Bottles and box sets

Saturday the 12th of January 2013 was a big day for me. There was nothing particularly exciting about it. No events. No occasions. In fact, I didn’t even leave the house. The only reason it was vaguely ‘big’ in any way was solely down to the fact I was being left in charge of my own child for the first time.
Ka was going out on the town with her girlfriends and leaving me in charge.
I was flying solo. Going it alone. Nappies, clothing, bottles, medication, entertainment, it was all down to me. Not only was Ka dragging herself away from Sophie for the first time, she was going out and drinking for the first time in approximately eight months. Vicki, Yvonne and the rest of the girls from her room in the ELU nursery (I can’t remember if it’s the Caterpillar room, the Butterfly room or the Pushmi-Pullyu room) were heading into Glasgow for the day and taking Ka out of the house with them.
“On you go!” I insisted. “It’ll be good for you!”
The words had left my mouth before I’d even seriously contemplated the consequences of my verbalizations.
As it happens, it was a bit of a walk in the park. Sophie, who was just approaching the eight week mark of existence on this miserable little rock, was great company. After Ka left with Amy and Kirsty, Sophie ate her lunch quite happily and then lay back in her deck chair to relax and take in the sights.
No, it’s not really a deck chair, but that’s what I call it. It’s like a soft padded slope on a wooden frame, not unlike a deck chair, but probably usually called some along the lines of a ‘baby rocker’. It had been Claire’s little one, Olivia’s, when she had been wee, and Claire had popped round and donated it a few weeks ago.
Sophie had been getting a little irritable in her jungle seat what with the dangling parrots, butterflies and monkey music and had not been settling. Her frustrated boxing would start within around ten minutes of sitting, but in Olivia’s deck chair, she seems far happier. Sophie will gurgle away quite happily on it until she either gets vaguely frustrated for a few minutes, has another quick boxing match with an invisible opponent and then falls asleep or, even better, simply falls asleep without the boxing match. It’s great for watching the room too. Sophie just kicks back in it and surveys her surroundings, finding constant interest in mirrors, windows and blank white spaces of wall. Sophie often prefers to watch the walls rather than the tv with it’s moving images and light.
So whilst Sophie lounged and relaxed after her latest intake of milk, I lounged and relaxed on the couch and watched a few episodes of the rather wonderful Breaking Bad.
Colin and Jillian bought me the first three series of the American, award winning, drama series for my Christmas and I’ve been watching it whenever I get the chance.
Just in case you’re not aware it’s all centred around a struggling high school chemistry teacher named Walter White played by Bryan Cranston, the Dad from Malcolm in the Middle, who, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer turns to a life of crime in order to ensure his families financial well being after he leaves his mortal coil. White is aided in his drug making efforts by a former student and known local bum Jesse who, with his contacts to the shady underworld, helps his former teacher make his money.

It’s brilliant, dark, funny, intelligent and well acted, particularly by the two main characters (who have some great chemistry…) and great for a Saturday afternoon’s entertainment.
In fact, throughout the day, in between breaks for feeding, changing nappies, bathtime and general baby chit chat, I managed to finish the first season of Breaking Bad off, something it would have been impossible to manage had Ka been in the house.
As it happens, Ka has now not only lost interest in the series but banned me from watching the 18/15 rated drama whilst Sophie is in the living room, which makes watching the box sets remaining seasons even more difficult. I now have to wait on a completely empty house before I can watch it, which will be virtually impossible as I can’t see Sophie heading out into town with her pals for cocktails anytime soon.
Ka probably has a point though. The last episode Ka watched with me involved someone being melted in a bathtub with hydrofluoric acid…
Anyway, before the Breaking Bad ban, I sat that Saturday night and finished season 1 whilst drinking lots of coke and gobbling mini toblerones. Just a flavour of my wild life, and my Saturday nights, getting all the more electrifyingly crazy as time goes on.
