Messed up

It’s all kicking off. The Olympics have started already and Danny Boyle hasn’t even had a chance to complain about the BBC yet. The Olympic football games have started ahead of the official opening ceremony this Friday night in Stratford.
Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium hosted Team GB’s win over New Zealand yesterday afternoon whilst Scotland hosted France, USA, Colombia and North Korea at Hampden Park, in Mount Florida. Let’s hope the USA weren’t expecting theme parks and Mickey Mouse.
Saying that, there must have been some kind of Mickey Mouse outfit in charge of the Hampden graphics as the North Korean Women’s football team stormed off the pitch in a huff tonight after the South Korean flag was shown alongside pictures of the team’s players on the big screens. Not a great start.
Still, what did they expect going to Glasgow for a game of football? Of course it was going to end up in a fight.
My disappearing fourth year Art School tutor suddenly reappeared on a STV news report about the whole affair claiming he didn’t have a clue what was going on. That’s not great considering the man’s a graphic designer.
On the way home the motorway yesterday signals warned of Olympic traffic and instructed which turn off to take to head for the Olympic football. I didn’t notice any Olympic traffic. In fact the traffic seemed it’s usual mundane self, quieter than usual if anything. Throughout the day there had been emails going around the work giving Olympic football tickets away. One of the guy’s in the daily record marketing department was giving a large bundle away for free. Graeme, who works opposite me in the office, had tickets and almost seemed desperate to get rid of them.
Earlier, on the company’s intranet, I found out I was one of 10 lucky winners to receive the new Rolling stones 50 book, a tome detailing the Rolling Stones’ lifetime through photographs taken by the newspaper company throughout the many long years. It was a staff only competition and one which didn’t require much effort, only the ability to type your name and address which I just about managed.
And yes, my address is still the same. We’re still waiting to hear back with regards to our mortgage for our potential new house but are not much further forward since the last time I wrote on this blog. Phonecalls have been made, emails have been sent and solicitor forms have been filled out and posted but still no news. Perhaps by the end of this week we’ll know something. Considering house buying is possibly one of the biggest decisions of your life, not to mention one of the most costly, these solicitors and mortgage companies just leave you hanging. Probably sneering at you on the other end of the phone as you sit and stress about the upcoming deadlines, cash worries and form filling.
As a short break away from it all we’re off to Leven at the weekend. Aunt Anne decided it was about time we had another family trip so this time we’re all meeting up for a family BBQ on a beach somewhere around the Crail, Fife region on Sunday. Tom and Linda are camping with Jim and James up in Crail. Laurence and Maria are also camping somewhere with Megan and Lauren. Anne and Ian are staying in a fancy hotel whilst Ka, Mum, Dad, Lynsey Ann and myself are staying at a hotel in Leven throughout the Saturday before travelling up to the yet to be disclosed location on the Sunday.
All this money talk and the signing of lives away is getting a little tiring so a brief respite may revitalise us a little.
Bump is growing too. We took another trip to Hairmyres Hospital last Friday morning for another scan and Baby Reid wouldn’t sit still for two minutes. Jumping about all over the place, she was, making it more than a little difficult for the Registrar and the Consultant, Dr. Ferguson, to get proper measurements of baby’s various body parts.
Notice how I said ‘she’ there?
Yes, after we asked the question once more, the registrar looked into the shadowy depths of the computer screen before him and mumbled a reply of female. Dr. Ferguson agreed having hummed and hawed and then eventually coming to that conclusion the last time. Another little girl.
A rather energetic, crazy, non stop little girl. Much like her mother I suspect as when Lucy was still in her mummy’s tummy she’d been more like myself. Lying back, relaxing in it’s womby waters, albeit with the occasional Blockbusters hand jive spotted more than once on the scan monitors.
This new little one won’t sit at peace for two minutes.
On Sunday Ka jumped on more than one occasion whilst sitting in the cinema and it wasn’t down to the break in any tense action sequence or sudden fright.
Either the loud voices, echoing bangs or roaring engines from the surrounding cinema were disturbing baby or she was just enjoying herself in there just as much as her mother was, sitting watching Christian Bale in the leather bat outfit.
Earlier in the week Ka had awoken from a dream in which she had been having an affair with Christian Bale. Not only that, but Christian Bale was her Dad’s brother.
“Wouldn’t that make him your Uncle?” I frowned, over my orange juice that morning.
“Yes” Ka nodded. “But in my dream, it didn’t matter”.
“Sleeping with your Uncle?” I continued to frown. “That’s just messed up”.
What was even more messed up, and unfortunately far more real, was what was to follow on the Friday night at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie, over in Aurora, Colorado.
A horrendous nightmare as yet another crazy person with a couple of guns, dressed and, quite obviously, disturbed, walked into a cinema, intent on killing.
For some reason.
12 people dead and 58 injured.
And yet, what do the people of Colorado do? Go out and buy more guns. According to the BBC website, in the days following the Colorado shooting, applications for the purchase of a gun were 43% higher than the previous week.
Is this the answer? Does this make people feel better?
I’m not so sure.

