These Boots were made for Walking

Daffodils

2008-05-17T22:10:00.000Z

Fair point Auntie Gwen – here goes!

My dad is not a detective in any sense of the word, but he knows his daffodils in the same way as he knows all the plants in all their many and variegated forms. This is, therefore, how he came to be involved in a little mystery of the daffodil variety.

The evening was by no means balmy, but the rawness of winter had left only a few traces in forgotten corners of the house. It was the end of a busy day and I had just settled down with Mansfield Park (Fanny Price is just so soppy but that’s another story - well Mansfield Park actually). A hard day in the office combined with the relative warmth of the evening (not the writing of Jane Austen surely) soon had me dozing off on the sofa.

I awoke around 9.45pm and decided to check the house before getting ready for bed. Moving to the front door (actually at the side of the house, but you know what I mean) I spotted something yellow through the glass. When I opened the door I wondered if I was still asleep and dreaming the episode. There on the doorstep lay about a dozen daffodils, freshly picked, neatly arranged and ready for water. I did what can only be described as a double take, feeling a strange mixture of fear and elation (felation if you will – or perhaps not). I looked this way and that to ensure that no one was about (a resurrected Jeremy Beadle perhaps) but the place was as quiet as normal. No one about, just a dozen daffodils lying on the doorstep. I couldn’t just leave them there could I? After deciding that I was quite wide awake and that this was no dream or other metaphysical realm in which I was inhabiting I brought them inside and put them in a rather nice glass of water. Then I phoned my dad.

My dad is a bit of an (amateur) plant expert (Geoff Hamilton is a hero) and I felt that any flower mystery could be solved by such an expert. Depending on your view of things both Geoff and Jeremy could have been looking down from on high at the moment the deed was done with grins of celestial and herborial pleasure.

My dad was, as you can imagine, quite intrigued by the evening’s events and promised to investigate. The very next day he let himself into my house while I was at work and was able to tell exactly the spot that the daffodils had come from. There wasn’t any sign I could see – I told you he was good. Sadly he was not able to tell me any more than that so it was up to me to try and figure out the rest. The daffodils came from my neighbour’s garden but there is no one living there at the moment so it couldn’t have been her. Perhaps I have a secret admirer, although leaving some daffodils is fine, some follow up would have been appreciated. I wondered whether it had been a group of kids pulling up daffodils and then, with some remorse at what they had done, had decided to leave them on the nearest doorstep which is actually mine due to an odd garden to house layout issue on our street.

Sadly I’m not Agatha Christie and I never did get to the root (ahem) of the mystery. Maybe one day a middle aged lady will come to my door and relate the story of how she and her friends pulled up daffodils in a lady’s garden all those years ago and left them on her doorstep. I will thank her and tell her that I immediately put them in water and that for a week she gave me a dozen little suns to melt the last ice of winter.

La Gomera and the Quest for Achievable Deadlines

2008-04-13T15:34:00.000Z

Well, back once again having been on holiday and the usual work keeping me busy.

As I have said before I do have a bit of an obsession with the weather. Perhaps all Brits do. On hearing that someone is going on holiday, my first thought would not be along the lines of finding out what interesting things have planned. Oh no, I would be much more concerned about the weather, worried that the prospective holiday maker may travel for half a day or more on a plane, and land to be met with the same sorry weather they had hoped to leave many miles behind. Surely just too hideous to contemplate. And so it was that my self and my fellow travellers studied the weather forecast in La Gomera for at least three months before we went, just to make sure that the prospect of actually seeing some sun was a likely one. Fortunately it was and we spent a wonderful, balmy time in brilliant sunshine amongst palm trees and cacti with just a cool breeze to stop us melting completely. Nasty beasties were also few and far between. We saw one cockroach which we got rid of over the edge of the balcony with the aid of a rather decrepid brush, all the while wondering if cockroaches can do your average human any harm.

A colony of ants also decided to hold regular strategy meetings next to my bed and against my strongest temptations I refrained from killing them all (massacre at plastic light switch if you will).

We did a lot of walking (there not being a lot to do in La Gomera otherwise) through steep mountainous passes where one wrong foot could result in serious trouble. I also got through three books (Alan Bennett, Saul Bellow and Zadie Smith having decided that my quest for classic literature can include modern classics too!)

And then it was home time. I actually missed home even if the temperature plummeted about 20 degrees on reaching Glasgow and the idea of going from T-Shirts to polo necks and scarves in one short day was a rather disconcerting one. As my mum would say “It’s back to auld claes and purridge" but these claes are not really so bad and I’m glad to be home.

Now it’s onwards and upward to finishing organizing the arrangements for a get together of friends next weekend. I think it is now close to 30 people including at least 4 small children to get into China Buffet King and bowling. Despite having a deadline date which passed a good week ago a number of people have been rather last minute about getting back to me with numbers. I kind of hope that China Buffet King can cope. And more to the point, can I?

