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.

Sleep suits and snow suits

Excuse my ignorance here but, how do you know you're leaving hospital with the right baby? This has been troubling me for around four days now. How do you know your baby hasn't been mixed up with somebody else's after it has popped out? There is no way of telling! All babies look the same for around three months after their birth. How do you know your going home with the right one? It'll be three months till you know for sure! This is concerning me.
Also, what's with the buying of snow suits? Apparently we need to buy the expected Baby Reid snow suits. Snow suits? I wasn't aware we were eskimos? Will we be travelling home from Wishaw General in a sledge pulled by huskies? Me, standing at the back of the sledge cracking the whip, whilst Ka and baby cower from the cold in furry suits at my feet, our huskies racing forward, pulling us, their breath puffing out in swirling clouds before their frozen maws as they pant their way through the white, frozen wastelands of Wishaw and Craigneuk.
Sleep suits too. Sleep suits, sleep suits, we don't have enough sleep suits, and apparently we never will. This baby is going to have more suits than Hugo Boss.
Hats, bibs, boots and scratch mittens. Scratch mittens? Apparently babies have a habit of trying to scratch their face off? First I'd heard. Surely they can't be that fully aware to look in the mirror and hate their god given mug at that age? I thought that all didn't kick off till the teens and forever after? (Certainly didn't with me anyway). Then again maybe that's a good way of knowing it is indeed my child - if it sees itself in the mirror and immediately goes for it's own face screaming horribly.
Nesting. The suit buying is all part of the nesting process apparently. A word for what an expectant mother does in and around the home to prepare. Moving things around. Throwing things out. Making way for piles of sleep suits. Buying baby lotions, talcum powder and cotton wool.
Spending money when it's not yet quite needed to be spent, that's what I call it. I've had to empty two of my bookshelves already and the poor wee tyke is not even here yet. All in the name of sleep suits. Who would have thought such tiny garments could take up so much space?
We need a house and quick. Anything bigger than a one bedroom anyway.
I'm sure some of those eskimos must have more room in those igloos than we've got. They always have loads of kids running about. You never seen eskimos on the Michael Palin programmes shouting about how little room they've got in their igloos because of all the sleep suits. Bet the huskies have even got their own room!

Being SAD

It's four thirty in the afternoon, it's pitch black outside and I may be suffering the effects of SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. The now seemingly medically recognised type of depression which descends on many people at the beginning, and continuation, of the winter months. This condition makes you depressed, uncomfortable, negative, full of guilt, tension, despair and just generally low. In fact, very much how you feel after watching an episode of Eastenders. In other words, you quite simply cannae be ar*ed. According to the doctors it's all due to the fact we don't get much sunlight in the winter months. This would presumably be why Scottish people are well known for being consistently miserable - a theory, I hasten to add, that I don't always agree with. Apparently there is now also a Summer version of SAD which is called Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. A version where you presumably walk around ecstatically happy or still morose and depressed, walk around backwards, beeping repeatedly.
Of course, all this depression could just be down to the fact I'm trying to cover for my Line Manager, while he is off being a Dad to a newborn. Taking grief from aggrieved sales folk seems to sum up the job, certainly in the latter half of the week. The Doomhamers are a particularly grumpy lot and I've no idea why. I would perhaps put that all down to SAD as well if it was not for the fact they speak to us in the same 'off the sole of their shoe' manner all year round.
Since writing the past two paragraphs I've now been to the gym and feel great again. So I don't have SAD. Or at least, if I do I've found an easy enough cure. Doctors everywhere should take note. It's nothing to do with fancy light bulbs or happy drugs. All you need if you suspect yourself of suffering Seasonal Affective Disorder is a good kick up the jacksy.

Woolly thoughts

The family and I were all up to five in the morning on Friday dancing, drinking, playing table football, and wearing balaclavas. Yes, balaclavas! After dinner Kenny pulled a box of his old stuff down from upstairs that had been collected by Lynsey Ann as she had moved into his old room. This box contained all sorts of strange memorabelia from his younger days including drawings, hand written stories and comics, old teddy bears and embarrassing headgear. In among a pile of old baseball caps were the two matching sets of balaclavas and gloves that Mum had knitted for Kenny and myself when we were young. For a time, in the Scottish winter months, Kenneth and myself trooped to school in home made woolen brown balaclavas. Only one pair of the gloves had survived the years and the string of wool that joined the two gloves was long gone but it didn't stop us trying them on for size. I always used to think those joined mittens were revolutionary. My Mum's own invention, sitting at home, knitting furiously coming up with all these weird and wonderful designs. Of course I learned later that quite a few youngsters had them and probably just didn't let on. The line of cord leaving one mitten going up your arm around your back and down your other arm holding the other mitten to the other hand just in case you got confused with the whole 'how to work a pair of gloves' idea. The balaclavas no longer fitted either. Does anyone still wear balaclavas? I mean anyone that's not exploring the Arctic, driving a Formula One car or robbing banks or generally causing some form of terror? The brown balaclava itself was enough to induce terror in anyone. Poor Mum, she just wanted to keep us warm. Now that I've written this I'll probably get a new one now for Christmas!