Weird dreams and freaky flamingoes

A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night and moved to shuffle my pillow around. This, in turn, woke Ka up and she moved round to adjust her position in the bed. Upon turning round and seeing me, her eyes burst open and she let out a loud scream, which punched through the quietness of the night like a verbal explosion. Ka then turned around again, mumbling and whimpering under her breath and went off to sleep again as if nothing had happened.
Had she forgotten she shared a bed with someone? Was it a scream of shock? Had the shock of reality disturbed her dream of being married to Brad Pitt or Damon from Vampire Diaries?
I know the sight of me half asleep can’t always be a good thing but I didn’t think it was reason enough to scream quite so loudly.
I’d be surprised if she hadn’t woke up the singing postman upstairs with that scream.
Anyway, Ka was soon snoring once again, oblivious to what had just happened and once again needed reminding the next morning.
It reminds me of how I used to sleep walk as a kid. I used to wake up on the living room couch, sitting watching tv, late at night with my Mum and Dad. Apparently I used to just get up a few hours after having gone to bed and amble through to the living room, plonk myself down on the couch and sit there until I came to.
Ka doesn’t generally sleepwalk, though she does occasionally talk in her sleep. She even replies sometimes if I ask her what she’s talking about.
One night she awoke just as I was switching off the light and started talking. Once her mumbles finished I asked her what she meant.
“She doesn’t know how to push the cat”, she grumbled back with eyes still shut under a frown of annoyance.
I have to admit, it may not have been that line exactly, it was difficult to make out exactly what she said but it was something along those lines. I’ve no idea what cat who didn’t know how to push, but most dreams rarely make sense anyway.
My most recent dream that I can remember involved me accompanying Lynsey Ann, my sister, to church on the first anniversary of her Wedding. She wore her Wedding dress to commemorate the anniversary. The interior of the church was enormous and we sat at the side of it’s interior before the massive altar, or at least I did, where there was a cassette player. On this cassette player, a double deck, I kept pressing play, listening to the music, letting it echo throughout the church, disturbing the hymn singing and the voice of the priest, and intermittently flicking it off with the stop button. The priest on the altar, Father Pat, kept getting annoyed with me for disturbing his mass with the loud music clips and I think he asked me to leave on more than one occasion, a request I denied, rebelliously pressing down on the play and stop buttons, whilst he spoke to his congregation.
Can anyone guess what that is all about?
Apparently you can have up to 7 dreams a night. I used to be great at remembering dreams and actually wrote down what I dreamt from time to time, a vague effort at a dream diary (Yep, in those days I had more time on my hands). I would sometimes have dreams that lasted for up to a week, my sleep continuing on with a dream where I had left off the previous night like an ongoing, surreal, drama serial. When I was young I remember actually looking forward to going to bed to see what happened next after the cliffhanger ending from the previous night or morning awakening.
Then there were the nightmares.
I used to have a recurring nightmare when I was small, set in our first house, Vancouver Drive.
It was dark. The curtains were all shut, but some moonlight could still be seen shining through the fabric of the curtain. Mum and Dad had locked the doors and windows and the five of us sat in the dark living room, cowering from what was outside. I remember peeking through the gap between the two curtains covering the living room’s rear window to look out into the small, dark back garden, the old rusty second hand see saw at it’s centre, partly hidden by the old stone hut that came with those houses. I would freeze in terror at the sight of the things outside, all standing, or pacing around, moving around the house, threatening just by their presence. They were large birds with tiny, beady eyes and giant beaks, standing as tall as a man, on long feather less legs. Things that can only be described as large dark, horrific versions of flamingos.