Until the next time…..

Hello Again

2008-02-21T21:12:00.001Z

I just wanted to reassure you that I hadn’t fallen down a big hole. I wish I could tell you that I had been away doing something really exciting like trekking across the Andes or idling away my time under a Caribbean sunset. Sadly the truth is that work has been extraordinarily busy and I have had to do a lot of work at home. I am also going on holiday in a couple of weeks to La Gomera and have had to start now to plan for all the things that will need to be reallocated while I am away. It has all been a lot of fun but hard work.

As for the classic reads, I am still attempting to read Lolita, which is, I am sure a very good book, but at the end of a tiring day I tend to fall asleep while reading it so I haven’t got very far. Having said that, I am feeling good as I, like a machete wielding explorer, successfully clear my way through the undergrowth of my to do list. Sadly, I must go again as reports are calling and the vegetation is rising. I shall be back soon.

A Good Read

2008-01-23T19:37:00.000Z

This year my new year’s resolution was not to make one. Resolutions, especially at this time of the year are generally made with bright hopes and high spirits. However, come the middle of the year (or the middle of January in many cases) those well-meaning resolutions have been quietly forgotten. That is why the following “thing that I have decided to try to do” is most definitely NOT a resolution!

I have decided to read more “classic” literature. I found myself in company, very pleasant it must be said, over the holidays where authors such as Dickens and DH Lawrence were mentioned. It occurred to me that the closest I had come to classics of this sort was while at school and the nearest I had ever come to Dickens was being in the chorus of “Oliver” many moons ago. My boss has also tried to draw me into literary conversations which seem to end at the mention of “John le Carre”. I felt that this situation should be remedied. On discussing this with my boss, her eyes lit up and she suggested “Brave New World”. My mum, however looked a bit doubtful and suggested “anything by Jane Austen”. I dutifully considered these suggestions and decided to start with “Lolita”. Whether this is what my mum or my boss had in mind is a moot point, but my copy has an introduction and notes and rather a lot of big words which does give it the air of something that one might have read in school. Providing I haven’t lost my appetite for the classics by the time I have finished the book, I might just move on to, oh I don’t know “War and Peace”. Any other suggestions would be warmly welcomed, just please don’t mention “Ulysses”.

It’s OK because there’s no Blood

2008-01-12T20:23:00.000Z

Post Christmas and New Year, with my new boiler settling into its new home and, for the time being, fulfilling its purpose, what better way to celebrate than to throw a party. However, when expecting anyone under the age of, oh about 10, just remember what you might be letting yourself in for.

Most of the guests had arrived and we were just settling down to a glass of two of Vino Collapso. The doorbell rang and I answered it to an excited six year old waggling her tooth. (Now here is where readers of a nervous disposition should look away and, if not, I did warn you!)

“I’ve got a loose tooth”, N. informed me “and it’s about to come out. Look if I just waggle it a bit more it will just pop out.

Forgetting the important law of reverse psychology (Why oh why!!!) I broke in “Look sweetheart I’m a bit squeamish so why don’t you wait until you are home again before you attempt to disengage your tooth from its moorings?”

“But it’s OK” she said perhaps thinking that I was not aware of the intricacies of losing teeth “because there’s no blood and it’s not painful”.

‘Not painful for you’ was my first thought, followed by ‘it was painful in my day – so what’s changed?’

“That’s really not the point” I countered but already she was giving me that “adults are no fun” look perfected by children over many millennia and running into the house.

She then sat opposite me and, with a demonic grin most definitely directed at me, proceeded to wiggle the tooth for about the next half an hour. If I dared to look away she would lean over and inform me of the progress of the tooth from mouth to within wrenching distance of the tooth fairy.

I pleaded with her to stop and think of my other guests. Sadly their enjoyment of the fun seemed in direct proportion to my squeamish agonies.

And then it was all over. I must have been looking away when the actual deed was done because the next thing I knew, a small sharp pearly white tooth was thrust in my direction and then laid triumphantly on the coffee table.

The idea of spending the rest of the night staring at a dislocated tooth lying on my table (and I’m sure there was some blood on it by the way) was just a bit more than I could take.

“Look sweetheart” I said “We don’t want you losing that tooth do we? Why don’t I wrap it up in this nice hankie and give it to your mum. You want to be able to get some money from the tooth fairy, don’t you?”

“Well ok” she said and allowed me, somewhat reluctantly to pass the object, now bundled up in the hankie to her mother who was finding the whole thing somewhat amusing.

“Now that that’s over” I said with some relief to the other guests, who’s for more wine?”