Ka eventually called informing me of her missed train and her intentions on the next, so I then bathed baby Sophie and ordered dinner for the night, a take away from the local Indian restaurant (not for Sophie, obviously). Moments before the dinner turned up, Ka tumbled through the door, surprisingly only moderately drunk, and we settled down on the couch to a bhuna whilst Sophie snored away upstairs, her snores growling out of the small baby monitor plugged in at the end of the couch. The light dial goes from blue lights to red on the small monitor, depending on the volume of the child being picked up at the other end, a larger, white, glowing dome presently situated at the side of the moses basket. A great wee device for keeping an ear on Sophie whilst she’s parked in a different room. Just maybe not so great when she’s having one of her louder half hours and you’re trying to get through season 2.

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.

A lovely machine

A week today.
One week. Not even 7 days away now.
Baby Reid number 2 will be born.
Ka and myself are having kittens.
No, not kittens, a baby.
We’re nervous, we’re excited. We’re sad, we’re brooding. We’re scared, we’re fearful. We’re optimistic, we’re struggling. We’re just feeling flamin’ everything at the moment and we’ve got another 6 and a bit days to go!
Baby Reid has been keeping us busy though and constantly reminding us of her presence.
On one of the first days of noises from the car's undersides, discussed in the last post, we had our 34 week scan, at which baby number two was bouncing around, quite the norm, inside Ka's not inconsiderate bump. The consultant was to give us our date for the birth at the end of the appointment but realised she'd forgotten her diary making us wait until Ka's midwife appointment the next Tuesday. It was then that it was decided that it was to be the 19th of November that Baby Reid number 2 will be helped out of her little cocoon and pulled into the world and, all going well, we'll be celebrating the birth of another baby girl.
Baby’s certainly making herself known, even before she’s made an appearance.
She's going to be a lively little blighter by the looks of things.
She's been jumping, kicking and moving around in there quite a lot in the past months, freaking people out, fascinating the kids in Ka's nursery class and keeping me occupied on an evening.
Baby communicates with me via punches or kicks from within the womb (obviously taking after her mother). I'll lean over Ka's big belly bump and talk to her only to get a near immediate response on most instances with a kick. Baby will also push a little limb out, causing the perfect ball shape of Ka's bump to grow small, lumpy shapes which bob up and down over the round surface like Clangers popping their heads out from within their moon.
Baby likes apples too. Moments after Ka has eaten an apple, Baby will move joyfully around, inside her wee shell, as if hyped up on juicy, applely goodness (Perhaps when Baby eats an apple, an amazing transformation will occur – she doesn’t get any bananas though, Ka’s went off them).
On the day of her 32 week scan the consultant began, as usual, by squirting the thick, ultrasound jelly over Ka's bump and placed the wired scanning device down on to it. Almost instantly the instrument was very nearly knocked completely from the consultant’s hand as baby gave it a damn good kick from inside giving the consultant a little fright.
On Saturday there we were sitting in the cinema, waiting to see Argo with Ka’s brother, Colin, (a pretty damn good movie, quite tense, almost inducing) when Baby started shuffling around again.
We pondered what baby was up to in there. Colin suggested Baby was tidying up. Giving the place a wee clean around, like mother like daughter, which would also explain why the wee baby can’t sit at peace for two minutes.
Colin placed his hand ever so gently on to the ball of Ka’s bump, barely touching it, as if scared of disturbing Baby in her housework, or womb work. Ka huffed taking a hold of Colin’s hand and told him that he wasn’t going to feel anything touching the bump like that and placed it more firmly down upon the belly mound. Once more, almost immediately, Baby gave her Uncle Colin a good kick at which Colin yelped, his bawl echoing throughout the dark waiting cinema.
Friday's scan marked week 36 and we now only have one more week of freedom, sorry, waiting, remaining.
