Baptism, balloons and musical bumps

At 1.15 of the 21st April we all gathered in St. Leonard's church for Sophie's baptism. Sophie was kitted out in her finest whites, but only after a rather chaotic, unsettled, morning in the house. We took our place in the front pew of the church alongside Angela and Kenneth, Sophie’s new Godparents and along with the gathered family and friends behind us, eagerly awaited the beginning of the service.
The tall, smiling, Deacon Michael welcomed us all into the church before retreating back into his sacristy to dress in his official ceremonial, baptismal robes, or, as some of the gathered thought, their granny's net curtains.
Deacon Michael, a Canadian who first appeared in Saint Leonards church a few months ago, took us through Sophie's christening service in his stirring, impassioned style, reminding us all why we were baptised and asking us to denounce the temptations of evil and the devil in his loud, clear voice. The Deacon, with his line delivery, and minimal hairstyle, reminded some of John Malkovich, although thankfully never got quite as sinister (and Malkovich isn’t Canadian).
Through baptism Sophie would be cleansed of original sin and in doing so this act would make her a saint. A rather ironic term of phrase as Sophie had not exactly been easy going that morning and if sainthood involves continuing to waken your parents up at twenty past six every morning on the dot, without fail, I'm not sure I'm keen on it.
We don't need an alarm clock anymore. Saint Sophie starts babbling away to herself at the exact same time every morning, gurgling and chattering away to herself, or her wee bunny blanket, her small voice echoing around the room in the still, silence of the early mornings. If Ka and myself try to ignore her, the babbling soon turns into shouting and whimpering until she gets one of us up out of bed. A habit I see getting worse as the years go on.
Anyway, apparently Sophie is now a Saint in the churches eyes, in fact, according to Deacon Michael she is cosmic, but she is only saintly until she reaches such an age as to when she can make her own moral decisions, an age, I suspect, she's already reached.
Sophie is now starting to develop a little character. She’s now started playing with toys, talking to her dollies and, rather oddly, purring like a particularly happy cat, or Gizmo from the Gremlin movies. For one thing she steadfastly refuses to take her feet down off the small table before her on her feeding chair. No matter how many times you ask her to lower her feet down off the chair's small table, she simply smiles or frowns at you bringing the feet immediately back up if moved.
Okay, it's hardly enough to banish her from the church and accuse her of devil worship but it could only be the start of a rocky road to ruin.
Sophie did behave herself all the way through the baptismal ceremony though with the only hint of upset being when I tipped her backwards towards the baptismal font at the specified time.
Sophie sat quite happily in both Ka, and then my arms, for the first half of the service, spending most of the time chewing away at her right hand, before I took her baptismal candle from Deacon Michael and lit it from the Easter candle burning behind us. Ka and myself then exchanged, Ka taking the smoky candle and me taking Sophie to lower into the baptismal font, backwards. As she was lowered head first Sophie started to look a little worried. Her eyes darting about for support or reassurance, her mouth wobbled and began to twist into a wince and then a definite frown descended as the Deacon poured the three, rather heavy, pourings of water over her head. After the quick prayers and blessings I brought Sophie back up to her normal horizontal position and she quickly got back to nonchalantly chewing her hand.
Ka took Sophie back shortly after and I was put in charge of the baptismal candle which continued to smoke as we came back down off the altar. As we stood and listened to Deacon Michael the candle, unknown to me, continued to smoke, sending a long, black, wispy cloud up into Ka and Sophie’s faces before Angela swiped the offending waxwork out of my hands.
Following the short service Ka, Sophie and myself stood and posed for some photos before we headed on up to the local dive of a pub, the Salmon Leap.
Fortunately for us the Salmon Leap has a rather nice function hall upstairs and with a bit of decor, involving the purchase of some helium balloons, confetti and ribbon, the place looked half decent for the hundred or so guests we had piling in. Ka, Sophie, Morven, and myself were among the last to arrive, me wobbling into the hall with Sophie looking up from her car seat, probably wandering what was going on. Before long Sophie was out and being passed from pillar to ballooned post, visiting the arms of as many of the guests as possible, mostly of the female variety. Aunties, uncles, cousins, grannies, grandads, family friends and work colleagues (who will basically be adopted aunties) had all gathered for the occasion and took the opportunity to chat and catch up with one another. More photos were taken whilst everyone queued for a drink, some disappearing briefly to the downstairs bar to catch the football scores.
The fantastic cake, gifted by Great Auntie Tricia and Great Uncle Tommy, was cut, after a short speech of thanks and the buffet was opened and quickly demolished. Mum, Grace, Jillian, Lynsey Ann, Jean, Steven, Pauline and a lady from Lynsey Ann's work, Gale, (a nice lady who'd unfortunately spotted me at a previous John Barrowman concert), all contributed to the fantastic buffet before it was eradicated by the hall full of hungry guests. Plates were piled high upon leaving the table but unfortunately neither Ka nor myself got any of it. Sophie probably had more to eat than us as she half sucked on a 150ml bottle, now exhausted, without her afternoon nap and half asleep after being passed around the room approximately twenty five times.
I did manage to get my hands on half an egg roll and gave the plate to Uncle Colin to keep an eye on for me whilst I briefly disappeared off to chat to someone else. Unfortunately I shouldn't have.
I did manage to get half a sandwich from somebody's leftovers, a couple of bits of Gale's fruit loaf and a piece of the afore mentioned christening cake which was now being expertly cut up and dished out by Mum and Auntie Tricia.
Ka and myself had previously had the idea of entertaining the gathered kids with a couple of games and had brought along a few prizes. The easiest games to organise on the dancefloor, without any chairs or implements, we reckoned, would be musical statues or musical bumps. Both required very little effort on our part and no tools, only music. Unfortunately the musical statues turned out to be a little harder to run that predicted. Upon pressing play on the ipod for Olly Murs to begin his 'Troublemaker' the gathered kids started moving. Unfortunately the kids were either moving very little, in order to freeze easily when the music was halted, or were seasoned musical statue players, jumping about crazy and then expertly freezing in position, baring blinking an eyelid. Since I was in charge of pressing the ipod buttons, Ka was put in place as the judge and she was rubbish. She refused to put any of the kids out. Some of them were quite obviously moving but Ka would shake her head and her hands and shout “keep going, play the music!”
When we eventually whittled the dancers down to two kids we just flung prizes at them both and announced 2 winners. We then got all the kids back up on to the dancefloor for the musical bumps and that proved even more impossible as all the kids collapsed down on to the wooden floor at the exact same time, making it near impossible to pick any losers out. Well, all except Joshua, who kept pushing his luck. After another whole constantly interrupted four minutes of Olly Murs we eventually got two winners and called it a day with the games. The kids were happy enough diving about the dancefloor without our help anyway, and had been beforehand, so we just left them to it and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with the grown ups.
After more hellos and thanks for coming, people began heading off home from around half past four. Morgan started panicking about the leftover empty pasta bowls and the identity of their owner, Grace insisted on circling the hall with binbags and Dougie done his bit for the bar, collecting the empty glasses up.
In the end only Sophie, Ka, Mum, Dad, Kenny and Lynsey Ann were left. We packed up Pauline’s pasta bowls, (I reported back to Morgan that we’d found their owner), the remainder of Gale’s fruit loaf, the helium balloons and the enormous pile of presents and jumped in the car for home, Sophie looking out from the innards of her car seat, having fully awoken once more and probably wondering where she was off to now. Ka and myself were not looking forward to getting the little lady home as she had not had the chance to eat properly during the party making it more likely that she’d have a little tantrum come dinner time due to the hunger and tiredness.
As it turned out we were pleasantly surprised. Sophie sat in her feeding chair, with her feet up, giggling and laughing, greeting Mum, Dad and Lynsey with lifted arms, who popped round afterwards with the rest of the balloons and for a quick cuppa. This is another new thing for Sophie. The lifting of the arms. Sitting in her chair she was raising them up and down intermittently, making noises, purring and yapping, eyes whizzing about like that wee crazy Gremlin from The New Batch. This crazy good mood continued throughout bathtime and dinner until I lay her down for bed in her moses basket. It was only at that moment that she let out a whimper of protest.
A minute or so later, she was asleep. We weren’t far behind her.