I remember, as I looked out, looking over the gathering block in the pale moonlight, the head of one of the creatures suddenly appearing directly before my nose, on the opposite side of the glass, straight up at the window. It’s small black eyes glaring at me over its large beak.
In one particularly frightening version of the dream I remember having a little later, the giant birds actually somehow got into the house via the back door and spent the majority of the dream ascending the hall staircase. Obviously I was in my bed for the entirety of the dream but could somehow see what was going on. Some of the creatures made their way up the hall’s stairs (Vancouver Drive’s stairs featured in quite a few of my nightmares when I was wee) and after the familiar creaking on the landing directly outside my, and my brother Kenny’s, bedroom the noises stopped. I watched my closed bedroom door, pressed up against the wall behind me, eyes wide with fear. On the other side of the door, a clawed hand reached up and turned my bedroom door handle. Just as the door swung open to reveal the creature beyond, I awoke.
Thinking back that was probably the last time I seen those scary black flamingos in a dream.
In work we quite often have Radio 2 on in the background and occasionally folk come on the Steve Wright afternoon show claiming to understand dreams and know what your subconscious mind is telling or instructing you. Personally I’m inclined to believe it’s a lot of subconscious babble, your brain conjuring up stories whilst you sleep, using elements from all over your life, including family, friends, experiences, locations. In your mind, whilst you sleep, what starts out as a simple thought develops, grow, mutates and expands like a patchy watercolour with too much water soaking through the paper making the colours spread and merge.
Say that, I have had a few, weird, eerily accurate moments involving dreams.
I did have one, very different experience recently. One that came back to me in a horrific flash, like a very bad sense of déjà vu.
I dreamt that I was sitting in Angela’s, Ka’s sister’s, living room, surrounded by the McGarva family members and, what was stranger, my Mum, Dad, brother and sister, who, in real life, had never seen or been in Angela and Steven’s house. Together we watched as young Joshua played in the centre of the living room, dressed in a strange uniform with a big red object on wheels upon which he could ride. Throughout the dream Joshua played with this red object and the relatives talked but I just couldn’t escape the feeling that something horrendous had happened. A terrible aching pain echoed throughout my head which I couldn’t pinpoint in the dream. Even though I recalled the dream the next day the dream faded over time as they all do.
Around six months later, Lucy passed away on Hogmanay and Angela invited us all round for dinner on the New Years Day in an effort to help us through the remainder of the ‘festivities’. The McGarvas, and the Reids. Sure enough, following dinner, we were all sitting in Angela’s living room talking, when Joshua sauntered in to the living room pushing the new fire engine he had received from Santa for his Christmas. Previously, before Lucy had arrived on the 29th and departed the day or so later, we had enjoyed our Christmas Day with Joshua who had been playing with the new truck dressed in his Santa outfit.
It was all probably just strange coincidence but it did make me think, not for the first time, that maybe there’s more to dreams than just mere mental rambling.
I’ve still never encountered a flamingo though.

"It's in Bellahouston Park, you pagan!"