Preparations are at a busy, non stop, high. After painting the newly fitted doors in the upstairs hall throughout the previous days, I spent the entirety of last Thursday building nursery furniture, a nice, bright, white, and fairly solid, Mamas and Papas wardrobe, chest of drawers and cot. Obviously the cot wasn’t vital at the present time but once I’d successfully completed the other two I thought I’d better just get on with it. As a result I woke up on the Friday morning aching, after effects from all the twisting, screwing and lifting. I also finished painting all the upstairs hall’s doors over the weekend, all of which are now nicely finished with a neat gloss white, with only a few wee dried drips here and there (hopefully no one will notice them).
Obviously Ka’s been busy too, organising her bags for the hospital, baby’s bags for the hospital and other bags for the hospital, although I’m not sure who the other bags are for? As soon as I’d finished the furniture on Thursday, Ka got to work folding away the few clothes we have already, into the large drawers, waiting on an owner.
There’s a whole drawer, of the new chest, dedicated to Mum’s knitting. My Mum’s been knitting since the summer. Cardigans, bonnets, wee jackets, skirts, blankets, teddy bears with floppy heads and even a mouse. No matter how much I insist she still hasn’t set up an etsy account to make herself a couple of quid out of her fantastic talents.
Baby is going to have plenty of cardigans even if she doesn’t have a name.
We have no idea what her name's going to be.
Lucy was one in a million.
Not only was she our first child but she also symbolised the first time Ka and myself have ever 100% agreed upon anything together. Her name. The only name. We had a boy's name in mind for the other instance, of course, but no second girl's name. And we still don't.
At the moment Baby is called Bertha.
At first it was a joke.

Bertha as in 'Big Bertha', following a sudden burst in growth at around week 30. Nothing at all to do with the large German war guns used in World War One or the big green, factory machine from the animated kids tv series that produced farting noises and cuckoo clocks.
Unfortunately family members are now calling her Bertha, the kids in Ka's nursery expect her to be called Bertha, and now Ka insists I call her Bertha.
We're going to have to think of a better name and quick.
Anyone got any suggestions?

Door locks, brake pads and hoover shocks

Well, whilst two blokes spend 2 billion dollars publicising themselves over the pond in an effort to control 50 states I've also been spending big money. Okay, maybe not 2 billion dollars, but certainly money that can’t afford to be spent.
In the past week or so I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds.
No, I'm not showing off.
I've spent literally hundreds. Hundreds that I don’t have.
Two weekends ago a familiar sounding grinding noise started growling up from underneath the car in transit. With little driving detective work I assumed it to be the front passenger side wheel pads, in dire need of replacement. As quickly as I could, on the Monday morning, without making the repair bill have to cover brake discs too, I took the car over the squinty bridge, sorry, the Clyde Arc road bridge, to a small, grubby looking garage on Govan Road. Within hours the little, bespectacled mechanic had called me to inform me that all four brake pads were needing replaced. The mechanic himself admitted he'd thought the noise had been coming from the front passenger side but upon investigation had discovered the noise to be coming from one of the rear wheels, and not only that but each of the car's brake pads were in need of restoration. Upon hearing me humming and hawing over the phone the mechanic must have mistook my noises for mistrust and insisted he’d keep all four of the old brake pads as proof to which I obviously insisted wasn’t necessary and sighing heavily, told him to proceed with the job.
The bad news didn't stop there though. At around 4pm that afternoon I ventured back over the squinty bridge, through the rush hour traffic. The cheery little mechanic immediately insisted on showing me the duff brake pads, (probably the oldest trick in the book – he’s probably got a drawer full of them!) and then informed me that my two front tyres were illegal.
Bald on the inside apparently. (Illegal for being bald? Surely that’s baldist?)
I had spent £130 quid on two Dunlops for the front last November and the two of them were already duff and fine worthy. So after getting back to the office I made yet another visit to tyreshopper.com, a lot sooner than I thought I'd be visiting, and sorted out another expensive pair of rubbers. On the same day, from the mild comfort of my office desk, I also paid off various bills, reminder notices and last chance saloon letters and ordered my new 6 month tax disc, successfully making it one of the most expensive days in my working history, all whilst sitting on my arse. Next up will be my car insurance, due shortly, along with the good old MOT, which, going by recent standards, will probably throw up a few surprises for me, all just in time for Christmas when you expected to spend lots of money on other people.