Another year, another quiz and another chilli

"Why did Adele have a minor strop at this year's Brit awards ceremony?".
This was a question that caused a bit of a ruckus in the Reid household on New Years Night.
The two families were round for a buffet dinner on New Years Day. Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann arrived with a big tray of lasagne, a big box of iceland goodies and a big box of budweiser. The McGarva's then arrived in the Hood mobile. Jillian and her Mum arrived with Colin, Grace and Dougie in tow, ferrying a tray full of macaroni, a large steak pie, a large, freshly baked chocolate orange cheescake, a couple of trays of ice cream and more than a few plates of Jean's famous chocolate snowballs. Jillian's mum's white chocolate balls are now a must for any family buffet. Made with white chocolate, coconut and probably way too much sugar, Jillian’s mum’s balls are the ultimate sweet treat.
With the arrival of Steven, Angela, Morgan and Joshua a little later, the living room was now full and Ka and myself got to work warming up, cooking, or boiling in the kitchen on our rickety old cooker.
Earlier that morning, as soon as I'd got up, I had got to work on another of my chilli con carnes. Okay, it's not the hardest of meals to cook but it was my contribution to the night's buffet meal along with a big pot of rice and some nicely warmed pita breads. Whilst Ka got the three large oven dishes warmed up, the macaroni, the steak pie and the lasagne, which all took turns in our wee oven, we got to work on the pasta dish and boiled up the rice to accompany my chilli ("It's just a chilli" Dougie shrugged, nonchalantly, on more than one occasion throughout the night). Before long there was another table of food laid out in our living room and everyone was helping themselves whilst Olly Murs and Kasabian played as background music and Ka sat back in one of the corners of the room to feed baby Sophie who seemed a little disconcerted by the chatter and surrounding family members. By the time early evening came round, everyone had eaten and Sophie had been laid down in her moses basket upstairs after getting a little tired of being handed around the room, from relative to relative.
After Morgan took the names from my holiday hat, 5 teams of two were made and another Reid family quiz kicked off with a spectacular prize of a large slab of Whole Nut chocolate to play for. The quiz consisted of, what I thought, were a good mix of questions from events, people, and places from throughout the year. Plenty of news, sport, tv and music. Something to keep everyone happy. Or so you’d think.
There was one exception. One question was put in specifically for Morgan and Joshua. Unfortunately the kids chose to remain silent and weren't much help to the quiz teams. I had wanted to know the names of Thomas the Tank Engine's two blue friends. Mum and Dad, who had been paired up as a quiz team, immediately objected claiming themselves to be singled out, claiming there was no way they would know such details. These allegations seemed quite unfair considering when Kenny was a wee kid all he talked about was, yes, you guessed it, Thomas the Tank Engine. He had the Thomas the Tank Engine toys, lunchbox and everything! Mum even made him a Thomas cake for one of his birthdays. It's not my fault she didn't pay as much attention to her youngest son's interests.
The Brits question was the one that really got some blood vessels bubbling though as I had wanted the answer including Blur cutting Adele's acceptance speech short in order to play their Outstanding Contribution set at the end of the programme. Apparently this was wrong. It was James Corden who was actually to blame so although I was wanting a mention of Blur there was a minor mutiny and some of the teams started taking it upon themselves to rebel and award themselves points as long as they mentioned James Corden even though they were told clearly what the requirements of the answer had to be and they quite obviously did not have them. Colin, who had been paired with Lynsey Ann, was my only defence in the matter, but this was probably down to the fact he was the only one that answered the question to my high standard. As a result some papers were marked wrongly and even though this one troublesome question was a mere point, it caused the game's biggest ruckus. Grace and Dougie, another husband and wife pairing, had a minor ruckus among themselves about the name of Lady Diana's son, after the teams were asked who was photographed naked during August, in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for my Mum and Dad it hadn’t been Keith Chegwin but Prince Harry baring the crown jewels during a game of strip billiards in his Las Vegas’ VIP hotel suite. Another question asked what Felix Baumgartner broke when he jumped from 25 miles above the Earth. The answer, of course, was the sound barrier, at 834mph. Grace suggested that it was his ankle.
Jillian and Steven were the eventual victors and took the slab of Whole Nut chocolate as their prize which Steven kindly donated to his team mate.
Once everyone had left and Ka and myself were making our way to bed after feeding little Sophie at around quarter to midnight I received a text message from Colin.
“Michael jillian and steven cheated they looked at angelas sheet to get Gordon and shouldn’t have got point for adele so would’ve drawn wi me and lynsey ann”.
That, one sentence text message said it all. It’s a shame that people feel the need to shout, complain and, worst of all, cheat at a small, largely unimportant, family christmas quiz but it’s perhaps more of a shame that Colin was still going over it all in his head three hours after the quiz had been brought to it’s tiring conclusion.
Still, it only happens once a year, we should be grateful of that, like an MOT, a PDR or the Jackie Bird Hogmanay programme.
Thankfully Ka and myself missed the majority of the Hogmanay television as we were both in bed by quarter to eleven this year. Sophie Reid is successfully knackering us out and besides, I had to be up early the next morning to make that chilli.

Supersensitive Christmas trees

December arrived and disappeared just as quickly in a blur of visitors, bottles, baubles and disappointing television.
Never before has my life changed so much in such a short space of time following the arrival of baby Sophie Reid on the 19th November. Life as I knew it was turned upside down, spun sideways and then given a hefty slap from an overgrown halibut and sent flailing into a nearby canal.
Sophie has now been here for 6 weeks and we're just about getting used to it all now. I don't just mean the feeding, the nappy changing, the crying, the taking half an hour to leave the house, the boxing (yes, boxing) and the now seeming inability to watch television or read a book in peace and quiet. I also mean the simple fact that there's now a third person living in our house. A very small, occasionally noisy, occasionally troublesome, but always perfect, third person.
Sometimes I get up in the morning and wonder where the extra snoring is coming from. I'm used to Ka's snoring, but when I wake up on a morning and hear the quieter, more sniffly snoring from the moses basket, at the side of the bed, it sometimes takes me a few seconds to register.
Sleeping. One of those things I used to completely take for granted. If I had a mere six hours I would consider myself half asleep and incapable of having a fully conscious day. Now six hours is something I crave. The only hindrance to my potential beauty sleep used to be Ka's snoring, but now I have Sophie's snoring, not to mention her waking up at half past four in the morning demanding nourishment by way of a heavy shuffling from the innards of the afore mentioned moses basket before the wailing and squawking from inside it.
Why she can't wait another couple of hours or so until breakfast time I don't know? It's not as if she'll fade away! (I hope nobody from the RSPCC is reading..?) Hopefully she'll catch on eventually.
My two weeks paternity started on the morning of Sophie's birth, those first two sleepless weeks followed by another two weeks off on holiday, to 'enjoy the arrival' of the new baby in the household, apparently. Ka also required a decent couple of weeks help to recover as Sophie had been born via caesarean section which meant Ka had to relax for six weeks. No exercise, no lifting heavy objects, no sudden movements, no tidying, no polishing and no hoovering. I think the latter was enough to break her out into a cold sweat on more than one occasion especially after I bought a slightly cheaper Christmas tree this year.
The first Christmas tree in a good couple of years that didn't cost over £30 but which also, unfortunately, did not have the word 'needlelast' in it's title. As a result the tree now showers the living room floor with a barrage of needles when someone so much as walks past it.
Last week, on my first week back at work, I arrived home to find our Christmas tree half bald.
Now that Ka has recovered enough to get back to her usual hoovering routine she'd been doing some housework. Apparently, at some point, whilst hoovering around the Christmas tree, (one of those great traditions Kim Wilde never sang about), Ka managed to drop the hoover into the tree, thus completely shedding it of a large portion of needles up one side. The tree now looks balder than me after a trip to Shaky Shugs in the Village.
I'm sure Ka's telling the truth though and wasn't at all getting carried away with her reacquainted hoovering abilities. You just have to adjust a bauble and a whole pile of needles will shower to the ground underneath.
The fact we've had one of our busiest Decembers for visitors also didn't help matters. Visitors are great. They're brilliant. I love visitors popping by. Especially when they bring presents.
However, when there's a highly sensitive Christmas tree in the room things get a bit tiresome.
A good proportion of the family members and friends that dropped by to say hello, to give us their wonderful wishes and presents and see our precious new bundle of joy, all managed to give the tree a good inadvertent shake while they were in. Some would sweep their jackets from their backs, swinging them round their bodies, in the general direction of the dining table chairs, apparently not noticing the Christmas tree standing proudly at their back and the needle carnage they were causing behind them as their large coats and jackets attacked the baubled branches. As soon as the guests were out the front door and on their way home, after perhaps commenting on the needle loss of our tree, it would be another trip to the cupboard under the stairs for the J. Edgar.
Still, it's New Year now, so it doesn't have long to go.
In fact as soon as the bells finish striking twelve tonight both Ka and myself will be fighting the urge to immediately disassemble the whole thing.
We'll keep the tree up for the families visitation tomorrow afternoon for our New Year's Day gathering but we have no doubt the last of it's super sensitive needles won't last long during that onslaught.
Still, it had been a nice tree.
Sophie's first Christmas tree.
Up until Tuesday morning Sophie had a hefty pile of presents underneath, even though she has no idea what Christmas Day even is.
In fact she probably doesn't even have a clear idea what a day is, come to think of it.
Since Sophie has, as yet, no idea of the concept of Christmas, Santa, presents, the birth of Jesus Christ, getting up at a reasonable time in the morning, (etc, etc), there was no need to buy her anything this year so Ka and myself enjoyed one last year of buying for each other. We couldn't let Christmas go buy without buying our new born daughter anything, of course, so we did buy her a few toys and books which, again, were all vaguely pointless as she can barely rattle a rattle yet. So on Christmas morning Ka started unwrapping presents with one hand, presents that 'she only just wrapped not twelve hours before, holding a permanently disinterested Sophie in the other arm, who seemed to be more interested on where the milk was coming from.