I’m not finished yet” N assured me. “I think there is another one loose. If I just give it a twist……”

Normal Service has been Resumed

2007-12-29T16:22:00.000Z

Slowly the fingers of heat found their way through the cold frostbitten pipes. From the pipes the heat danced through the air replacing the cold with fabulous warmth, for so long missing from this poor house. Oh yes, many hoorays I now have a new boiler!!

The two chaps who came to fit said boiler could have been a double act although Laurel and Hardy they were not. More Good Cop, Bad Cop. In a display of stereotypical nonsense that you just could not make up we had a cheery happy bloke and a miserable bad tempered fellow. Cheery fellow would attempt any feat of plumbing or electrical bravery with a kindly smile and a pleasant word while bad tempered fellow just looked on in disgust. Attempts at pleasing the customer were far from his priority. Bad tempered fellow informed me with some pleasure that he could not fit the thermostat to my new boiler while cheery fellow managed the simple task without problems. Bad tempered fellow was not amused, but regained his bad tempered ground on telling me that I was going to have a large hole in the wall to fill. With glee he took me to the kitchen to show me the rather disturbing spectacle of daylight forced through a large rough hole in the wall. A hole large enough that a window could comfortably have fitted into its circumference. However, the hand, and Pollyfilla, of cheery fellow was in on this, as when I next looked the hole was miraculously filled in. If you hold a light object up to it there is a slight motion but I’m not going to let that worry me.

I had been told that all you need to do to ensure happy workmen is to offer them tea/coffee and lots of biscuits. This I attempted to do, but both workmen were not interested. Perhaps with some food and drink inside them things would have been very different.

My dad came over and we tried a new trick. He asked me to hold my head over the gas hob (on but not lit). This could be seen as a) Child Abuse or b) Testing to make sure that I could smell any potential gas leaks. I’m kind of hoping it was b). Scarily the upshot of it was that Cheery fellow could smell it but my dad and I couldn’t. Should I be worried?

Come the end of the day’s work and cheery fellow was dispatched to the van. I felt that things could now get difficult with my erstwhile saviour engaged removed from the house and currently lashing the ladder to the roof of the van. Bad tempered fellow probably felt the same way and he loaded his final bad tempered bullet, took aim and fired. All he needed was well over £1000 there and then, cash or cheque only. I looked at him and laughed. He didn’t return the laughter. I tried a smile but the effect was the same. Eventually I persuaded him that, as the invoice I had signed stated 30 days to pay (I had checked this before I signed) that that is just what would happen. He tried to tell me that the “30 days to pay” didn’t mean anything. “It’s just what we put on our invoices but you don’t really have 30 days to pay. We just get the money right away.” My dad came in at this point and laughed even more. Bad tempered man remained bad tempered. There was a moment (only a moment but it appeared to last) where we stared each other out wondering who would be the first to flinch, to back down, to capitulate. I actually wondered if he would attempt to dismantle the boiler. Fortunately he didn’t and we were able to negotiate. Reasoning with him that we simply did not have the money and therefore we would have to get the money together before he would see a penny of it seemed to do the trick. We did reassure him that we would get it to him soon but you can be sure that “soon” will be 30 days!!! He seemed to believe us on the subject of the speed of his receiving his money and left, still bad tempered. I wondered if, in fact, his bad temper is what his customers know and love him for and, probably come to expect from him. If he started being cheery would they not be a little disappointed? Added to this, what would cheery fellow do? Would he be forced to adopt the affectations of bad tempered fellow?

Once he was gone I moved through my newly warm house. It felt strange not to have to be moving large electric heaters about with me and thinking about where best to put then to gain the best heat advantage. A small part of me actually missed the security of the newly abandoned routine.

I sat down and sighed. Then, just because I could and they were there, I demolished all the uneaten biscuits.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-23T12:57:00.000Z

So it’s that time of the year again. Apparently Dustin Hoffman celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas. That could either mean double the misery; visits from the dreaded in-laws or double the fun; loads more presents.

As for me I will be spending it very quietly; seeing a few friends and family. Whatever you are doing over Christmas, have a lovely time and I will see you all back here in 2008.

I hope you all have a merry and peaceful Christmas.

It's A Bit Parky Round These Here Parts

2007-12-16T16:23:00.000Z

It's short and sweet today. So far this week I have: Bought all my Christmas Presents and actually wrapped some of them - Hooray, Bought and posted all my cards - Again Hooray, Organised and sent invitations for my Hogmanay Party - Phew. However just as I was congratulating myself on my amazing organisational abilities my boiler broke down. It hasn't exactly stopped working; more it's making a noise that sounds as if it is channelling all the agonies of the world out into my kitchen - ie it is none too pleasant. To put it out of its misery I have now turned it off in the vain hope that I will find a heating engineer before the Christmas Holidays and, more importantly, before my Hogmanay Party. Should I contact my friends now and ask them to bring woolly jumpers?