Woke up this morning after a rough dream involving grand parents passing away in the wrong order, family members being eaten by swamp monsters and houses being demolished, all seeming, in that mad, crazy, dream-like way, so tangible and real. The swamp monster was particularly horrible as part of it's murderous routine was spewing acid over it's prey before taking off large chunks from the head by pummeling it's catch with it's tremendous tentacles. A rather disturbing vision to have in your head as you wake from your slumber.
My liking for science fiction can sometimes have odd effects on my dreams...
At the moment I'm reading Adam Roberts' 'Salt'. A science fiction novel telling the story of a large human colony setting up camp on a new world which, due to it's white, arid landscape, and near uninhabitable and hostile atmosphere is christened, you guessed it, 'Salt'.
The various factions of the colony settle at different points throughout the land, each with their own philosophies, beliefs and religions. Of course, once each clan settles it all breaks into a bloody war. The two larger, main colonies, the Senaarians and the Als, are the main protagonists in the book's events which are told from the viewpoint of each of these clans' leaders . The Senaarians live with their militaristic, ordered dictatorship and the Als, with their unordered, unruly, free-living ways. Both eventually break from their strained toleration of each other and give in to battle and death.
Through it Roberts paints a pretty pessimistic vision. The basic bones of the tale being, of course, human nature. Roberts is basically saying that no matter how long the human race survives, in the end we'll always end up fighting internally with the inevitability of fear and hostility, the results of a lack of understanding and tolerance in differing cultures and beliefs.
Talking of beliefs, the Pope's in town today with his Popemobile.
After waking from my swamp monster filled dream this morning and getting ready for work, I text my Mum and told her to enjoy herself at Glasgow Green today.
Mum text back, rather abruptly, "It's in Bellahouston Park, you pagan!".
Police are swarming the city centre, motorways have been closed off and a large black stage has been erected in Bellahouston Park for Mass, taking place this afternoon led by the Pontiff himself.
Ka and myself were in the Gallowgate area of Glasgow on Saturday morning with Dougie and Grace, heading for the Pram Centre to investigate some baby mobiles for our own coming visitor. On our way we passed the Barrowlands and the Bairds bar where loud, angry anthems were belting out, echoing through the street. Stalls had been set up, framed with Celtic scarves, selling T-shirts, adorned with Benedict's mug. Slogans not unlike 'Glasgow Celtic welcomes the Pope' and such like plastered over the 'quality' prints. Unfortunately I was walking down the street with my dark blue sweater on and was certain I was getting more than a few hostile looks from the grumpy old Glaswegian men milling around the stalls. One passed me by who, I swear, was almost ready to spit on me, the look on his face. Maybe he was just upset by the fact I wasn't buying a T-shirt.
Anyway, I'm sure there'll be a few T-shirts on today. It's an unbelievably sunny afternoon after the terrential rain of earlier in the week... almost as if there has been some kind of divine intervention throughout the skies of Scotland.
Great weather for his Holiness' £20 a ticket gig.
Surely the Pope could have put on a free mass for all his followers when they number so many and when his visits number so few? This is the richest global organisation in the world after all. With Susan Boyle and Michelle McManus singing on stage surely they should be paying us to attend?

Drugs and flamingos

Woke up rather disturbed this morning thinking I was in Libya and Ka and been jailed for drug running. Another crazy dream but one that seemed all very real. We had been holidaying in Libya, walking down a busy street in a busy town when suddenly a bunch of black uniformed police officers started chasing us. We looked one way and they were pushing people aside to get to us. We looked another and more officers were marching down the street, eyes glaring. They swiftly arrested us and as we objected one of the officers ripped Ka's bag from her shoulder and, after a little rummaging, pulled a large wad of notes, tied by an elastic band, from her bag swiftly followed by a small bag of suspicious looking white powder. Ka argued she'd never seen the items before (as they all do) and we were pushed off to the nearest Libyan police station. After being held for a short time I was released (for some reason) but Ka was detained due to the fact the items had been in her possession. I was fairly distressed by all these goings on, as you can imagine, and argued with the officers ferociously as I was shoved back out on to the streets. Ka had been fitted up and as I set off into the warm, dusty streets to get help, she sat in prison, in fear and isolation. This is where she remains as the dream ended shortly afterwards and I woke up flailing around in bed as I tried to shoulder my way by some market tradespeople.
I used to keep a dream diary. During my time in Art School I used to entertain folk with stories of the dream from the night before. Some of them even used to inspire drawings or stories! I've always had pretty epic dreams of all shapes and sizes. I still remember a nightmare I had when I was around eight or nine about giant flamingos surrounding our house in the black of night like some tropical version of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. My family and I were sitting cowering in the living room, turning all the lights off as the small beady eyes over their large beaks peered in through the windows at me from the black outside. Remembering dreams for longer than an hour, however, is usually a bit of a struggle for me. I'll wake up thinking, "That was great, I'd better remember it and write it down". But, after my Bran Flakes, the images and stories will disperse and fade into the clouds of my mind. The next thing I know I'll be sitting in the office wondering what the hell that had all been about. Someone once bought me a cheap dream diary which didn't even touch the surface of some of the stuff that goes on in my head during the night. The stuff that goes on in my head during the day is bad enough but during the night it's just damned crazy.