Sophie's day consists of eating, sitting, greeting and then sleeping on an ever spinning cycle. A bit like some of the folk I used to work with.
The only activity Sophie gets up to at the moment is a little bit of foot kicking in her bathtub and the boxing. She will sit on her bouncer quite happily following a feed, for around half an hour at the most, and then start to get bored. Her arms will then start moving, then the legs will kick until the moaning then commences. The arms' movements will take on a more determined movement until it look as if Sophie's boxing a small, invisible opponent, from the comfort of her sloping chair.
The quietest, and the longest time she's lasted in her bouncy chair, had to be Boxing day when we watched a whole seven hours of animation. Pixar's Cars, followed by the dancing penguins of Happy Feet, swiftly followed by Dreamwork's How to train your Dragon. Okay, by the time the dragons were on she was boxing again, and I think it was myself that was watching Cars more than Sophie, but the dancing penguins certainly kept her eyes on the tv. Again, she's no idea what a penguin is, and I'm not even sure she can focus on the tv properly yet, but the movement and singing was obviously keeping her interested.
More than I was anyway. I lost interest in Happy Feet. Dancing penguins singing Prince songs? Give me a break.
Talking cars, now that's fare more sensible.
It's been quite an eventful year really.
Outside my own little life there's been some pretty major and spectacular events this year. The Olympics is the most obvious event which pretty much blew everything else out of the park. Bradley Wiggins became the first Brit to win the Tour de France. The Queen's Jubilee was commemorated with a procession down the Thames in the miserable pouring rain. Gary Barlow gifted the Queen a large concert on the doorstep of Buckingham Palace with varying degrees of quality acts from the past 60 years including the crazy skeletal dance of Cliff Richard and the spinning hula hoops of Grace Jones (thanks for that Gary). The re-election of Obama turned out easier than predicted, the death of Rangers caused Scottish football to begin its slow, painful death, Whitney Houston, Frank Carson, Jack Duckworth, JR, Neil Armstrong and the Gamesmaster himself, Patrick Moore also died (to name but a few). On the edge of space, Felix Baumgartner jumped down to Earth from 24 miles high. James Bond's 50th anniversary dominated the cinema. Chris Moyles left the Breakfast show, finally. A dog won a British Television talent contest. A shoddily written book made lots of Britain's middle aged women go a bit faint and unintentionally admit how desperate they all are. Another two nutjobs in America decided to go on a shooting spree making lots of other Americans rush out and buy more guns. Jimmy Saville was suddenly exposed as a child molester but escaped conviction on account of the fact he's long dead and nobody actually said anything when he was around. A loony dance from South Korea dominated the youtube channels and became a big hit at kids parties even though the dance moves are more than highly inappropriate. All hell broke out in Syria, the Euro collapsed a little more, and the Levenson Enquiry finally came to an end with some kind of result that nobody is now paying the least of attention to.
Personally, my little life continued too. The work's move (finally!) from Hamilton to the Glasgow Clydeside has now seen S&UN officially merge with the rest of Scotland's Trinity Mirror meaning the integration and merging of teams under one roof. What this means in the long term still remains uncertain but I'm optimistic.
Ka and myself bought our first, and perhaps only, house in June/July. With Ka once more up the duff we bit the bullet and bought ourselves our new home, moving on up the property ladder, leaving Your 'Manoeuvre' to continue to come up with excuses regarding our wee beloved flat.
Ka and myself took part in more fun runs for Sands, myself taking part in my very first 10k (okay, I know it's only 10k, but I thought it was an achievement anyway) and we had the great Charity Hat Disco Night with DJ William Rae which ended up raising over £1000 for Sands and Cancer Research UK.
Ka and myself enjoyed a trip to London before the chaos of the Jubilee, to visit Auntie Ann around her 'big' birthday, and took Adventure Ted, from Ka's nursery, along for the ride. That was the last time I remember the sun being out and it was in April, and in England.
It was in London that we learnt of Sophie's existence, whilst standing in the middle of Charing Cross train station.
We enjoyed another trip to the Edinburgh Fringe where I ended up on stage with Tim Vine and gaining another wife.
There was a family reunion style picnic on Elie beach in August, at which the sun was out, (so I was wrong about the last time being in London), and I managed to burn my forehead a rather spectacular primrose red.
We flitted a few weeks later, enjoyed a giant bouncy castle and a few house warmings, and then settled down to prepare for the imminent arrival of a certain Sophie Reid.
Blog writing time became suddenly scarce, pint drinking time even more so and sleep became the new nightly goal.
Now, two years after the birth and passing of our first daughter Lucy, things are perilously close to becoming a little brighter again.
What will 2013 hold in store?
There's only one way to find out...
Happy New Year to you all.

Sophie Reid

Apologies for the absence.
I have a good excuse though.
Baby Reid number 2, Sophie Reid was born at 9.33am on Monday 19th November 2012.

As you can see, she was pulled out into the world with a bit of a grumpy expression on her face, but she was forced to arrive three weeks early I suppose.

Mum is fine and recovering whilst Sophie is... well, hard work.
I'm off to bed to try and catch up with some more sleep.

Giant inflatables and disappearing buffets

Frank Sinatra’s slow, melodic version of Send in the Clowns’ played through the living room stereo speakers as we closed the front door on another day of guests at half past midnight on Saturday night. We were finishing up a little earlier than we had done at the previous housewarming but certainly didn’t feel any less tired.
It was the family’s turn to visit and from three o’clock that afternoon we’d had everyone from the Kerrs and the Taylors, to the Symingtons and the Leckies, not to mention the Reids and the McGarvas. The food had been demolished, the beer nearly all drunk, the wine bottles finished, the irn-bru and diet cokes swigged and the caffeine swilled, not to mention a bottle of the finest Arran Malt Whiskey with accompanying cheese and biscuits which more than a few people partook in, a gift to the buffet from my Uncle Jim from his new abode on the ‘geologist’s paradise’ (not to mention the golfer’s paradise, the camper’s paradise and the whiskey drinkers’). A text arrived in the morning from Jim to say he was supplying the cheese and crackers, bought from the famous Arran Cheese Shop, just before my Dad turned up in his gardening gear with his hedge loppers and his ladders. He was here to start the back garden.
The hedge running up the left of our back garden was ridiculously overgrown and, as a result, blocking a lot of the Scottish sunlight out so Dad and myself had been talking about trimming it all down at some point and getting it into some kind of order. I hadn’t expected to see him turning up on the doorstep with his ladders a mere four and a half hours before the arrival of the first guests though. The first of which would be the bouncy castle organised through one of the Mum’s in Ka’s work. This Mum owns, or is part owner, to a company that hires these inflatable structures out and Ka had the rather brilliant idea of hiring one to keep the kids entertained throughout the day. We had told people to turn up whenever, and however, they wanted from 3 o’clock onwards, saying there would be entertainment for the kids in the earlier hours of the afternoon.
Just as Dad and myself finished tidying the last of the giant bushes and hedge branches away from the back garden’s lawn, a job that involved surreptitiously chucking them over the back hedge into the council ‘controlled’ wilderness behind us whilst cutting and scratching my arms to ribbons, the bouncy castle man turned up at the front door, Ka immediately racing away in fright, up the stairs as she was once more still in her polka dot dressing gown (she does wash it, honest!). The guy brought through the black box generators along with a couple of mats and cables and gave the garden a quick check over and then instructed me to take down the washing lines before he disappeared through to the front of the house again. After obediently deroping our washing poles I jogged off through the house to meet the bouncy castle man once more, this time at the front door, mulling over how he was going to fit the giant roll of plastic between us, through the entrance. With a bit of shoving, a bit of squeezing, a bit of wall scraping and a touch of sweat we managed to squeeze the rolled up monstrosity through the not terribly wide front door, then finding ourselves in the hallway and faced with a similar problem three times more as we took the heavy delivery through the house and into the back garden.
That is the one major downfall of owning a terraced house. No side gate to the back garden.
Anyway, we eventually got the giant barrel shaped roll of plastic through and out on to the back lawn where the bouncy castle man immediately set to work, pinning the flat structure down into the wet, slightly mushy grass as I stood and watched the large square unfold over half the garden.
“We’re going to need a bigger garden”, I thought as John Williams’ dark, foreboding music built up in my head. The castle slowly rose up before me blocking the sunlight out that my Dad and myself had revealed in the previous few hours by chopping the surrounding hedges. A shadow now loomed over me from the giant arched roof of the inflatable monster which continued to rise like a cake in an oven with way too much baking powder. A slide seemed to shoot out from the nearest side of the structure as it filled with air, pillars and loops decorated with bubbling fish and swimming scuba divers rose up inside the filled framework and before long you could barely see a patch of grass around the plastic bouncy building.
These kids better turn up, I thought, as I seen the bouncy castle man off after he’d run through his rather vague health and safety procedure which basically involved making sure little kids were looked after within the castle and nobody did anything stupid.
I’m not sure he realised whose house he was in.
As Ka finished straightening her hair upstairs, I reminded her that I wasn’t doing any kid entertaining today. The whole reason we got the bouncy castle in was for me to specifically not do any child entertaining.
As soon as the first child came through the front door, who as the first on the bouncy castle? Muggins, that’s who.
At precisely three o’clock, on the dot, Aunty Lorna and her three girls, Wendy, Pamela and Susan, turned up along with Yvie, Wendy’s youngest. They all had their own customary tour of the new abode before Yvie finally got her way and headed out to the bouncy castle with Auntie Susan. Along with Yvie the first kids took to the bouncy castle and I helped support the little girl over the curved, wibbly wobbly surface inside the castle. Susan stood on the patio and supervised her niece as she got used to moving over the giant inflatable and the stranger egging her on inside it.
My cousin Sarah arrived soon after with her boys Christopher and Daniel and Uncle Ian and Aunt Anne just after. Before long I had company on the castle as Ian took wee Daniel up into the bobbing innards. More kids arrived in the form of my younger cousins Megan and Lauren with my Uncle Laurence and Aunt Maria, Claire arrived with her wee girl, Olivia and as the afternoon progressed and more and more of the families started trooping through the front door the house warming was soon in full swing. Ka got the buffet served single handedly, only because she refused anyone permission to help, I took coats and served drinks, my time on the bouncy castle now down to a minimal after the growing number of kids took over. I was also a little more hesitant to venture on to the bouncy castle along with so many kids after following Colin, Ka’s brother, on his first attempt to board the inflatable. He got so far as getting up on to the main section before losing his footing, falling back over his arse, taking me with him and managing to land on my head, much to the kids and the Symingtons’ amusement.
Mum, Dad, Jim, Lynsey Ann, Tricia and Tommy came in early evening, just in time for the second serving on the buffet table after the first table full got pretty much demolished within half an hour. Grace’s macaroni and homemade bread along with Ka’s wraps, olives, pizzas, prawns, cheese sticks and my very own chilli all went in the first tableful to be closely followed by the second which included Mum’s lasagne and Jillian and Jean’s coconut snowballs.
Jillian and Jean’s white chocolate coated coconut balls are now famous at family buffets, each in their own small paper cake cases and although merely around 2 – 3 centimetres in diameter each probably hold around 500 calories within their small, sweet interior. The coconut snowballs are almost becoming just as traditional as Aunt Linda’s trifle which, unfortunately, we lacked on Saturday as Linda could not make it due to an extreme cold.
My chilli was well received by most or so I thought until Pamela approached me in the kitchen and complemented it. She asked how I made it. As I started describing how I gently browned the mince in the pot she asked how I made my spices.
Make spices? I had no idea you could make spices? I bought mine from a shop in a jar, I replied to her.
Pamela frowned slightly and then asked how I made my chilli powder. Again I replied that it came from a jar bought in a supermarket. Morrisons own, I believe.
Looking thoroughly unimpressed now, Pamela squirmed with discomfort a little and started describing how she would usually make her chilli powder before trailing off and disappearing off to the living room again leaving me to ponder who invited Nigella flamin’ Lawson.
I wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been the real Nigella Lawson in my kitchen giving me her tips (just check my spelling there…).
Aunt Tricia had been so intrigued upon hearing about the bouncy castle beforehand that almost as soon as she arrived she joined Grace up on the giant inflatable and both ending up marooned, struggling to get up, thanks to the kids bouncing and ricocheting around them like popcorn in a microwave. At one point Joshua even accidentally headbutted Tricia across the head giving my Auntie a small, slowly growing, lump for the rest of the night whilst Joshua bounced off unaffected. In fact, he looked more than at home on the inflatable. He bounces about rooms like a blonde haired tigger at the best of times, giving him an inflated ground to use is possibly asking for trouble. I’m quite surprised he didn’t end up in Betty and Malcy’s garden next door.
The girls of the group also found it highly amusing to run up and hit, tap or punch either myself or Colin over the leg, waist or arse repeatedly before running off back up on to the castle. Lauren also took to mounting my lower right leg in an effort to hold me to the spot. Both were amusing at first but soon got slightly tiresome. There were perfectly good tall pillars of hot air within the castle, to punch and smack, why the kids felt the need to continue to hit Colin and myself I’m not sure.
Once the bouncy castle was gone everyone retreated inside for the night. Megan brought her guitar out to impress us with some Killers tunes and the rest of the night was spent chatting and drinking along with some more eating.
As I poured a few drinks for people and Tricia came into the kitchen requesting an aspirin, I spied Ka pulling a large, rather delicious looking, rectangular pizza from the oven’s innards. I’d barely eaten any of the previous tablefuls so I quickly rushed the drinks I was pouring. Once I’d finished pouring and dishing out the glasses I went straight for the buffet table in the living room to grab a square slice and found an empty breadboard with a large rectangular square of heat, grease and crumbs awaiting me.
“Who invited this lot?”