Cold Comfort

2007-12-08T19:08:00.000Z

Slowly she inched towards me with a sharp implement in her hand. The damage she would inflict upon me would be cruel and terrifying.

My hairdresser had a cold and I would soon have a taste of the suffering she was experiencing.

The hairdressers I go to is not a state of the art affair with designer fittings and hairdressers with names like Anton and Marcus. Instead it’s a very small room filled with hairspray and mousse ready to fall from narrow counters and also doubles as a men’s barbers. A young boy was in the chair next to me in the barbers section eyed up his hairdresser with a deep suspicion.

With the usual pleasantaries over (ie “Are you doing anything nice tonight?” “No, are you?” “No” “Oh Well then”) she proceeded to tell me that she had a really wretched cold. A cold which, by her heroic attempts to struggle into work, I was now destined to catch. To give her her due she was able to tame the disaster zone which my hair had become but she also left the seeds of her virus in amongst the remaining follicles. This act of sharing complete, when next I touched my hair the cold time bomb would be released to choke my system.

My hair looked good but the timebomb duly went off. The sore throat started and I immediately took some Echinacea. Sadly this didn’t seem to have much effect but I took more just in case my cold would have been worse had I not taken any. Next I started to cough and tried some lockets. Strangely however, the coughing got worse the more lockets I took so I stopped that. By the time the runny nose started I know that the game was up and I might as well accept that I had a cold. Well, share and share alike I always say so I then took it into my own work and liberally spread it around.

I’m still snuffling. I wonder if I should go back to the hairdressers and give her it back?

The Senior Ladies’ Social Committee

2007-11-17T11:02:00.000Z

The Senior Ladies had decided that they must be seen to be doing something to encourage the youth of the local area. With this in mind they had devised a scheme involving a Youth Assembly, but not having any idea of what anyone under 40 actually enjoys doing, they had asked me to attend a meeting to offer some ideas.

The senior Senior Lady sat opposite me and eyed me with some suspicion and not a little fear for the future.

“If you could just give us some ideas we can take them away and work on them.” she said without any hint of a smile.

“Well, what about getting in the African Drummers. I’ve always fancied trying that out myself and I’m sure the youngsters would love them.”

Senior Senior Lady’s eyebrows arched away from her pearly blue eyeshadow as she pulled her lips in towards her teeth. “No, I’m not sure about drumming. Can you imagine the complaints about noise we would get. No, most definitely not.”

I wasn’t giving up that easily so I smiled sweetly and continued. “OK, well I’ve got a contact for a girl who does massage. That shouldn’t be too loud and I’m sure it would be enjoyable.”

“Oh no. That’s all that Reiki stuff isn’t it. That’s the invocation of evil spirits so we couldn’t have that.

At this point she may have heard the mini explosion as I attempted to stifle a laugh. “Erm I don’t think it’s got anything to do with evil spirits. I think its simply…”

“No dear, It’s just not what we were looking for”.

By this point the Youth Activities Section of my Mental Filing Cabinet was beginning to take on a rather sinister hue that I had never previously contemplated. “Well I do have a contact for a magician.”

By this point I could hear a few sharp intakes of breath. The more charitable amongst them were probably considering praying for my tainted soul. “A Magician!” Most certainly not. What have we just been saying about evil spirits?”

“But magic’s not evil. It’s just sleight of hand really.”

“Most certainly not. You really are not understanding our point. Look perhaps we will just leave our discussion of what we are going to do and think about how we are going to get sponsorship.

Now I should have been aware of the way the conversation was heading but the next words just seemed to slip out of my mouth without warning (It’ll be those pesky evil spirits I suppose).

“Well the Fox and Hounds has been good to us in the past.”

“THE PUB!” Oh my goodness well that certainly will not do. You don’t think that we would have anything to do with pubs do you. Oh dear oh dear.”

At this point my attempt to suppress my laughter was failing miserably and I felt that it was time to leave. To be fair I think that it was the only thing that we all agreed on all night.

“Oh all right I’ll admit it, I am in league with the Devil. Why don’t you just do crochet then. You’ll get a huge uptake of youngsters for that one”. *

*Of course I didn’t actually say this but the temptation was very strong.

56 Things About Me

2007-11-11T16:23:00.000Z

I had already written a blog for this week but the lovely Kelly has tagged me to write about 56 things about me. To be honest this seemed much more fun, so how could I refuse:-

8 things I'm passionate about:
1. My family. There’s not a lot of us so there’s more passion to go around.
2. All things Scottish. Honestly how could you not be.
3. Reading – Anything and everything, whether I understand it or not.
4. The weather. A warm sunny day (rare though they are) can lift your spirits and make the world seem a better place.
5. Cooking. I just love eating so why not?
6. Singing. I constantly sing very loudly all around the house. My next door neighbours recently moved out. Mmm I wonder why.
7. My friends. A regular friendship fix whether over the phone or over a meal or a drink is tremendously important.
8. Youth Work as I’ve said before.