Days later, last Thursday, I gave a wee bloke £120 for having a large tantrum in my house.
Recently I bought new, interior doors for all the rooms leading off from the upstairs landing which all started when Dad and Colin successfully burst the bathroom door on the night of the house warming. The door was on it’s last legs, or hinges, anyway, so I don’t blame them. My Dad had went to leave the bathroom and found the door had locked him in so he ended up shouting down to Colin, who was standing out in the back garden at the time, minding his own business, smoking a cigarette. Always willing to help Colin made his way upstairs and between the two of them they managed to obliterate the bathroom door.
So while I was getting a new bathroom door I thought it’d probably be a good idea to get the rest of the doors done. Ordering them over the phone with Cornes, the local DIY store, here in EK, I asked them to book me a joiner to get them fitted. The joiner in question phoned me up a few days later and made a date to fit the doors, two and a half weeks later, at half past 8 in the morning (that was the next available date in his diary).
So, two and a half weeks later, on my way back from taking the wife to work in the morning, the joiner phoned my at 8.25am, leaving demanding messages on both my mobile, sitting alongside me in the car, and my home phone, stating he was 'supposed' to be fitting doors at my house that morning and that he had no access to the house. I dialled his number as I drove on the via the hands free speaker phone as I approached my street. Again, he informed me that he had no access to the house.
No access to the house?, I thought. I’m quite glad of that really. Is that not why they put locks in doors? A joiner of all people should know that, surely?
Immediately recognising the wee man that jumped out the van, but from where I wasn't sure, I let him into the house and he got himself set up. Through another ten minutes of conversation we eventually sussed that it was from the gym that I recognised him. I've seen him strutting about the Nuffield gym on occasion talking to folk in his loud, but not unfriendly, voice, talking to some of the bigger, muscle-bound guys on occasion who quite often are double the height of him. I wondered why this was why he spoke so loudly in normal conversation, conversation that continued as he worked at the four doors.
After an hour or so the joiner took a break to drink a protein shake, a drink which he really wanted me to know about, for whatever reason. Unfortunately I perhaps said the wrong thing by moaning something along the lines of, "you're not one of them are you?". It turns out he is (as is Andrea, my colleague in work, who models herself on Jodie Marsh) and the wee joiner has been trying to build his muscles up like some of the other guys in the gym. Refraining from stating that there probably weren't enough hours in the day, never mind the year, I got on with some paperwork and bill paying.
It wasn't until later that things really turned uncomfortable.
The joiner left the bathroom door to last. The other three doors had normal, nice silver handles bought with them, but the bathroom was slightly different in that its handle design included a lock mechanism. A perfectly normal lock mechanism which you’d find on most bathroom doors. Unfortunately it turned out to be not so normal as the wee joiner was soon swearing, shouting and jumping about in the bathroom. He's only been attempting to fit the lock handle for approximately five or ten minutes before, his face started turning a nasty shade of red and he started turning the air blue, jumping about, throwing electric screwdrivers around the bathroom whilst twisting the new handle up and down.
"F**king cheap sh**e!", he kept shouting, his voice echoing through the house. I had had no idea I was ordering cheap sh*te with my phonecall to Cornes two and a half weeks ago. At the time I'd thought £13 for a lock handle was expensive enough.
After another ten minutes of swearing and raging he disassembled the lock handle, growling furiously as he went and sped off back down to Cornes to get a second under the impression we'd been given a dodgy one.
I’ve met an awful lot of wee men who seem to have a great deal of anger built up inside them. An anger that can be quite potent and unexpected when it bursts. I’ve known a few short men in my life who’ve all had similar personalities. I’m no tall person myself but each of the guys I’m thinking off were all definitely in the shorter department and all had similar, slightly unstable characteristics. I’m certainly not saying all short people have this tendency, I’m just saying I am prone to encountering them. One minute these guys seem jovial, happy and perfectly normal in conversation until something happens. The something could be an occurrence, a statement, a joke or some kind of small, not obviously major, annoyance that makes them seem to boil up and explode.