Flitting, phones and forklifts

Has it been so long? Sheesh, it’s been donkeys since I’ve had the time to sit and write anything on this here blog.
Ka and myself have now, more or less, fully settled down in our new abode.
The boxes have all been emptied, the rooms have been organised, the wardrobes have been built, the books unpacked, the Cds put into alphabetical order, the Virgin tv finally activated, the wifi enabled, the loft filled, all the junk cleared out and the dates for the all important housewarmings organised. We’ve had to arrange two housewarmings, one for family and one for friends. There’s just too many people to invite in one go. Don’t get me wrong, we could attempt it but not even a three bedroom house could hold everyone.
Three bedroom house. It’s strange even saying that.
We now have stairs. I was on the phone to Aunt Linda there and had to travel downstairs when it came to Ka’s turn in the conversation. The wife was sitting on the couch, supping a coffee, watching Eastenders when I made my way down to the living room and handed the phone over.
We have stairs now. I had to walk and talk in order to pass the phone over. Back in Kenilworth we simply shouted for the other person to take the few steps from the next room to take a shot on the phone.
Okay, yes, it’s probably nothing amazing to the likes of yourselves, but we’ve been living in a one bedroom flat for the past seven years. Not only that, we were using a cord phone handset. Now we have cordless handsets with which we can saunter around the house, visiting various rooms as we talk. Perhaps one of the three bedrooms. Perhaps one of the two toilets. Perhaps the sizable kitchen, the comfortable living room or the lower or upper hall, both connected by that weird, unfamiliar, rising passageway known as a staircase.
Very strange having a staircase actually inside my home after having used the cold, stone steps of the flat close for so long. We can now climb stairs without fear of jumping spiders, meeting neighbours on the way down, encountering singing postmen or noticing the absence of a wheelie bin. Well, the latter to some extent. We can just about see the blue of our recycling wheelie bin through the front door’s window and would probably notice if it suddenly went missing one night but I doubt it would be going missing in this neighbourhood to give the youngsters a quick thrill and fix as they sniff away over an open fire in the local forest at the bottom of the street which, unfortunately, had been the fate of one of our past wheelie bins. No, this neighbourhood feels a little different.
We put a pile of old carpets, garden furniture and general rubbish out on Sunday night for the council to pick up on Monday morning and found that anyone passing in the street was giving the pile of unwanted goods a dirty look or a shake of the head. If that had been Kenilworth the unwanted goods would have got a quick look over or a quick, inquisitive, glance at the very least just to make sure it really was for the scrap heap.
I’m always seeing stuff lying about in streets, left out for the council to pick up, presumably the next day, and always cast my eyes over it just in case I see anything that would come in handy. I seen a pram recently, lying unwanted at the end of a garden path and considered it briefly for more than a few seconds. It was missing a wheel though so I opted against it. If you see anything out there, we do need a wee table for the corner of our living room for the new cordless phone’s terminal box to sit on. (Is that what it’s called the ‘terminal’ box? That’s make’s it sound awfully final or important. We better not get any immigrants that have a more than passing resemblance to Tom Hanks hanging around the corner of our living room).
The actual flitting was great. I met Auntie Lorna’s son-in-law, Robbie, with his van in Birkenshaw Industrial Estate on the Saturday morning of the 25th August. Robbie had offered his services and his van for the flitting, which was great as it meant we didn’t have to go through the whole hiring of a Boulevard deathtrap.
The only problem was, it wasn’t quite a van. It was an 18 tonne Mercedes lorry. Brilliant for flitting with. Not so brilliant, I predicted, for flitting into a tightly packed, curving, uphill street on a oddly sunny, warm August afternoon. Anyway, I led him home in the car, dropping Grace off at the new abode to help Ka with the cleaning, and pulled up, back at Kenilworth, to find Tom waiting with Jack the dog. My Uncle Tom had been told ten rather than half ten so was getting a little impatient. After Robbie pulled up the large Merc lorry, with Dougie in the front passenger seat, we soon got started. My other Uncle Tommy then pulled up, followed by Uncle Laurence and Steven who all got to work in shifting the piles of boxes from out the wee one bedroom flat.
How a one bedroom flat had held so many boxes I’ll never know. There was a pile in the bedroom, a pile in the hall, a pile in the living room, and a few more in the kitchen. Some of the boxes were easily lifted, others were not. In fact, I’ll have serious considerations the next time I go to buy myself another hardback book. I think I may have inadvertently strained a few muscles that day with my book collection. Three shelves that had stood in the Kenilworth hallway for over seven years, filled with hardbacks, had filled three and a half boxes and had the potential of breaking three and a half backs. Once all the boxes were packed in the back of the lorry Dad and young Michael turned up closely followed by Iain, who had driven over from Motherwell, leaving a hungover Roslyn, in bed. This completed the A-Team and together we made our way over to the new house where the lorry slowly clambered up the street, reversed, then maneuvered, reversed then crawled up into Robertson Drive where it was swiftly unloaded in an organised line of straining, growling, humfing and, occasionally, complaining relations. Quote of the day had to go to young Michael who, as another large box of hardbacks was hefted through the house’s front door by two uncles, looked up the stairs at me and moaned.
“Michael, get a kindle!”
My Unlce Tom wasn’t at all happy either when a box of VHS videos was lifted into the house.
“VHS?!” Tom lamented. “Gawd’s sake Ka, get him told!”
Ka agreed with him oblivious to the fact, at the point, that Tom had sneakily nicked a couple of wine gums that had been left in one of the untaped boxes lifted from the Kenilworth kitchen. It wasn’t until later, when all the boxes had been unpacked in the kitchen that the pregnant Ka had went looking for her favourite confectionery only to find the bag with only a few remaining gums left. Fortunately for him, Tom had left by that point but as soon as Ka shouted as to the whereabouts of the rest of her bag of gums the other relative removal blokes, keeping their dignity, quality and conscience clear said only three words.
Unfortunately the words did not consist of “we don’t know”, or “we’re saying nothing”, or even “we’re no grass!”. The words were:
“It was Tom!”
The loudest accusation from Laurence. So much for brotherly love.
It was 2pm when the last of the 2 lorry loads finally made it’s way into the house.
The second lorry load had consisted mostly of the larger pieces of furniture, and a hastily deconstructed bed which Steven had toiled over back in the flat, obviously making up for the garden shed incident which he put me through on his own flitting day.
Have I mentioned that before?
I think I might have. (I can imagine Steven rolling his eyes with a groan as he reads this…)
Imagine opening a garden shed during a flitting and being being met with a tidal wave of screws, bolts, plastic balls and spirit levels (okay, it wasn’t quite a tidal wave, but this is my blog, and I’ll exaggerate if I like!).
As Robbie had pulled the lorry up once more with the second lorry load, into the tight curve of Robertson Drive, Uncle Jim turned up, just in time to help with the unloading and maneuvering of the couch.