With scarf and spade

Winter is most definately here with ice covering the roads and the outside temperature near dangerous without a pair of gloves. My hands felt red raw with cold after scraping the frost from my windscreen this morning. It was a struggle to even get out the street both today, and yesterday, as we live on a uphill climb and the gritter lorries don't seem to ever pass down our way. People sat in their cars yesterday morning, halfway up our street, uselessly spinning their tyres on the spot to try and get up the road. I had a plan though. Armed with scarf and spade I strode out yesterday morning and made good use of the salt bin across the road, spreading the grit over the majority of the street managing to avoid an embarrassing fall on the ice. It's always more embarrassing when you fall on the ice rather than a regular trip on pavement. Regular trips or falls you can usually deal with. But ice falls are far worse. Before you actually hit the ground your body will assuredly twist, swivel, spin, strain in an uncomfortable upright position and then, with one final skid for effect, collapse to the cold, solid street. To make matters worse someone will undoubtedly always see or be watching you and may even be working perfectly normally on the other side of the street. After spreading the salt I set off for the car, parked further down the street, managed to turn it and started up the hill, only to get stuck further down the hillside. After a few moments i turned into one of the neighbours I had been tutting at not half an hour before, spinning the tyres uselessly in sheer desperation of movement. Yet more gritting was called for. For some reason with these conditions the Council has neglected their usual winter road attacks and left us all to suffer with the ice. Last week I passed a salt spreader lorry when they wasn't a single snowflake to be seen so where have they all gone this week in our moment of need? If I was grumpier I would phone the council up and complain... but instead I'll just complain on this journal. I've found this journal quite good for venting some spleen or as fellow blogger Miriam calls it, ranting. Nothing wrong with a bit of ranting as long as it's the truth.
It was Lost Ian's last day in the office today and we all bid him 'fare thee well'. Till Saturday anyway as it's the work's Christmas lunch. It's okay to mention Christmas now as it is officially December. Christmas should only be in December, not October or even November. It still seems very early to be having a Christmas night out but I suppose it's only 3 weeks away now. Another year almost over. Better get those baubles out again.

Mallowy goodness

Back in Glasgow last night for The Mighty Boosh at the Clyde Auditorium. Parked the car in a street filled with young girls in tutus with glow sticks. We had been wandering what the crowd would be like at a Mighty Boosh gig and were rather surprised to find the street filled with under agers in tutus, jabbering excitedly whilst buying glow sticks from various vendors set up at different points over the street. We entered the large red tunnel red tunnel, which crosses the Clydeside Expressway, amongst loitering policemen, in throngs of younger folk who looked slightly inebriated. I had not expected such a young mental looking crowd but it wasn't until we got to the lights at the end of the tunnel that we seen the signs for Clubland 2008 in the main SECC building. This accounted for the glow sticks at least, not sure about the tutus. After a brief run around inside the Armidillo trying to find our way we eventually took our seats. Vince and Howard both swept on to the stage singing about sailors from the future with the help of The Boosh Band who hid behind the main stage back drop for a good fraction of the whole night. The comedy was great and at it's best when Vince and Howard were out on the front section of the stage, infront of the closed curtain, squabbling and trading both thoughts and insults. The internal monologues of Howard's mind were particulary hilairious. Plus the inclusion of the infamous Hitcher. The strange green creation of Noel Fielding with green skin, a big nose and thumb, dressed in black with a top hat and voiced with a gnarly cockney accent. A brilliant show if your into the Boosh.
Woke up late this morning after having a wee glass of wine once we arrived home last night. Wine accompanied by a bit of Editors and Roxy Music. Today, here has not seemed to have broke yet as a thick white mist has hung over the streets of EK all morning and afternoon. I can barely see the opposite end of the street from the window. I'm half expecting a long line of mysterious shapes to emerge slowly from the mist and drag me away into the fog to a sorry, icy fate.
Evening now. Had to go and so the shopping there. Curse those money hungry supermarkets! Coaxing us in with their 2 for 1s only to get us to spend the saved money on other things. Other things such as Tunnocks Teacakes. Just had one with my tea. The first in years. Full of chocolatey mallowy goodness. Brilliant.