This joiner, for instance, was highly affected by the bathroom door not working, after a mere five minutes or so of trying to fit it properly. As soon as he spent longer than five minutes working on it he just seemed to explode in a barrage of abuse and Basil Fawltyesque rage.
Needless to say, after the joiner’s return from Cornes, the second lock handle was no better and as he attempted to fit the new handle he stamped his feet, slammed his tools about some more and shouted about how he had other things to do with his time.
After some discussion with the rather irked wee joiner I decided to opt for his suggestion of replacing the lock handle with a normal handle and fitting the door with a simple sliding bolt lock. So after yet another visit to Cornes the wee, unsettled, highly flustered joiner with the anger management issues fitted the bolt and the normal handle, took his money and left.
Breathing a sigh of relief I got the hoover out and started to tidy his mess up, only to discover, upon inspecting the bathroom door, that the wee joiner had fastened the bathroom door to the wall with only one screw through each hinge rather than the usual four. As hesitant as I was to have the wee nutter back in my house, I had paid for his service and as he was too busy performing his little strops he'd obviously neglected to screw the damn door into the wall properly so I phoned him up. Huffing upon receipt of this information the wee joiner said he'd be back in ten minutes and as I waited I continued to hoover, almost managing to blow myself up in the process.
As I hoovered away, twisting and moving round the hall, trying to catch all the wood shreds and splinters, the hoover wire got sucked up the hoover's front and another highly suspicious grinding noise started from the machine’s underside. Within seconds a strange burning smell started interfering with the odour of freshly cut wood and before I knew it, the J. Edgar was firing out tiny shreds of grey and black plastic.
Flipping the power switch, I pulled the wire from under the hoover only to see a rather unhealthy looking length of bare copper wire shining up at me through a thin veil of electrical smoke.
The hoover had never done that before. I’d ran over the wire in the past and it had never been sucked up in such a plastic devouring fashion. Just as I finished tidying the hoover wire shreds up a loud knock at the door alerted to the presence of the wee joiner again and in he came once more, to finish his job.
“What happened to your hair?” the wee joiner looked up at me as he climbed the stairs. I looked in the mirror. My hair seemed to be standing a little on end.
Had I been shocked? Or was I just a little overly flustered?
At least the wee joiner had regained his composure as he quickly screwed the missing screws into the bathroom door and quickly headed off to his next poor customer. Making light of the missing screws I shrugged it off, insisting he was probably just too flustered and focused on the bathroom door lock.
“I’ll let you know after my next therapy session!” he smiled as he left the house.
I’m not even sure whether he was joking.
I certainly don’t want his therapist.

Popcorn, treasure hunts and the furry pencil case

“Papa’s juice, papa’s juice!”
“No Joshua, this is my house, so this is Michael’s juice”
“Papa’s juice!”
My nephew, Joshua, and myself had this argument a few times over the weekend. Robinsons fruit juice apparently has a pseudonym of ‘Papa’s juice’, a name that is not known, at least not yet, in the Reid household. Joshua’s only allowed a certain amount of Robinsons juice as he follows a strict diet of as little sugary drinks as possible even though he had a more than healthy helping of the massive bag of popcorn I purchased for his sister, Morgan and myself at the cinema a few hours before.
Ka and myself picked the two terrors up at around 2 on Saturday afternoon for a trip to the cinema to see Madagascar 3 and Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo, and Melman the Giraffe. We were then heading back to ours to house the niece and nephew for the night whilst Angela and Steven went out to a friend’s 40th birthday party.
As it was mid Saturday afternoon by the time we got there, the cinema was busy and crowded with families buying tickets for the latest Dreamworks animation. Ka and myself both had our cineworld unlimited cards at the ready but it somehow still managed to cost us £12? £12 for two kids to see a cartoon? Unbelievable.