Mum claimed at one point that Jim had turned up with a forklift to which she got quizzical looks before we realised she was referring to the two wheeled baggage trolley parked on the front door. A forklift would have been great though. Saying that, an 18 tonne lorry was annoying the neighbours as it was. I’m, not sure we would have got away with a forklift also driving up and down the street.
As Iain and my Dad chatted out in the garden, the sun was shining down over Robertson Drive, the tea was getting poured, a couple of bottles of Kronenbourg were being cracked open and people were resting on various boxes and oddly positioned furniture in the living room. As everyone else settled down for a wee drink and a chat, Steven, obviously still keen to work on, moved upstairs and started reassembling the bed.
Within the next hour Angela, Morgan and Joshua turned up and Morgan wasted no time in insisting that I order my four swimming pools that would fit in the back garden.
Not only do we have stairs of our own now, but we also have a back garden. Not to mention a front garden. We obviously don’t have any swimming pools as yet, but considering it was a suggestion I first put to Ka upon seeing the slightly overgrown back garden upon our first viewing, you never know.
Then again, maybe I should just stick to being grateful for a staircase and a cordless phone.

Picnics, barbecues, beaches and tomatoes

My not insignificant forehead has been red raw this week and is only just recovering. For the first half of the week it felt like I'd had a particularly heavy injection of botox as I was finding it difficult to lift my eyebrows (and spending days on end with the inability to lift your eyebrows is most inconvenient – a look of surprise is misconstrued as a look on constipation).
The sun had once more got the better of me. After a day spent lounging about a beach on Elie harbour without any form of protection I suffered. I should know by now that even though the sun may not be obvious at times, it's still there. Quite often, as soon as I've set foot on a beach, be it Ibiza, Lanzarote or Largs, I’ve turned a violent shade of red.
The family, or in this case, families, were all gathering in the Fife coastal town of Elie for a beach barbeque. My Aunt Anne had arranged it with the extended family of my Granpa Reid’s sister’s, my Great Aunt Nan’s, side as, unfortunately, we only ever seem to really see each other when somebody dies. Anne had got talking with a few of her cousins at the last funeral, my Aunt Maureen’s, and had decided enough was enough. She was determined to bring the two families together for something that wasn’t a death.
So Dad, Mum, Lynsey Ann, Ka and myself all jumped into Dad’s citroen on the Saturday, and travelled up to Leven, and to the Caledonia Hotel, a half hour drive from where we were headed the next day. We arrived at around half past eleven and, as check-in wasn't until after one, we decided to take our picnic, organised and provided by Mum and Ka, down to the waterfront. Unfortunately the weather wasn't up to much and as soon as we climbed down the large stone steps on to Leven's short sand beach, the rain started to fall.
Not just normal rain though.
This was large, big, splodgy dollops of rain which made a fantastic attempt at soaking us before we ran for shelter, cowering under the shelter of a large tree, we'd spotted earlier, back up towards the streets, alongside some park benches. As the rain eventually lightened, Mum and Ka quickly started preparing the tea, coffees and sandwiches, the Firth of Forth stretched out before us under the continuously moving clouds.
After our lunch, we decided to take a wee walk around the seaside town.
It didn't take very long.
We walked up on to the rather neglected looking High Street, not even paying any attention to the decorative signposts which pointed the way to the town's various hotspots. Not that there was much in the way of hotspots.
The bigger hotspots consisted of the local Lidl, which stood opposite our hotel for the night and served as our picturesque view from our hotel window. An indoor swimming pool stood lay, across the road from the bus station, at the end of the short High Street. A Sainsbury's sat across the road from that. There was an Arcade amusement shop, a bounteous amount of charity shops and a few pubs.
My Dad and I left the women in a wool shop and wandered further up the street and came across and slightly more curious looking little shop which displayed examples of it’s wares in it’s window. World war helmets, military caps, uniforms, nazi war medals, gas masks and beer flagons were just a few of the collections adorning the shelves and walls of this particular shop all leading you into a false sense of security as you ventured forth into the back of the shop and found a bog standard second hand book shop. Dad bought some Michael Connelly books for a pound each (cheaper than the charity shops) before we headed back down the street to find the women in the hotel buying in the drinks.
Following check in, during which we checked over our basic, but clean, rooms admired the view of the local Lidl and unpacked our small cases of belongings, we headed out to Crail to meet up with Tom, Linda and the just arrived Jim who had driven all the way up from London. We arrived at Tom and Linda’s camper van just in time to see Cavendish and his team get beat in the Olympics cycling road race and decided to head up to Crail’s Main street and a pint in the Golf Hotel where Anne and Ian caught up with us and Mum noised up the barman for not delivering Ka’s coffee.
We headed back to Leven for the remainder of the evening, driving through the pouring rain, which seemed to suddenly only exist outside of Crail, and enjoyed dinner with Anne and Ian in the Caledonia, where the waitresses had neglected to book our table and then nearly forgot to take our dessert orders.
With the rain finally giving itself a break, we took a short walk afterwards, ending up in one of the pubs we’d passed on our walk earlier in the day. Now it was a little livelier and the Saturday night entertainment was in full swing with the pub’s DJ and karaoke machine. The karaoke only made up half of the entertainment though as we were introduced to the lively residents of Leven’s Molly Malones. Most of the singers were awful, successfully destroying perfectly good songs. One of the guys, who would probably have ate himself if he had been chocolate, could barely sing the last three words of each screen, struggling to keep up with the colouring text. A few girls attempted Lady Gaga and the like whilst one of the biggest karaoke stars of the night turned out to be a lady called Margaret.
At least we think she was a lady.
Usually Margaret is a lady’s name so we opted for the female option. This ‘lady’ would strut up to the microphone in her suit jacket and belt out the hits with a deep, but not completely tuneless voice, and was overjoyed to hear the cheers from Mum and Anne following her various song interpretations. Insinuations were even made the next morning about Mum getting a few heavy winks from Margaret.
After a quick drive across the road to Lidl, where we packed a couple of boxes full of chicken, burgers, ribs and wings along with wine, juice and a couple of large bottles of water for the beach feast we headed out to Elie.
Arriving at Ruby beach, Sarah Jane turned up with Yvie, Christopher and Daniel before Anne and Ian drove up and met us where it was decided we should change location and we settled down on a small section of beach in a rocky alcove on a southern point of Elie harbour.
The sun was out but the wind was strong as we started setting up camp. Tom kitted me out with some shorts and a pair of spiky soled sandles as I’d left the shorts at home not expecting much from the Scottish coastal weather, much to Tom and my Dad’s disbelief. Earlier, on the Saturday, Dad almost swerved off the road with incredulity when I told him that I’d not brought any shorts.
Anyway, tents were built (and never used), barbecues were laid out ready for use, canoes were blown up, windbreakers were erected and a couple of castles were built as the family gathered to meet the more distant, extended family. Granpa Reid’s sister, my 87 year old Great Aunt Nan, soon appeared on son-in-law Stanley’s arm, the majority of her family, all following soon after.
Considering I only see these distant relations briefly at funerals I still find myself getting names mixed up, if I can even remember the names in the first place. There were a number of occasions on Sunday when I had to ask reminders from Mum, quietly and subtly whenever I think none of them are looking. There was Paul married to young Nan, Joan married to Stanley, Allison married to Ken, Kathryn married to Vince, Claire married to… Paul… I think it was Paul. Gawd, see, there I’ve started forgetting the names already?!
Anyway, on the day mixing up the names and relations didn’t get in the way of the food. Before long the BBQ’s were lit, the cans were cracked open, the wine unscrewed (we realised in Lidl that we had no bottle opener) and Linda’s trifle was out whilst the sun shone down, the strong wind succeeding in fooling us into being cool, whilst the occasional shower pestered us from time to time.
In all there was probably around 35 folk crowded round that small piece of beach before some of the blokes disappeared off to the Ship Inn for a pint, or to see the hanging baskets, as some were claiming, and to watch the game of cricket taking place further along beach. Apparently Elie’s hanging baskets are lovely at this time of year, I suspect they’re even lovelier when there’s a pint or two involved.
Unfortunately for me I made the unwise decision to stay on the beach and get merry with the wine, my Dad only realising later that we could well have been breaking the law.
It wasn’t until I got back into the back seat of the citroen at the end of the day, after returning the shorts to Tom and spending around an hour saying goodbye to people, that Mum turned a fetching shade of scarlet, Dad got dizzy and tripped over a wall, Lynsey Ann started to feel a little drowsy and my whole head started buzzing with heat. It wasn’t until the next morning when I awoke that I realised I could no longer look surprised, let the water from my shower hit my head or dry my hair or head without screaming in pain. I walked into the office with a head resembling a expertly polished tomato. Now, a couple of days later, and after copious amounts of after sun cream, that tomato is now peeling.

Jack Russell terrors

That’s it. The training starts here!
On my return from work tonight, and finding no dinner waiting on the table, I decided to get my trainers on and head out for a quick 5k. I’m running a 10k in September in aid of Sands and have not been out on the streets for a run for months.
In fact, I’ve never run 10k in my life. The family used to run 5, 6 or 7ks when we were younger, in and around Strathclyde Park on the Motorola fun days, but I’ve never attempted 10k in one go. So, with this in mind, I thought I’d better start doing a bit of training. Okay, I know September is ages away but the longer you leave it, the harder it will be (in my measly opinion).
With grey clouds smothering the sky and the occasional droplet of water hitting off my nose, I started running, expecting the occasional droplet to turn into a raging downpour as that’s usually what happens on these 5k runs around Calderwood and St. Leonards.
Thankfully I ran the length of the lap with no rain but, thanks to my lack of jogging in recent months, struggled for the majority of the 35 minutes, passing the occasional walkers and growling or muttering dogs. Dogs who were sometimes held back by straining leases or allowed to run free, running up threateningly towards me and growling angrily at my audacity to be running with shorts on, keys jangling in my pocket. Thankfully none of the dogs were Jack Russell Terriers. If it had been I may have lost my shorts… or worse.
I have a history with Jack Russell terriers.
For some reason, this particular breed of dog seems to dislike me. For years every single one of them that has passed me in the street has took an instant dislike to me. These small, white and brown dogs may seem innocent looking upon first glance but don’t let them fool you.
Upon meeting them in the street, some of these little terriers, simply growl as they pass and others bark. Others have been known to stop dead in their tracks and glare at me threateningly or stop and then snarl and snap, some jumping about wildly on the spot, flashing their small, but not insignificant jaws, filled with sharp, straight teeth.

