights put out for the full candle effect and everyone helped themselves to cake. Even though I was driving I did have a brief swig of Laurence's self brewed beer. 40 pints for a tenner, apparently, and not bad at all. Will maybe consider that for our tightened purse strings Reid Christmas (damn, said the 'C' word again). The other, younger, Michael, Laurence and Maria's eldest, disappointingly had not made another chocolate cake for us all and was annoyed that his mother had went out and bought one. Got to say, so were we all. At Megan's birthday a few months back, her big brother had made two giant, gorgeous cakes that Nigella Lawson would have been proud of. My mum used to be great at making cakes, especially of the birthday variety. She used to make us themed cakes of whatever we were into at the time. Lynsey Ann always got chocolate cake extravaganzas. Kenny, my brother, I remember, got specially constructed Thomas the Tank Engine cakes, castle cakes and a football pitch complete with players. Or maybe the castle was mine... anyway, she was an expert. Mum must have had a lot of time on her hands in those days as she doesn't bother so much anymore. Maybe it's more because of the fact the three of us are, or are approaching, thirty years of age though.