8 things to do before I die:
1. Find a wonderful caring man to be with for the rest of my life. I can but hope.
2. See a bit more of the world. I should really have set foot on every continent but so far I’ve only seen Europe with a tiny toe dip in North Africa. I must get out more.
3. Own a chic city apartment and a country pile. (Again I can but hope).
4. Return to horse riding which I haven’t done since I was 16.
5. Plant a tree in honour of someone. I’m not sure who yet but it feels like it should be done.
6. Learn to say “No”. I must harden my heart the next time someone comes to me with sorrowful eyes asking for help which I just do not have the time to give them.
7. Despite the above, learn to be more tolerant and caring. This is sometimes hard when dealing with a bunch of teenagers but I must try to remember that their view of the world is different to mine.
8. Learn how to make the perfect loaf of bread.

8 things I often say:
1. I lie on a regular basis – ie – “No really the cake you made is delicious”
And
2. “I’m sorry my boss didn’t call you back. No, it’s not that he didn’t want to talk to you, it’s just that he had to go into an urgent meeting and it will probably not finish now until the end of the day.”
3. “Yes, no problem. When do you need it done by?” Please see item 6 above.
4. “Have you seen the weather forecast for today?” I am a little obsessed.
5. “I’m sure that these recipes off the internet are fine to use”.
Followed by
6. “I haven’t a clue why it didn’t work out.”
7. “Good Morning” at work when it is really the afternoon and vice versa.
8. “Let me spell that for you”. I have a rather complicated second name which no one ever spells right.

8 books I've read recently:
1. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler – A whole lot of fun but a bit confusing at times.
2. The Amateur Marriage – Anne Tyler – Sad but very true.
3. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan – A fantastic build up of tension.
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon – I absolutely loved this book and the wonderful characters although it did take me 7 weeks to read!
5. Happiness – Will Ferguson – Very funny and thought provoking.
6. Wonder Boys – Michael Chabon – Probably the funniest fiction book I have read in a long time.
7. Absolute Friends – John Le Carre. Again, I enjoyed this but struggled to follow all that was going on.
8. Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin. A bit of harmless fun.

I am slightly worried by the preponderance of American authors here. Pass me another John Le Carre will you.

8 songs I could listen to over and over:
1. Super Trouper - Abba – OK Glasgow comes into it but I would still love it anyway. This is by far and away my most favourite Abba track and to be honest I love them all.
2. Moonlight Shadow – Mike Oldfield. I know – weird and depressing but I love it.
3. One Night in Bangkok – Michael Head (From Chess). Again I can’t explain why but I still remember the moment my friend introduced me to this song in a small draughty study bedroom and it just blew me away.
4. Anything on the eponymous, hugely underrated album by a band called Silversun back in 1997. Whatever happened to them?
5. Ditto the above for a band called The Blessing from 1991.
4. Long Train Runnin’ – The Doobie Brothers
5. Goddess on a Hiway – Mercury Rev – I used to be able to play this on the guitar.
6. Orinoco Flow – Enya
7. Nkosi Sikele
8. Cannonball – the Breeders – I mean really how good???

8 qualities I look for in a best friend:
1. A sense of humour and a willingness to appreciate mine!
2. The ability to remain close even when we haven’t seen each other for weeks.
3. The ability to see the good in people
4. Optimism
5. The offering of encouragement when needed.
6. Patience
7. Someone who always returns things lent to them and in the same condition in which they were first lent.
8. Someone who respects you and all your quirky idiosyncrasies without a bad word.

Well that was fun. However I’m not going to pass this on to anyone in particular but if anyone is interested in taking up the challenge please do and I will enjoy reading about you.

A Blogging Story

2007-10-31T20:48:00.000Z

Kelly has memed me to find out why I blog.

It started with a book. “Where Did It All Go Right by Andrew Collins. It’s a very funny, warm account of growing up in the 70’s however there was something else about that book which was to lead me to the world of blogging. On the front inside page was a website address (www.wherediditallgoright.com) and I was intrigued. Following the link (as I believe is the correct terminology) I found a whole website devoted to the book and further investigation uncovered the blog.

Discussions ranged (and in many occasions raged) from birdwatching to homeopathic remedies to 9/11 conspiracy theories all in the space of a couple of weeks. I was fascinated and began to experience the first flutterings of envy. In the best tradition of a small school child I wanted one of these toys too. Of course, not being technologically minded I hadn’t the slightest idea of how to get one. And to be perfectly honest I’m still not too sure how I got one. One day I clicked on a button which brought me to a menu. I followed the instructions and “hey presto” I had a blog of my own. Now, due consideration had to be taken with what to fill it with.