It must be a flamin’ fortune to go to the cinema as a family these days.
We proceeded upstairs via the great glass elevator which moves up the corner of the building, looking out over the northern end of the city centre. Port Dundas Street stretching out ahead, leading up through the bustling crowds of buses, cars and shoppers towards the quieter streets beyond and the joys of the M8. On reaching the fourth floor, the four of us piled out into the foyer where we joined the queue for some sweet popcorn. The last time Ka and myself took Morgan to the flicks I’d tempted Morgan with a bag of Butterkist from the kitchen cupboard which she quickly rejected as her Dad apparently bought her the special cinema popcorn every time she went. So, with this in mind, I joined the queue and upon reaching the counter, asked for a bag of popcorn from the baseball capped foyer attendant.
Regular or large, I was asked. First I wondered what happened to the small. Perhaps management had rejected it as they could slap as big a price on it. I asked the becapped girl what the difference in size was.
“Well” the girl shrugged, lifting the two paperbags, holding up the small, purple paper bag and the large, A4 sized, yellow bag. “The regular is £4.45 and the large is £4.95, it’s only a difference of 50p”. I’m glad she pointed that last snippet out as I would have been there all day working that one out. Upon hearing the prices being verbalized before me, I asked her to repeat herself suspecting I had misheard.
I was wrong I hadn’t misheard her reply. £4.95 for a bag of cinema popcorn. I almost asked her to repeat herself again but then decided against it, seeing Ka, Joshua and Morgan waiting patiently for me at the side of the queue. If it’s a fiver for a bag of popcorn how much is it for one of those ludicrous looking hotdogs or those plates of Doritos and guacamole?
Why do people eat this stuff in cinemas anyway?
Doritos, okay, that’s fine, I suppose. But why guacamole? Could there be a blander condiment on the planet? And why those stinking hot dogs with the completely ridiculous amount of tomato sauce zig zagged over them? I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting through the duration of a movie having one of those giant sausages squirming about in your stomach in a pool of red sauce.
You see some people walking up the cinema aisle to their seats, hands and arms laden with hotdogs, plates of doritos, bags of popcorns and giant cokes. How can they sit and each that much stuff, never mind pay for it?
Anyway, Madagascar 3 was great. Well, for kids anyway… or if you like listening to Chris Rock for an hour and a half…

Unfortunately I don’t, but the film did have some other things going for it. Full of fantastic colour and craziness the story was like a speeding circus train, racing through it’s scenes and landscapes. Much to the kids amusement. Especially Joshua, whose favourite toys and tv shows just happen to be “choo-choos!”.
After the cinema we headed off home, to East Kilbride making a quick stop at the Fort Morrisons for pizza, another of Joshua’s favourites. We hunted the store for the freshly made variety, circling the entirety of the store before ending back up in the fruit and veg aisle, not two meters from where we started out.
Getting home we unpacked the boot, lifting the various backpacks, bags, guitars, teddy beds, Thomas the tanks and teddy bears into the house, reminding the kids of the last time they had visited when the place was a mess of chairs and relations, not to mention the giant bouncy castle in the back garden. Needless to say there wasn’t a bouncy castle this time around, although there was a treasure hunt which I put together in my last half hour of work on the Friday evening.
Before the treasure hunt, and as time was marching relentlessly on, we decided to ready Joshua’s bed and build the Dream N’Play travel cot borrowed from the McGarva household. Ka and myself worked at it for around half an hour, whilst Joshua continuously circled us, telling us how Papa could do it. After some struggle we ended up phoning Dougie, who informed us it was Steven who built it in their house. Not wanting to disturb Steven on his first night off for a long time we worked at it a little longer before I ended up on google and read of how a pregnant woman with a baby in one arm, could erect the folding cot with a heavy flick of the one free wrist. Needless to say we then found ourselves on the phone to Steven and just as he was about to leave the house in Bothwell to travel over and give us a hand, the cot seemed to suddenly coalesce, almost as if the thing had a mind of it’s own and had been having us on the whole time just like that moment when the Delorean’s engine roared to life when Marty headbutted the steering wheel. Almost collapsing back on to the spare room’s floor, like Doc at the end of Back to the Futrue 2, we all celebrated, high fives all round and we quickly called Steven back to tell him to continue to ready himself for the party.