In Manitoba Crescent, our second family home, the permed neighbour owned one. This neighbour was a quiet, airy fairy type of woman, with a large, dark permed hairdo and one of those vaguely annoying, patronising voices. The kind of voice that, coupled with her habit of tilting her head to one side when talking to you, sounded like she was constantly being sympathetic towards your situation. As if she pitied you as she spoke.
She’s now a waitress in the local Beefeater. She served our table one night when I was out for dinner with the family. We didn’t recognise her at first as her perm is now gone but she still does the mourning voice and the head tilting, sympathetic, nodding during conversation.
Anyway, she owned a Jack Russell and was one of my paper round customers when I delivered the East Kilbride News.
Every Wednesday night I’d walk to the town centre after school and pick up a huge pile of newspapers from the office’s front desk and trudge all the way home on foot, come rain or shine. Not an easy job as the East Kilbride News wasn’t the lightest of weekly local rags. Little did I realise then that I’d end up helping putting the paper together every week.
From behind the large glass window of the neighbour’s front door the wee mutt would constantly bark, growl and snap at me as I tried to safely deliver the permed neighbour’s newspaper. As soon as I prized the letterbox open to start sliding the week’s latest East Kilbride News in through the opening, the Jack Russell’s teeth would be there, snapping and snarling at me from the other side.
I don’t mind admitting that sometimes I would aim the first end of the rolled up paper directly at the dogs snapping mouth, hoping to give it a wee smack across the jaw. Usually the paper’s end would be torn and shredded within moments on the other side of the letterbox, the crazy wee mutt attacking it with a violent, psychotic hatred.
This neighbour had a baby girl as well?! Can you imagine having such an animal with this lunatic nature around a baby? Nuts.
One afternoon, after picking up my usual pile of papers, I decided to treat myself to a paperback I’d been looking forward to reading. I dropped in at WH Smith on my way and headed on out up the road to make my deliveries. Hours later, with only the permed neighbour to go, I started making my way up her Manitoba Crescent drive when I heard the weekly snapping and barking start once more from behind the large glass front door. I seen the familiar brown and white blur of ears and teeth jumping up and down as I made my way up the drive and, just as I got around two thirds of the way up the paved path, the permed neighbour appeared out of nowhere in the small porch and, to my horror, swung the front door wide open to greet me. The crazy little mutt of a dog sprinted right for me. Barking, growling, snapping.
A blur of rabid dog hatred, galloping towards my legs, spittal spinning out from it’s black dog gums, upon which the small, sharp teeth snapped. My steps faltered but I kept walking, pulling the paper from my bag, ready to deliver, striding up the path as if undeterred by the coming white and brown onslaught of noisy, yapping teeth. Then, as if on a spring board built into the permed neighbours pathway, the dog fired straight up into the air, aiming for the face. I swerved to the side, the dog missing, barking and snapping all the way, as it landed safely on it’s four paws at my side.
Almost instantaneously, it leaped up again, snapping at my arm.
This time it hit. Biting my arm briefly but thankfully letting go just as the teeth found some grip on my arm. The jacket I was wearing at the time was some kind of canvas number so the teeth did not manage to do much damage but it was enough to make me kick out at the little runt on his way back down to ground. The permed neighbour stood in her doorway, gently chastising the little git of a Jack Russell for playing, with that pathetic, quiet voice of hers and that tilting head of pity. Undeterred, the Russell paid his master’s voice no heed and once more lept up into the air spraying me with another volley of barks and yelps and snapped onto the WH Smith carrier bag in my other hand. This time the dog bit in and wouldn’t let go. My new book was in there and the little terrier had it’s grip on it with it’s vicious jaws. I shook and swept the bag through the air between myself and the permed neighbour in an effort to separate the mutt from my newly purchased book but with a dogged determination the dog held on by the teeth. The struggle lasted for at least a couple of seconds before the permed neighbour eventually took hold of her pet’s body. The mutt released the book upon the touch of his owner and continued with his barrage of verbal abuse, but this time from the safety of his owner’s hands, snapping and growling at me as I threw the paper into the doorway and retreated back down the garden path.
On getting home I pulled my new book from the slightly shredded carrier bag to find one large set of jaw prints cut into the lower half of the book. Proper, deep, tooth marks embedded through each side of the cover and buried down, gnawed into at least 100 pages on either end of the book. Throughout the following weeks, reading that book, turning those tooth marked pages, I never shook the feeling of anger and hatred towards that little b**tard of a dog.
I remember it was only a matter of weeks until I was walking up the hill to school one day and an older gent passed me, innocently walking his dog. Of course the dog was another Jack Russell Terrier and stopped in its morning ramble to fiercely yap and bark in my general direction, jumping around madly on the spot of pavement before me.
“They’re all insane!”, I remember thinking, but inadvertently half shouting at the same time, at the rather puzzled elderly owner as he clipped the end of the dog’s lead on and pulled it under control.
There have been more than a few other similar incidents over the years, all with Jack Russells.
Even a few months ago another one of these little runts destroyed my nephew’s football the day we took him, and our niece, Morgan, over to Strathclyde Park. Joshua, Morgan, Ka and myself stood and watched helplessly as the mutt ravaged the blue football to blue, plastic smithereens, growling the guttural noises of a wild animal after running across half the park, out of nowhere and descending on the ball like a bat out of hell.
Perhaps that’s why I didn’t enjoy ‘The Artist’ as much as everyone else seemed to.

Okay, Uggie did look a little friendlier than most Jack Russells but I couldn’t help but spend the majority of my time watching that movie being highly suspicious of the supposedly wonderful little co-star. I don’t care if he could rescue someone from a burning building, play dead with an imaginary bullet or walk on two hind legs, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him (or even kick him). All of those skills just make him all the more dangerous for when he starts attacking people in the street, regardless of how many awards he’s got on it!

A grand total for a grand night

I’d forgotten my raffle tickets. Once I finally got a chance to sit down on Saturday at DJ William Rae’s Charity Hat Disco Night, after around two hours of organising and tearing up raffle tickets, I realised I’d left my own raffle tickets at home so would have no chance of getting a prize.
The raffle tickets were selling well. A little too well, I thought, as I stood separating out the individual raffle tickets whilst people still arrived, queuing up behind us to get through the doors and into the busy, outside the Salmon Leap’s bustling, music filled function room in the hallway with Ka, Morgan and some of the girls.
Ka and myself had been down earlier in the afternoon and met up with Claire, Helen (Claire’s Mum), and Maureen (Claire’s Auntie). We spent a few hours blowing up balloons, tying ribbons, unloading all the raffle prizes from the boot and delivering Subway sandwiches kindly donated by the Bellshill branch. Now things were really kicking off as a seemingly non stop flow of people arrived for around quarter past seven onwards, some wearing hats and some seemingly too cool to wear a hat but forgiven anyway just for coming along to the Charity Hat Disco Night in aid of Sands, Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society, and Cancer Research UK.
On the blisteringly hot Thursday morning I had went up my Mum and Dad’s loft and pulled down an old Mad hatter’s style felt top hat that I’d bought in a crazy moment in Prague when I was there on a field trip with the Art School. Perfect for the occasion. Dad came along with a black and white checkered trilby. Craig came along with a policeman’s helmet with a flashing blue light protruding from it’s top. Uncle Ian attended with his big Texan cowboy hat. Aunt Anne was adorned with a large Easter bonnet. Mark had a World War II M1 Helmet. Sparkling, glittering, hats in various forms were in abundance along with many wicker sun hats probably usually kept for BBQ’s in the garden. In the end it was our neice, Morgan who took the ‘best hat’ prize home with her large white, fluffy, big eared, googly eyed, bunny rabbit hat.
As we continued to work on the raffle tickets everyone else enjoyed the the rock ‘n’ roll bingo a game DJ Rae had came up with in his time abroad. Basically a bits ‘n’ pieces with cards, bought to participate, each card with it’s own table of songs which you had to cross out as a short clip of the tune was played.
As we worked out in the hallway outside, ripping and tearing, a loud bellow suddenly echoed throughout the hall, after a good number of music clips. Colin had won, along with Elspeth, a friend of Grace’s whose bellow for some reason didn’t seem to echo quite as much. Colin and Elspeth won a litre and a half bottle of Vodka and £25 worth of winnings which Morgan somehow ended up getting a fiver from.
The raffle tickets seemed to be neverending and when I was in mid rip of a raffle strip following the bingo, DJ Rae announced the buffet open to which we raffle workers just looked at each other and laughed. The buffet table was currently occupied by piles of raffle ticket strips. Nobody was getting any food, anytime soon.
After a quick location change to the back room, where fortunately there was still some tables left, Angela, William and Claire’s Mum, Helen and a number of kind volunteers jumped to help with the grub whilst raffle operations continued.
Eventually, with the help of a couple of other volunteers, we managed to get the tickets all ready and whilst the gathered crowds feasted on the buffet they were entertained by a great local singer who, unfortunately, was a little drowned by the surrounding conversation.
Eager to get on with the music DJ Rae called for the raffle knowing they had a job on their hands. The corner of the room was completely crowded in bottles, perfumes, envelopes and gift bags of various shapes and sizes. There was even a living room rug. Upon his first visit to the bar, Dougie had laughed upon seeing the rug on the monster pile of raffle prizes kindly donated by local companies and many friends and family.
Ka and Claire set up and organised the prize giving, handing the lucky tickets to William to read out over his mike.
It wasn’t long before allegations of raffle fixing were being called as Colin won again, this time a rather lovely bottle of Jamesons whiskey. Unfortunately by this point, Colin and Jillian had since departed for Edinburgh. Jillian was running her first marathon in the morning in aid of Sands and various other worthy causes. In her absence Jillian won a Sex in the City perfume set.
Mum was the only winner of her table with an Afternoon tea for 2, which whilst collecting, for some reason, DJ Rae attempted to persuade her to perform 5 star jumps. Apparently it would have made the gathered lads from his football team happy.
I’m not sure what that was all about or why the lads would be interested in seeing my Mum performing exercises? Nobody else had had to work for their raffle prize.
Among other prizes handed out was a bottle of Courvoisier for big Iain and Angela won a basket of wine, crackers and chocolate.
One of the last prizes to go was the rug. Dougie and Grace won that. A prize Dougie was not particularly happy to receive but did manage to stop at least two blokes from nipping away with at the end of the night.
DJ Rae got the music back on soon enough and filled the dancefloor with a few requests including Paulo Nutini for Auntie Anne and the Timewarp for Ka and myself (I’ll never live that down!).
After the Salmon Leap eventually kicked us out, a select few, consisting of the Mums and Dads, Chris, Jim, Pauline and Lynsey Ann all agreed to come to our place for a nightcap. The majority of the ladies managed to get a taxi with the buffet dishes, remaining prizes, the rug, and, most importantly, the two buckets of cash, one yellow for Sands and one blue for Cancer Research. Never before had I had so much money in my physical possession. Mum, Dad, Jim, Lynsey Ann, Dougie and myself left without a taxi had no choice but to enjoy a walk down the road, back to Kenilworth, taking in the night air. I had to make a brief stop as we approached the end of our walk, standing at the foot of a tree with a large black and white felt top hat on, taking care the passing taxis didn’t see too much of me from the road.
Back at the flat we enjoyed another drink but at around half past two, just as Jim started talking about work again, Chris signalled that it was time to go home. More taxis were called and everyone went on their way leaving Ka and myself to collapse into bed.
The next morning, unsurprisingly, Ka awoke first. Her first job – to count the collected cash contained in both the Sands and Cancer research buckets. The night’s grand total amounted to £1100.19. I’m not sure where the 19p came from, but every penny helps! A fantastic total, from a fantastic night for two fantastic charities. Well done to everyone involved and thanks and to all who came along on the night!