My first post was about Breadmaking. Not perhaps the most exciting subject but perhaps I hadn’t yet grasped blogging conventions. It would appear that most blogs are either controversial or funny. Sadly I fear I don’t really know enough to be controversial (I could quite easily confuse Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama and then there would be trouble) so I thought I would go down the humour route. Humour never hurt anyone apart from the man squashed by a sixteen stone comedian.

It may have been around this time that I started considering my fellow bloggers. If you post a blog and no one reads it, did it really exist in the first place? In the course of my travels in blogland I found a number of other blogs which I found to be funny, warm, amusing and lots of other lovely words. It’s wonderful to be able to visit all those other bloggers and read snippets of their lives – all in so many ways so different from my own. I visited and these kind people visited my blogs back. Now my blog posts really existed and it was, and still is a lovely feeling.

I blogged regularly (at least twice a week) until this summer when I lost one job but gained roughly three others in its place (including the one I lost but that’s a whole books worth of a story). As a result I haven’t been able to blog as much as I would like. I now have a routine of one blog post and visits to other blogs a week and if things change I might be able to come on more frequently again. I do miss it when I’m away and love the feeling now of sitting typing a load of daft words onto a page and knowing that someone out there will read them and hopefully put a comment into my comment box. And that my friends is why I still keep coming back for more.

It’s Only a Victoria Sponge

2007-10-24T19:24:00.000Z

It was a Monday night and at the Youth Group we were attempting to make a Victoria Sponge. Not an onerous task you might think and not worthy of starting World War III over. Sadly ten teenagers begged to differ.

The trouble started almost at once when they decided that they would rather make Chocolate Cake. I tried to reason with them that the Victoria Sponge decision had been taken with their full support many weeks ago. “I wasn’t there that day” one whined “P. must have made that decision. Why does she always get her own way? It’s just so unfair.”

“Because life’s unfair.” I almost spat but then stopped myself. “We only have ingredients for Victoria Sponge and if you are going to keep on arguing you may as well all go home because I don’t have the patience for it.” was what I actually said. At this there were a few nervous laughs as they hoped that I was only joking. I assured them that I was not joking and, after some persuasion they finally helped in the cake making effort. When I say helped, I have never seen eggs broken and added to the mixture through a small hole in the bottom of the shell and have also never seen such a lacklustre effort made to cream a mixture. All this went on under the malevolent glare of a few of the girls, still unhappy, standing at the door of the kitchen with their arms crossed defiantly. If they were hoping to see some sorrow in my face they were disappointed.

Soon the cake was ready for the oven and in it went, with cries of “It doesn’t look right”. “You’ve ruined it.” and many more I have erased from my memory.

Despite all the valiant hopes of the youngsters that the Victoria Sponge that was not a Chocolate Cake would be ruined thereby giving them some small measure of vindication, it popped out of the oven 20 minutes later no less than perfect. You might think that that would be the end of our woes, but sadly it was not to be.

The traditional method of filling and topping of a Victoria Sponge is jam in the middle and icing sugar on top. Generations will testify to the unblemished nature of this method and the exquisite taste therein. However, for the sake of my teenagers I was prepared to use whatever filling and topping they desired. Somewhat naively I considered this to be a good ploy. Of course I didn’t count on the fact that 10 teenage girls are not readily going to come to a unanimous decision. Not knowing the meaning of the word unanimous probably also doesn’t help.

“We can fill it with jam” I started “ but I’ve also got skooshy cream and chocolate spread so we….”

“Eurgh it’s not Nutella” said one “I’m not eating that.”

“OK, I’ll put it away so what will we do then?”

“We should use jam” said another starting to enthusiastically dump dollops of jam all over the cake and spread it in.

“That’s not fair” a small voice wailed “I’m allergic to jam and she always gets what she wants and I never do”.

This may of course have been “It’s just so unfair” from earlier on but I forget.

“But it’s got to be jam” said the enthusiastic spreader of the sticky stuff.

“Well I don’t like it, and I also don’t like Chocolate spread or cream so that means I can’t have any. It’s just (you will now be able to fill in the blanks).

Her cries were then taken up by all ten girls each arguing with one another about what should or should not go on the cake and the reasons for each thing meaning the ruination of the cake for each individual. Eventually I cut through their cries, but not with the jammy knife because that would just have been messy.

“Right, that’s enough” I said. “I’ve had it up to here with you lot. I’m going to take the cake into work tomorrow and give it to people who will appreciate it since you certainly don’t. Out of my way”. As I bore down on the cake the opinions of the girls remarkably gelled as one as if exposed to extra strong jam making pectin.