So, the treasure hunt could begin. This hunt basically consisted of eight rhyming clues and a treasure map with which I led the kids around the house, on a hopefully exciting, but needlessly tiring, journey to find two bags of gold coins Ka had bought the previous week. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the most bountiful of treasures, but it did work in keeping them entertained, whilst the pizzas were baking in the oven.
After having run up and down the stairs a few times, visiting various rooms, getting our feet muddy in the garden, getting the bedroom carpet dirty from the garden, getting Ka to shout at us about it, and almost smashing the living room clock, the kids eventually ended up at the base of our dying yukka plant, digging down into it’s soil with their hands and pulling out a bag of gold coins each. A bag of gold coins and more than a few dollops of dry, crumbly soil which successfully exploded over the surrounding living room carpet. Fortunately Ka was in the kitchen and missed this. I quickly instructed the kids to run through to the kitchen and demand their coins to be cleaned, keeping her occupied, whilst I dived into the kitchen cupboard for our tall, trusty white plastic friend, the J. Edgar.
Following the treasure hunt we all sat down to watch the last ten minutes of Strictly Come Dancing and eat our pizza, the quietest the kids had been all day, and that included the cinema. Joshua was then put to his bed, the now fully functioning, or at least fully standing, Dream N’Play travel cot and Morgan set up the Snakes and Ladders interrupted by Ka giving the supposedly sleeping Joshua a quick check upstairs. He was awake and needing changed.
Oh my god.
I had never known such a smell existed. I called the army and warned them of a suspected toxic blast in the Calderwood area after I quickly disposed of the heavy white, padded bag given over to me. I had to put it straight into the wheelie bin outside. Regretting my actions almost instantly I then feared for my wheelie bin’s life. I’d probably go out the next morning to find a sizzling mound of melted green plastic that used to be our two wheeled, refuge collecting, green friend.
And there it would be sitting. Joshua’s nappy perched on top, still steaming.
On the past Wednesday mornings since moving in, when we’ve put the bin out for collection, it’s always been full to bursting and as a result the birds have been circling it, pecking at the bags exposed by the half open lid. Gawd helped any bird that dared to have a peck at that blighter.
What about the bin men themselves? They’d have to put that in their lorry? Do they get paid danger money?
If it gets out I could wake up one morning with the whole street in quarantine! Dustin Hoffman talking to me from behind the mask of a protective suit.

Anyway, whilst the nappy lay in the wheelie outside, the smell safely contained upstairs, unfortunately in the room where I was to spend the night in the futon alongside the travel cot, our Saturday night continued.
Pictionary with the furry pencil case followed the snakes and ladders.
Not two days before, whilst rummaging through some more boxes in my Mum and Dad’s loft, I found my trusty furry pencil case. Mum recognized it immediately after I’d brought it down. Mum had designed and created this furry pencil case when I was around seven or eight, for all my many coloured pencils, pens and other various drawing implements. Upon inspecting it’s innards I discovered it still held functioning felt pens so I brought it home for the weekend and for my niece to use for her drawings.
Unfortunately Morgan wasn’t too impressed and insisted on using her own black pen to draw her stories which we were obviously supposed to know. Ka used her illustrative skills to depict Blackpool as a steep pyramid built by the blind Egyptians with Christmas lights and I attempted the old woman that lived in the shoe.
That old woman had so many children she didn’t know what to do. We were looking after two for the night and we didn’t know what to do. We were knackered. Cinemas, treasure hunts, pizzas and snakes and ladders all seemed to work though. The old woman in the shoe obviously wasn’t that creative, she just whipped them all and put them to bed. If the old woman were around today she more than likely find herself getting reported to the RSPCC.
Still, it was all good practice.