Nicholson's chin and the supermarket tannoy

“Customer attention please. Customer attention. Could a Kelly Ann Reid please come to the checkouts please. A Kelly Ann Reid, please come to the checkouts. Thank you”.
The voice reverberated around the aisles of Stewartfield Morrisons today after I failed to find her within the bowels of the busy supermarket on this rainy Saturday afternoon. We were in search of Christening wrapping paper and stopped of at the local Morrisons. I dropped Ka off at the store’s large, pillared front doors and swerved off to the adjoining petrol station to obtain some more ridiculously expensive unleaded while she popped in for the paper. After buying the petrol I drove back to the pickup point, knowing that the paper/card buying area was at the store’s front newspaper checkout and believing that it wouldn’t have took too long for Ka to purchase the required gift wrapping while I bought the fuel.
As always with these things though, nothing is that simple.
The wife always finds a way to complicate things. Ka was nowhere to be seen. We both had no phone on our person so, the car had to be parked. After slotting the car into one of the carpark’s tight, awkward spaces, I started a whirlwind tour of the supermarket’s vast innards. Starting at the gift wrapping/birthday card/newspaper/lottery ticket checkout at trhe front of the store I then proceeded to the main checkouts where, again, Ka was nowhere to be found, so, there was nothing more that could be done, except the obvious. An exploration of the aisles. Fifteen minutes later she was still nowhere to be found.
So, I hesitantly approached what resembled a store manager at the help desk where the tannoy microphone stood waiting.
Ka eventually appeared, tottering up towards the checkout with a basket full of products, which we had not come in for, looking a little disconcerted and embarrassed. Apparently she had been at the fish when the tannoy announced her name. Needless to say a mild argument occurred where Ka voiced her disbelief and I repeatedly gave my argument for approaching the store manager and requesting an announcement for a missing wife.
It’s the end of a rather relaxing week off from work. It’s flown by even though I’ve not been up to anything particularly interesting. Just the usual. Gym, cinema, jogging and painting. Painting of the canvas kind.
I’m three quarters of the way through a Walken, just about finished a Nicholson and struggling a bit with a Pacino.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’ve started painting movie stars. Walken was the first and since then Ka, Pauline and Chaz have all eagerly spurred me on to paint more, so it’s thanks to them I spent the first half of the week struggling over Jack Nicholson’s chin and the bare bones of Al Pacino’s face. I thought Pacino would actually be a little easier than Nicholson, but how wrong I was. I feel like I’ve been painting and repainting the main structure of Pacino’s face for three days now. I’m sure it’ll get there in the end. Wherever, ‘there’ is.
On Wednesday, after a day of trying to get Pacino right, Pauline, my cousin’s ex wife, who just happens to be an old friend from Primary school and is now a good friend of the Mrs, popped round for a 5k jog around the block. Or rather, jog around a few blocks. Both the St. Leonards and Calderwood areas of EK to be precise.
It’s all in preperation for the Big Fun Run taking place on the 29th October. Ka is running it for Sands in memory of our wee Lucy Reid, as are myself, Pauline, our pal Claire, the in laws, Grace and Dougie, Ka’s bro Colin and his Mrs, Jillian and Ka’s sister, Angela along with, I imagine a great number of other folk. (I’ll take this opportunity to spur folk on to please sponsor the Mrs in her 5k endeavour. Please visit this site to sponsor – any amount of pence or pounds is gratefully accepted for this great cause!)
Pauline, who apparently does not run, was keen for a practise jog and managed the 5k easily in 35 minutes and, although we thought she’d be cursing us, she did insist that she still loved us. Well, most of her did anyway.
Apparently her lungs didn’t.
They’ll get over it.
Last night I was back in the O2 Academy for another visitation from The Wombats. Having recovered from her run the two nights before, Pauline accompanied me to the gig, after Ka took a rain check, and the two of us jumped away to the tunes undeterred by the amount of kids surrounding us in the crowd. The Liverpudlian threesome put on another storming performance for Glasgow, playing a lot of their most recent album, a lot of which I wasn’t familiar with yet. I purchased the album months ago and have listened to it about thrice. Don’t spend as much time listening to music as I used to.
Too busy painting, jogging or looking for the wife in supermarkets.