Are we human?

I’d never been to a Humanist ceremony before. With no religious connotations, no inclusion of a religious service, at which only half the congregation know what’s going on, no prayers or strict readings from a big book and a less formal environment, it seemed a lot more relaxed and enjoyable. But maybe that’s because I wasn’t the one standing waiting at the end of the aisle.
Alan Cameron stood at the head of the hall, making nervous conversation with his two or three best men as all his guests gathered in the seats of the large hall behind him. We were in the National Piping Centre, on Hope Street in Cowcaddens, a venue Ka and myself had looked over when we had been touring the possible Wedding venues of Glasgow and it’s surrounding areas. The Piping Centre was our second choice, only just trumped by the House for an Art Lover, thanks to its gardens and Piano room.
The Piping centre was a great venue with the initial gathering of guests upon arrival on the ground floor museum and bar area, surrounded by exhibits and artefacts from throughout the long and wide reaching history of the bagpipe. A young spectacled female piper greeted us all at the old church’s entrance door before Alan greeted us upon arrival on the bright, sunny afternoon. We were immediately served a glass of golden cava and joined other guests having a wander through the small museum as we awaited our call to move upstairs and take our seats in the large decorous hall. When the waitresses all started milling around informing everyone to proceed upstairs, we downed our cava and headed up the old, spiral stone steps. We took our seats, surrounded by family from both sides, including many Finnish people from the Bride’s side who had travelled over especially for the occasion.
Malin soon arrived in her beautiful white gown, her Dad walking her down the aisle, and the camera phones started clicking, buzzing, bleeping and flashing, all held up to get a good view of the Bride and the waiting Groom, small devices all crowding the scene, seemingly one per couple, whilst one of Alan’s mates dived around the floor with his big, proper, digital SLR.
The Humanist priest, sorry, celebrant, told the story of Alan and Malin’s meeting, their lives together since their meeting and the hopes and dreams of their future lives together. Alan and Malin exchanged vows, Alan getting a little teary eyed as he did so, and they both exchanged rings with large grins on their faces. The signing of the register followed with yet more mobile phones, iPhones, cameras and SLR’s dancing around over and around peoples’ heads and after a few more words, a big kiss, and some applause we all followed the husband and wife downstairs for more Cava whilst the ceremony hall was transformed into a dining hall for dinner.
The bubbly, golden cava flowed as bottles were constantly being produced from large silver ice buckets at drinks tables whilst the guests were invited to writes well wishes on cards and tie them to a small fir tree which would follow the happy couple to their new life in Finland where they are to move next year. After tying our wish to the tree, Ka requested I get her a glass of iced water, which I was told by one of the many waitresses, was only available at the bar as the drinks tables only supplied the seemingly unending flow of cava. So off I went to the Piping Centre’s bar, next door to the museum.
Whilst I waited in the short queue at the bar I started chatting to the gentlemen getting their drinks before me after hearing them mention the lovely city of Prague and the good old Glasgow School of Art. Before long I was happily chatting away to the two of them, one of which, a friendly, bearded chap by the name of Ian Reid, turned out to be a tutor at the School of Art and knew the tutor, who still teaches there, that had started taught me in my fourth year (or a third of it anyway. He done a rather neat disappearing act a third of the way through the year). The other, Tony, was one of the best men and a former musical colleague of Alan’s and offered me a pint to which I refused politely saying how I couldn’t possibly elbow my way into someone’s round in such a fashion.
Around ten minutes later I got back to the museum, Ka glaring at me, as I sipped from my pint of Tennents. Apparently whilst I’d been away and whilst Ka had been standing, looking a little lonely awaiting her glass of iced water, she had been chatted up by the Humanist.
Now a little happier with her iced water Ka let me off the hook for abandoning her, and we went out to pose for a large group photo in the Saturday afternoon sunshine, before once more going back indoors to the museum to mingle with various friends and family of the happy couple, some of which understood me, some who didn’t and simply nodded politely.
We met Alan’s sister, Sandra and her husband David, who chatted away to us whilst Ka spoke to Alan’s Mum. Unfortunately whilst speaking to David, I may have accidentally referred to Sandra as Alan’s Auntie at some point, but once more, got away with it. David, the brother-in-law, shrugged it off and didn’t seem too bothered by my mistake and I could tell he probably wasn’t the sort to tell his wife of my little gaffe, though, come to think of it, she never did speak to me for the rest of the day.
After yet more cava, and another pint, we were back upstairs for dinner, getting the speeches out of the way first, of course, in which Malin’s Dad tried his best to speak English, Malin and her sister got a little teary and Alan was made to look like a Scottish dork by his best men, who’d obviously had a field day in Glasgow’s best pound shops.
At our dinner table sat Malin’s camper van travelling Auntie and Uncle, who again, we had to slow our Scottish burr down for a little. The Uncle was called Leaf, or Lieaf, a very nice gent with a beard and glasses who reminded me of the Tolkien artist John Howe. Along with them was Alan’s Sister (yes, Sister) Sandra and brother-in-law David, along with another couple, Vicki and Russell, who sitting right next to us, heard all Ka and my conversations (or, in most cases, arguments). Another friend sat on the other side of them, who’d apparently done the bridesmaid’s make-up, but whose name has long been shrouded in the alcohol tinged mists of time. We all got on great as a table and all continued to sit with each other, even after being chucked out the hall following dinner in order for the room to be transformed for the night party.
The Highlander Fyne Ale was the drink that made up the rest of the night, fuelling many a dance on the dancefloor, started, of course by Alan and Malin, who, by this point, was sporting a rather fine pair of green trainers under the white’s of her dress.
The DJ on stage belted out the tunes helping the dancefloor remain largely busy for the majority of the night. Ka and myself ventured up more than a few times particularly for The Killers and a bit of Bon Jovi, which I really hope nobody was filming. I danced with the Bride to Tony Christie’s (Is this the way to) Amarillo in wonderful, true Peter Kaye fashion and even pulled Alan’s old Mum up to dance. She only lasted half a song with me, before protesting and walking off.
I even got Malin’s camper van Auntie up to dance to The Proclaimers’ 5000 miles. Ka and myself had spotted the Auntie, and her husband, Lieaf, dancing on more than one occasion earlier on in the night, strutting around the dancefloor quietly, ballroom style whilst everyone else jumped around wildly around them. The two of them glided, elegantly and sanely, like two peas in a pod, poised and expressionless, with perfect body alignment, all footsteps and maneuvers.
Of course when 5000 miles started up from the DJ on the stage I turned to see the wee Aunt humming along politely and took it upon myself to show her some dancing, Proclaimers style.
Needless to say, she accepted my invitation but once we got up on stage things went a little differently than planned. After she gave me into trouble for my initial jumping about and calmed my waving arms around, she took a hold of both hands and started leading me up and down and around the dancefloor, instructing me on my footwork all the way, chin held high. Brilliant, I thought, though I’d of rather it had been Aliona Vilani teaching me (or Kristina, or Ola for that matter!).
As the last notes of Loch Lomond ended, the gathered party surrounding the Wedded couple and the crowd on Runrig’s live track faded, we said our goodbyes. Alan gave each of us his now traditional bear hug, and we made our way back to the hotel room. A journey I couldn’t quite remember making the next morning.