The case of the blue wheelie bins

I've been dreaming of wheelie bins for the past two nights. Recently our neighbourhood has been terrorised by the return of the bin nickers. A while back, before Christmas, all the wheelie bins for our block of flats, disappeared overnight resulting in me having to phone the Council for replacements. Now, once again, it is happening again. A number of our blue, recycling, wheelie bins went missing over the weekend there and on returning home from work, late on Monday, I found an attempt had been made on our three remaining bins. Disturbed in some way in mid theft, the robbers had abandoned the bins half way down the street. After retrieving the bins I had no other option but to bring them inside to our close and store them there. It was then I decided to investigate. I walked down to the bottom of the street, in the general direction the robbers had been heading, and into the dark entrance to the Calderglen forest. On entering the forest you first meet the gate to the local allotment before the path veers down the hill to the right, through the trees. It was here, at the allotment entrance, that I found my first clues. An empty milk carton and an empty cardboard hankie box. Not much in the way of clues, you may think, but they were our milk carton and hankie box, along with other extraneous recyclable rubbish from our bin that had been nicked over the weekend, lying in a heap of debris at the allotment gate. Could it be that an allotment member was nicking our bins in order to create a new manure pot or compost heap?
On Monday night I dreamt of a Fastasia like extravaganza with wheelie bins marching in procession, shuffling along a giant arch, singing in a low, monotone voice, by opening and closing their lids. Streams of water flowing up and around them against a navy blue, cartoon like, background.
"Wheelie bins...dun dun dun, wheelie bins...dun, dun dun, wheelie bins...dun, dun, dun"
On Tuesday morning I took another stroll down to the allotment before work. Fortunately I was able to gain access as a keen gardener had already arrived and left the gate open. Making my way inside I started looking around for any signs of rogue recycling bins but was almost immediately disturbed by someone poking their head over an old fence, further up into the allotment, beadily eyeing me suspiciously. Realising this had to be the chap who left the gate open, I made my way up to him, greeting him a cheery good morning. Now, I don't know why I did this but instead of telling the true reasons as to why I was sneaking around an allotment I was suddenly telling the man how I was a keen gardener and was interested in obtaning one of the plots of land. He told me a Councillor named Jim Fowler was the person to talk to (not Arfur). So I asked my new found fellow horticulturist if I could I have a quick walk around the allotment, to which he hesitantly agreed and I had a good look about only finding one clean, blue bin. No sign of all the other numbered bins that had been nicked from us out in the street. As I walked back down towards the gate to leave, the same gardener stepped out infront of me and offered to walk me out. His suspicions must have been raised somehow and my own suspicions settled. The bin thieving was not an allotment operation.
Once again, the robbers struck last night. Being at work I managed to get the low down from Ka on my return. A couple of guys in hoods had managed to get one of our bins from inside our close and another from one of the other blocks. The hoods then disappeared into the trees at the same dead end of the street that leads into the entrance to the allotment and the depths of Calderglen Park. Approximately five minutes later a fire engine roared down the street and, sure enough, skidded to a halt at the dead end, it's incumbents jumping out and getting to work. Ka and Chris (who was visiting for a coffee at the time) questioned one of the firemen to see if there was any sign of the wheelie bins but the fireman only gave a short, irritable response and got on with his work. Unfortunately it must be the same old story. Neds. The hoodies are nicking our recycling and burning them along with the wheelie bins. Why? What kind of deprived, boring lives must these guys lead to find this kind of behaviour entertaining? Even at a young age what do these guys find appealing about nicking peoples wheelie bins. Perhaps we should be grateful it is only the wheelie bins and nothing more... but then maybe that is just a matter of time.