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...).

A trip to Brussels

Well, Brussels. What can I say? What a great weekend. Plenty of booze and plenty of food in a great city. I've only now just about recovered. Dad, Kenny, Colin McG, and myself headed over on the plane meeting up with Jim and James on the Friday evening who tackled the Belgian traffic to be there on road. Colin Main then met up with us on the Saturday afternoon,jumping off the Eurostar, after much wandering around the main train station, which then made a motley crew of seven.

Greatly impressed by the city and it's people, I found the city folk all generally, very friendly towards us roaming Scots but that was probably something to do with the fact that most of the locals we did converse with were all after our money being bartenders, waiters and ladies of the night (only kidding with the last one!). The only grumpy folk we met were the rude female hotelier, who would have easily got a job at Fawlty Towers, and the tramp in the underground hurling abuse at the passers by (but all cities have one of those anyway don't they?). The Delerium cafe was a must for any visitor to Brussels with it's vast bar of supposed 2000 different beers. Perfect for a stag trip but not sure how many we tried of the list of 2000. We did see plenty of the town, hitting a few pubs in the European sector on the Friday night up beside the new Pariliament buildings. On our travels the following days we done plenty of walking through the famous medieval town square of Grand Place which houses the gothic town hall, old guild houses and market areas. Although we did not manage to see the statue of the peeing boy, Brussels' own kind of mascot named Manneken Pis, we did see the female version, the Jeanneke-Pis, a statue of a peeing girl. The only reason we found this was probably due to the fact she was sitting outside the Delerium Cafe surrounded by gawking or offended tourists.
So after another late night on the Sunday we all headed home on our respective routes with cloudy heads but entertaining memories of our time in the Belgian capital. A capital definately worth a future visit.

Michael the grouch

It's not in my nature to be grouchy. So Ka has just text me. She is being sarcastic. I'm especially grouchy in the mornings. Yesterday I text her to apologise for being a grouch just, to be polite, as I was perhaps guilty of being vaguely grouchy with tiredness in the morning. She responded with a 'that's okay - I'll let you off' toned message. At first a little taken aback, I then realised she obviously did not understand. She was supposed to say something along the lines of: "You were not grouchy at all, I don't know what your talking about!".
Unfortunately I'm not much of a morning person. I'm fine once I leave the house and am even better by the time I've sat in the car, walked down the street, or jumped on the bus and am in the office wishing everyone a pleasant good morning. As soon as I wake though, I'm a grouch. I'm so grouchy I deserve to sleep in a dustbin on a suburban american street. One day I suspect Ka may just put me out in a dust bin so that I awaken, and grouch, a good distance away. This would enable her to watch her GMTV uninterupted by my moaning about the ridiculously bright eyed and bushy tailed, smiley presenters with their giant jug of orange juice that nobody ever seems to drink (if i was ever a guest I would make sure I got a good pint of the stuff). And Mr Motivator is back? Whose big idea was that? The sight of a guy in a skin tight, luminous leotard shouting and jumping about the screen only motivates me to turn the channel. He also only performs 'exercises' that seem to be simply walking on the spot with a big smile on your face. How can some people jump up out of bed and head out for a jog or the gym before work? Getting to work on time is my number one priority. If I was to confuse it by including a trip to the gym or a half comatose run round the block I'd be in trouble. I'm not sure I could operate the gym equipment half asleep. I'd probably fall asleep on the swiss ball. If jogging, I'd probably slow down into a lulled walk before collapsing back into a dream somewhere around Branchumhall.
Not sure why I'm so tired today though. Perhaps it is the shadow of invitation making hanging over me. For the wedding I've decided to create my own invitations thinking along the lines of "I'm a graphic artist, I'll do them!". Easy... Or is it? Quite like the design I'm finalising but am concerned about the printing. Either way, I'll need to get a move on with it. Ka has also been dealing with the last minute organisation her hen doo. There's just over two months to go till the actual Wedding and options do not seem to be as readily available now as they had been when she'd orignally wanted it organised. So she has been running up a good phone bill. I'll have to remember to grouch about that later. Meanwhile Kenny is currently investigating the hotels and accommodation in Brussels for the lads stag weekend. Us blokes would probably be happy enough to just take our sleeping bags or maybe find one of those aforementioned dust bins. I'll be happy as long as we don't wake up next to some big bird.