“OK” they said, and I could see real fear in their eyes “we’ll eat it ourselves”. At that all thoughts of allergies and personal dislikes were miraculously lost and the cake was reduced to a few paltry crumbs in less than five minutes. It was a truly remarkable transformation.

After that they went home and I thank singledom that I don’t have to take one home myself.

The best quote of the night came at the end from one of the girls in the older group who had been watching their antics and stuck her head round the door as they were leaving and said “You guys suck”!

On the basis of Monday night’s performance I was very inclined to agree.

Pulling Teeth

2007-10-17T20:49:00.000Z

The phone call came early in the morning, at the point at which I had arrived at work but long before I had officially woken up. “This is your Dentist’s surgery” snapped the voice at the end of the line. “Are you aware that you haven’t been in to see us since APRIL?” The word April was exaggerated to give the impression of the committing of some heinous crime. “We don’t exactly FORCE our patients to come into the surgery but when we haven’t seen you for such a LONG TIME we do feel the need to contact you.”

As you can imagine the idea of visiting the dentist is not exactly one of those things which I excitedly mark in the diary and then count the days down to with a heightening sense of eager anticipation. The last time an appointment had been made for me I had managed to get out of it by having to go to a meeting at work. After sending them a letter explaining how sorry I was I just stopped contacting them and hoped that they would forget about me. Little did I know that the receptionist had a detection system second only to that of an over enthusiastic bloodhound. For all I know she had been trailing me for months, waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

I’m not actually very strong willed in the face of such administrative authority and mumbled that yes, I would take the next available appointment.

“Ah but that’s not good enough” she said, with what I’m sure was a note of satisfaction in her voice.
“You have been away so long now that you will need TWO appointments”. “One for a check up and one for a scale and polish.”
“What’s a scale and polish” I said feeling like a car about to face an MOT.
She didn’t give me a definitive answer apart from saying ominously “The dentist wouldn’t suggest one if he didn’t think you needed one”.

By now, feeling utterly press ganged and not even receiving a king’s shilling to show for it, I asked her to suggest a date.

“Well, by this stage there’s no free dates until January, but we SHOULD be able to fit you in then”. she said with a sigh which appeared to indicate that there being no free dates until January was in some way my fault.

The date made, she rang off, in order to harass some other poor individual who also was under the false apprehension that he had thrown the dentist off his scent.

Shaken, I resumed my work and to prove how out of sorts I was, proceeded to ask a colleague who lives in Glasgow if she needed travel and accommodation organised in order to attend a training course in (yes, you’ve guessed it) Glasgow.

I think I need a holiday!

Not Mountain Biking

2007-10-14T13:20:00.000Z

Obviously I’m devastated. Due to the likelihood of inclement weather and the fact that many of our number were not very well, our bike ride was cancelled. All I can say is that, as of this moment, I would much rather be sitting here in my nice warm house than struggling through the countryside while others much fitter than me purposefully cycled on ahead.

The text message to inform me of the lifting of the terror which has been hanging over my head for well over a week now came last night as a friend and I left the cinema after seeing Ratatouille. The film was OK and I felt for the rat as he juggled multiple jobs for many and varied bosses. Let us just say that I can relate all too well too the joy of multitasking with a wide variety of hats, although none of them, as yet, is that of a chef. I suppose however, that that might come one of those days.

Glasgow last night was filled with hundreds of kilted chaps and chapesses celebrating the result of some football match which apparently we had won. I had to ask because I just don’t have a clue about such things. I was accompanied on the train journey home by a vast number of fans – all very drunk but very happy nonetheless. As I sat down in my seat I put my foot in what I can only hope was tomato ketchup. On getting up to leave the train I slid in this gloop and sailed down the aisle to the bemusement of the befuddled supporters. It was only through sheer luck or perhaps my relative sobriety that I did not land on one of them. I suppose it might have made for a more interesting end to the evening.

I have only just switched my mobile phone back on. My theory being that if, by some strange twist of fate, the cycle ride was back on, I would not have known about it. I believe that there is talk of it being postponed to another date. You can be assured that on the appointed date, I will have a prior engagement.

The Loneliness of The Long Distance Mountain Biker.

2007-10-09T21:09:00.000Z

One might ask what a supposedly responsible PA in high heels was doing riding a muddy mountain bike around a dingy garage. One might even wonder why she was pulled out of a high level meeting in order to do so. It’s a dark tale of cruelty and despair – or at least it will be come Sunday!

A couple of weeks ago we were, at work, invited (if that is the correct term) to take part in a sponsored cycle. Not wanting to appear uncharitable I feigned interest. This was of course a mistake as this pseudo interest was immediately snatched upon in the manner of a door-to-door seller persuading you to buy something you neither need nor want. I was, in a word, sucked in to taking part in an activity which now fills me with much fear and dread. On Sunday I will be expected to cycle for 26 miles and then “we might catch the train back home or depending how we are feeling we might just cycle back”. Can I just say here and now that when I agreed to this, the exact number of miles was cruelly kept from me. A couple of miles I could have coped with. 26 of them is an entirely different journey of fear. Abject terror would now be an understatement.