A Dings birthday

We had another family gathering at the McGarva household to celebrate Ka’s big sister’s birthday. Angela celebrated another birthday an evening early last Friday night with Grace, Dougie, Jillian, Colin, Kelly Ann and myself along with Steven, Morgan and Joshua.
Even though it’s not her birthday Ka was given a present too. Colin gifted Ka with a book called ‘Hollow Earth’ written, and signed by, none other than John Barrowman (and his sister). Colin and Jillian had made the trip to Waterstones in Glasgow one Monday, not too long ago, to meet the man himself. Photographic evidence on facebook shows Jillian leaning over the desk before the television and theatre star, grinning up at Colin’s shaky camera.
“Grannie, help me hide the cake!” Morgan shouted as she ran through the front door before her Mum had even got out on their car.
The Leckie’s had arrived and Joshua ran straight into the centre of the living room and spun around on the spot excitedly and almost immediately started throwing Iggle Piggle repeatedly up into the air. As everyone shouted and chatted with one another Dougie brought out the Ding’s take away menu.
Ding’s is a small Chinese takeaway on Uddingston’s Main Street, which is now traditionally called upon on a McGarva birthday. The shop itself houses a large open kitchen in the centre of the room in which various cooks shuffle their woks, toss their onions and boil their their noodles over the gas hobs, the large extractor fans hanging from the ceiling humming with exertion. Ding’s serves up some great takeaway grub including a rather brilliant szechuan. This time round I went for the Hong Kong style Sweet and Sour Chicken, another favourite. A favourite introduced to me by Chaz, who always used to order it on Sauchiehall Street at the end of a night out.
As the menu was passed from person to person Joshua jumped, spun and flung himself around the room, occasionally tickling peoples’ feet, looking up at you expectantly with a big toothy smile on his face whilst. He did look at little uncomfortable at one point though as he walked over to the coffee table with his plastic cup of water and stopped. A look of mild worry came over his face as he realised all the coasters were taken by all of our various cups of tea, coffee and water. He’s obviously been well housetrained. Morgan, who was feeling, and looking, a little peaky, chilled out taking a break from the games for a change settling instead for her colouring book.
After dinner the traditional cake and sing-a-long was carried out and a few photos were taken, Angela giving Morgan and Joshua big, birthday hugs. Recovering from her slightly peaky self briefly for a piece of the birthday chocolate cake, Morgan then went back to her colouring book at the dining table and Joshua went back to his toy cars, which he’d won in the all too brief game of pass the parcel.
Perhaps even the best game of pass the parcel as I managed to win a parcel without even passing!
I was sitting in the other room, at the dining table, suffering a slight headache from the strange whistling, squealing noise the living room tv had been making (a noise that caused a minor debate earlier in the night), chatting to Steven about Angela’s still secret Birthday present (an iPad!!!) as Morgan feverishly worked at her colouring book and Joshua delivered my freshly unwrapped present.
A DVD. ‘Hitch’ starring Will Smith. A little sceptical at first I soon realised Eva Mendes is in it so I accepted my prize more than gratefully before being admonished by Dougie who had been listening from the kitchen behind me.
After Steven took the two kids home to bed the McGarva siblings whiled away the remaining hours with glasses of wine, reminiscing about old times. After talking of the various drunken exploits of youth the conversation went on to Colin and Ka’s employment in Poundstretchers through their early working lives. They talked of the old Pounstretchers boss who found herself being attacked by a shutter one night, the life size dolls, Ka chasing the shoplifters, the old man that bought the condoms, and Colin entertaining the passing Hamilton shoppers in the street with his microphone and speakers.
Grace and myself listened intently as Dougie quietly tried to watch Lee Westwood play golf on the whistling television from the depths of his armchair and didn’t show much concern when Grace confessed her love for Patrick Swayze. Unfortunately she doesn’t have much of a chance now. Not a chance in hell.
Heaven, now that may be a different matter. Grace nodded excitedly when it was suggested the two of them could hook up in heaven.
“You better make sure you go first Dougie” I told Ka’s Dad. “She’s having ideas over there!”
Before long it was time to go home again and Ka and myself drove Angela up the road to her bed, well, her doorstep anyway.
Angela got out the car and sauntered up the garden path to the front door, swinging her birthday bottle of Halcyon wine (one of our favourites) at her side and pressed the doorbell. Ka and myself politely waited in the car for the front door opening, just in case there was somebody waiting in the bushes to jump out on her. After a few minutes of waiting politely Steven eventually opened the door and with a quick wave we were off home.

Detective thrillers and the Death Star

So, how are they going to explain that one?
Sorry, no, I'm not talking about how a cruise ship ran aground killing more than six people and endangering more than 4,000 people with confused and delayed evacuation procedures.
Is giving the locals of Giglio a good view of the massive ship, considered a good explanation?
I'm quite sure the cruise ship spotting locals didn't particularly want the £62 million view they got.
I was also looking forward to Labour MP Tom Harris' explanation regarding his little Hitler video. He used scenes from the german film 'Downfall', about Hitler's last days, and replaced the dictator's voice with that of Alex Salmond. Hilairious.
Also why was Ricky Gervais hired to host the Golden Globes again and then completely tame himself down after his blistering performance at last year's awards ceremony. Disappointing.
And can someone also explain to me why I should be watching 'Downton Abbey'? It seems to be winning prizes and praise everywhere but, from what I can tell, it just looks like a Sunday night mash up of 'Upstairs Downstairs' and 'Heartbeat'.
I spent Sunday night watching the brilliant last episode of the BBC's latest, ridiculously short, second series of 'Sherlock'. Thankfully, the story was far superior to last week's, rather silly, modernisation of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' (involving factories, toxix gas, and glow in the dark rabbits) and got straight down to the nitty gritty with the re-emergence of Moriarty, Sherlock's nemesis, who, in this series, is a small skinny, psychopathic, maniacal of a man, desperate to bring the detective down in a frenzy of publicity (presumably another meaning for the 'Fall' in the title).

The episode was clever and tense with the three main players keeping you hooked all the way to the bitter, but then debatable end. The build up and the final moments were all brilliantly done and superbly acted by Cumberbatch and Freeman, the two showing just how perfect they are for the two roles. Of course, we all know how the original, 'Final Problem' ended. The question was, how were Moffat and co going to portray it, in this modern day take and how the devil are they going to explain it?
I have a theory... it's a bit far fetched, but then, any explanation Moffat comes up with will have to be.
Speaking of mysteries, Ka and myself seen David Fincher's excellent retelling of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' on Saturday. Dark, gritty, tense and thrilling with the occasional moment of awkwardness, violence and discomfort. Everything that makes Fincher, one of my favourite directors, tick.

Daniel Craig is great as the worn out, ground down journalist, Blomkvist, but it is Rooney Mara that steals the show as the awkward, introverted but fantastically intelligent Lisbeth Salander. When the 'hollywood' version of the story was announced it seemed strange and way too soon after Niels Arden Oplev’s original, which I haven't seen yet. Cinema 'purists' will probably moan, stick their nose up or complain that the original, foreign, movie should be the only version to see. Ask them if they've read the book though. Once they've read the book, they can kid on to be purists.
With Steig Larsson's book Fincher makes a pretty damn good thriller and definately one worth checking out, whether you're familiar with the story or not, though some scenes may be a bit much for the faint hearted.
As are some of the scenes in 'Celebrity Juice'.
On Sunday, Sarah and Brian had the family round for a buffet lunch and my Aunt Anne was asking why Keith Lemon, the host of the rude tv show, continually wore a bandage on his right hand. Sarah couldn't bring herself to explain and simply told her Mum and Dad to not watch it in future.
Whilst we all chatted and caught up in the living room Brian spent the majority of his time in the kitchen, making all the teas and coffees whilst keeping an eye on his samosas, pakora, pizzas and mini steak pies. A great way to hide from the in-law's and the extended family. For pudding Mum had brought, possibly, the biggest sponge cake known to man and Linda had brought her traditional trifle, both of which I had to have a portion of, though I wish I'd kept the cake until later.
When the buffet was first put out I found myself having a bit of a geek moment upon entering the front room to get my first helping.
Standing alongside the front window, on a bookcase at the end of the buffet table, stood the unmistakable forms of the Empire's Death Star. The four legged, tank like, AT-AT stood menacingly, alongside it. Both were in Lego form, intricately detailed with all the features you'd expect, or any sad Star Wars fan would expect anyway.

The Lego Death Star is built in a cross section like formation housing many sets and scenes from the original movie including the hangar bay with parked TIE fighter, the detention block, from which Princess Leia was rescued, and the tractor beam controls, where a small Lego Obi Wan Kenobi stands with his light saber. It even has the trash compactor unit, with closing walls, which adjoins the detention block by way of a small trap door. If I hadn't had to socialise yesterday I would have quite happily stood and admired the Lego set's fantastic detail, although, after a quick look online, I've discovered it is now going for the princely sum of £400.
The At-At was pretty impressive too - my Mum and Dad immeditely recognising it was one of the large toys that still sits in their loft alongside the X-Wing, Slave-1 and the Millenium Falcon.
My Mum still makes the occasional comment regarding the large amount of stuff I have which makes up a good portion of the contents of her loft. Ka occasioanlly threatens to take all the old Kenner Star Wars figures, ships and accessories off to her nursery in an attempt to wind me up.
That would just be dispicable of her though, and she knows it.
Can you imagine the carnage caused by the ravenous little three year old rogues Ka teaches in her class? There would be bashes, cracks, snaps, crushings, dismemberments, beheadings, not to mention a healthy dose of painted, bruised and crayoned faces. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. The toys would be safer getting sent to the Spice Mines of Kessel and smashed into who knows what!
Mum looks forward to the day when Ka and myself will eventually get a loft, or some form of bigger and better storage cupboard in a new, different house. One day Ka and myself will be having our first dinner in our brand new house and there'll be a knock on the front door. I'll pull open the door to find no one waiting, only a large pile of boxes with a small note attached.
"At last!", it'll read.
Brian may have all the fancy, up-to-date Star Wars Lego kits, but at least I've still got all the original toys.
If I was to sell them on ebay I may even make some money!
I wonder if I could afford the Lego Death Star then? I'm not sure I'd be able to explain why I spent £400 on a large piece of lego.
I'd give it a shot though.