Varying degrees of loss

It was two years ago tomorrow my Granpa Reid passed away. It's quite strange that it has been two years already. Part of me still expects him to be there when we go round to my Gran's place. Sitting in his armchair, watching the telly. It was usually the horse racing that was on. Engrossed or in a trance like state, he'd sit there watching until the race ended, then get up and offer drinks and argue with Gran. Sometimes I can still feel his whole weight on my shoulder, from when I was younger, whenever he got up from his armchair and he'd plant one of his giant hands down on my shoulder for some unnecessary support. He'd also sometimes stand heavily on your feet as he passed you by on his way through the living room. You'd have a sleep over at Gran and Granpa's some nights and wake up with carrots and onions in your shoes like some kind of strange non seasonal Veggie Claus had visited during the night. I still find it odd that Granpa did pass away at all. There was nothing wrong with him! He was only 81? He could have easily done another ten years. Such is the way with life though.
Not quite as unfair but still a complete p**ser is the fact I've been robbed. Last night I decided to check out our accounts online and discovered that someone has nabbed £35 from one of our accounts. Last week I purchased a tenners worth of petrol at a garage in Rutherglen. On the statement this is listed alongside another item which was apparently £35 bought from the same garage the next afternoon at approximately 1pm?! Ka and myself were both at work when this purchase was made and the credit card in question was, as far as I know, in the right arse pocket of my trousers. How did the thief do that then? Was my card scanned by some piece of evil card scanning equipment whilst in the garage the night before? Had somebody been watching me type in my pin? Who knows. All I know is we're £35 poorer with no sign of a return and my card has now, once again, been cancelled. So now I'm having to wait on another cash card coming through the post, preceded by another new pin. The third new card in a year. The last one being lost in T in the Park last year whilst dancing to The Wombats and, almost immediately before that, when I had nipped up to the Spar outisde my work to withdraw some money. On plugging my card into the hole in the wall the whole industrial estate decided to conk out. The whole site lost it's electricity supply for around two hours leaving me with no cash or cash card. The only plus point being we sat at our desks in the office with nothing to do for two hours (I think we ended up having a paper ball fight).
On a brighter note, one of our blue wheelie bins has mysteriously appeared at our door. Yes, one of the previously thought long lost wheelie bins has turned up safe and well. One of the other neighbours welcomed it home on Monday evening. Somehow, this wheelie bin escaped the ned bonfires and has survived?! Unfortunately there is no knowledge as to where it has been the past month or so but I'm looking into it... nope nothing in it either.

Let's dance to Joy Division

Another visit to the Glasgow Barrowlands on Thursday night to see The Wombats, the weird and wonderful three piece from Liverpool. They were the main attraction anyway but there were three other bands on as part of the NME tour. Unfortunately I have no idea what the other band were called, only that they consisted of a small Scottish indie band, a shouting all female band complete with hippy keyboard player and a rather dull three piece Duran Duran wannabe trio. The Wombats were worth waiting for, playing not only the favourites but also a selection of new songs which all sounded as fun and energetic and the rest of their material. As with all Barrowland crowds we jumped, danced, perspired and quaked under the flying lager and diesel. At one point I even suffered a direct hit of vodka and coke to the side of the head. The only reason I know it was vodka and coke is because I accidentally got a small mouthful as the plastic cup spun off the side of my face. My white T-shirt with the nice blue stripe left the Barras an off white colour covered in brown and purple splatters stinking of blackcurrent and coke. It does not matter where you stand in the Barras, there is no escape from the flying beverages. Even the stage was not safe as Matthew Murphy, the Wombats singer, suffered at least two direct hits with pints. He took it as a compliment though and carried on playing barely beating an eyelid. The crowd was great, as it usually is in the Barras, and gave the band as good as night as they gave us. Excellent fun!