Future trips

Our honeymoon has now been booked. Woohoo! A week in Italy. Four days in the capital, Rome, followed by three days in the City of Water itself, Venice. Aeroplanes, taxis, water buses, speed boats and gondolas all included to ensure a pleasant, organised and safe journey. Okay, maybe not the gondolas (apparently they cost a fortune nowadays). Time to get the Lonely planet books out again! Brush up on the old Roman history before we head out. Of course, the trip wont be all museums and sightseeing but I'm sure we'll do some walking over there. Unlike Brussels, where I'm heading for the stag weekend. Kenny has organised the stag weekend with Dad and Jim and we'll be heading down to Belgium in mid June. Again, that should be fun though I very much doubt I'll end up remembering much of it! Kenny, Colin McG, Chaz, James, Colin Main (hopefully!), Dad and Jim will be heading out there with me. David, the boss in the work, was quite impressed with the idea of the stag, congratulating Kenny on his great choice. Apparently it has some brilliant pubs which he has experienced first hand on more than one football trip. Again, I cannot say I know a great deal about Brussels, and I'm certainly not sure I'll learn a great deal more. Kenny has warned me he will not be organising any Museum or Art gallery trips so I'll be on my own there.

No man is an island

Kenny is in charge of my stag night. I'm worried. My brother, being the best man, is now taking email addresses to try and get some suggestions off folk for my stag night, weekend, or week. A while back Chaz suggested Las Vegas. Other suggestions have been Estonia (Uncle Jim) and Magalluf (Kenny himself). I think most of these have been ruled out due to budget constraints. On mentioning a stag night at teabreak, DVD Andy came up with a cheaper suggestion. A pub at the end of his road. It does a good pint apparently. Not wishing to cause offence I nodded politely and said I'd suggest it to my brother. Gareth came up with a rather novel idea. He'd heard of a friends friend doing this. Basically you hire a dwarf for £800 and handcuff him to the groom. The dwarf will then, inevitably, have to follow the groom around everywhere he goes on that night. It's difficult to believe such a hiring service exists but he assures me it's true.
Degrading, strange and surely uncomfortable for the parties involved. But then so is the horribly traditional hiring of a stripper. I've just googled it and apparently, in some cases, the dwarf is painted blue and dressed as a smurf. I've heard of being handcuffed to a lamp post, but a dwarf..? Very odd.
Talking of odd, Lost is back on our tv screens! At last. I've missed it. A lot of people got fed up after half a season but I honestly reckon it's the best thing on tv. It's definately veering into science fiction territory now though which I suspect a lot of the more 'normal' or casual viewers may get a little inpatient and disappointed about. I was quite surprised when there was a bit of a backlash a few seasons ago when it dawned on the viewing public this may not be a normal tale of a bunch of survivors on a desert island. In what way had the viewers not suspected as much after watching the first few episodes. Polar bears in the jungle, dead people getting out their coffins, smoke monsters chasing survivors. Not exactly straight laced drama was it? Always veering on the crazy with some of these incidents, the show has always kept its feet on the ground with the performances of the brilliant cast members. Interesting, troubled,
tortured, human characters brought to life by the likes of Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn, Dominic Monaghan, Naveen Andrews and Michael Emerson to mention only a few. All great actors who, along with the great writers, have created and shaped these characters, fleshing them out with very different yet sometimes interweaving stories, constantly haunted by aspects of their past, present, and future, as they struggle to get free of the island and it's strange powers.
Not entirely unlike the old sixties show 'The Prisoner' which was another favourite of mine in the nineties when I watched it all on DVD around 27 years after its original transmission. Starring Patrick McGoohan, who sadly died two weeks ago week, the show was about a man who had resigned in his position as spy or agent of some kind in london and was almost immediately kidnapped and held captive in a strange and mysterious location known enigmatically as the Village. Many of the themes are very similar to Lost. The psychological drama that the characters go through together with the science fiction elements of each of the shows' which are different, but still deal with strange, seemingly other worldly forces, mysterious leaders and scrutinized, controlled locations. It will be interesting to see how the new, modern, version of The Prisoner, in production at the moment, will work. The Prisoner awakens in a strange place, wearing odd clothes,
being asked countless questions by a unsympathetic authority figure, all the time looking for some kind of an escape. Not unlike the day following a stag night, I suspect.