Back to the mountain bike. In a futile attempt to get out of this horror, I stated that I didn’t have a bike. In actual fact I do, but it is currently slowly decomposing in my parents’ garage so I would imagine that in its present state it would be somewhat inoperable. It may not even resemble a bike anymore. Sadly this lame attempt at an excuse held little truck with the organisers of the event and an alternative bike was procured. This bike (the aforementioned muddy mountain bike) was ceremoniously rushed to the garage underneath my office. The important meeting I was attending at the time was stopped in order that I could go out and check that the bike and I were compatible.

I tentatively descended to meet my fate in the basement. The bike leaned nonchalantly against the wall and silently laughed at my unsuitability for riding it in full suit and high heels. I swung a rather stiff leg over the bar straining to keep my shoes on my feet and started pedalling. As I wobbled all over the garage I wondered how long ago it was that I had actually ridden a bike. Ten years might be a possible count. You know what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bike – it may have been a lie – especially in my case. Eventually I seemed to be able to make it go and more importantly make it go straight. My high heels rattled about the pedals in a most ungainly way and threatened to either get jammed in the pedals or fall onto the floor. That’s when I bashed my knee against the very low handle bar. “Aha” I thought. A last ditch opportunity for forgoing the bike ride presented itself and was immediately dashed as someone fetched a handy allan key and righted the problem. He tried very hard not to laugh.

The day of doom draws closer and the fear I am feeling is rapidly accelerating in a manner which I am unlikely ever to attain on the bike itself. All the known excuses are gone and no more will be accepted. It’s down to me and the bike and I think I know who will come out on top.

Fresh Faces and Sticky Paws

2007-10-03T20:11:00.000Z

Sometimes I just love the synchronicity. I’m working at the moment with two quite different groups of girls within our Youth Group, I’m doing Cookery and, oh joy, they both want to do something involving chicken. This makes my job very much easier when negotiating the aisles at Asda. If these girls had any inkling whatsoever that they had caused my life to be made easier they would at once have changed their minds so I won’t be letting on any time soon.

I have been working in and around Youth Groups since I officially ended my tenure as a youth myself. In my local community there has always been a strong emphasis on promoting activities for teenagers so the natural progression for me was to work as a youth group leader as soon as I was old enough. I have put on plays with youth drama groups, made the most delicious messes in numerous kitchens, eaten myself silly at sleepovers and taken trips to places like Alton Towers. How else could an adult do these things without fear of ridicule.

Of course this is not the only reason that I do it. There are of course some people who would beg to differ but I feel that it is vitally important to support and help the youth of any community. Kids these days (as at any time) face enormous challenges, whether it be something such as their best friend falling out with them or problems with parents. To have someone other than a parent or a teacher who they feel that they can talk to or who simply takes an interest in them can make all the difference.

I admit that sometimes all the good feelings can be forgotten when you have a group of 20 screaming teenagers in a room who cannot master the correct dance moves for the show taking place next week. However the mere fact that they come back week after week gives me some confidence that we must be doing something right and that one day they may look back and admit that they had fun.

And that, my friends, is a brief resume of the life of a Youth Group Worker. If you have any specific questions, please ask and I will do my best to answer them. I think as a last word I would add that, if nothing else, it keeps you young.

P.S. Apologies for the lack of regular blogging in these parts. I am now working for my current boss, my previous boss and doing quite a bit of preparation work for the youth group. It makes life interesting but time melt away. I will try and keep up the blogging but it may be a little less frequent for a while.

Bananas, Bats and Boats

2007-09-22T20:14:00.000Z

Perhaps it was a last ditch attempt to make up for the rotten summer. Whatever the reason, despite being encircled by a number of threatening clouds, the sun shone all day today. Why the sun couldn’t have fought off the advances of the clouds any other day this summer is quite beyond me but there you have it. The glorious sunshine and a slight wind made it a perfect day for a walk.

The walking group had decided to drive up to Balmaha and walk round a part of Loch Lomond (also a part of the West Highland Way.) It would be a gross understatement to say that the scenery is magnificent. When the sun sends brilliant rays of white light through the water and that water is surrounded by lush woodland which draws the eye up dramatic mountainsides, the sight is awe inspiring and nothing less. I do hope that you will permit me a little bias here, but I truly believe that Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world – especially when the sun is shining.

We set off along the waters edge where little yachts with brown sails were already starting their passages across the loch. We pondered on the reason for the brown sails, could find none, and moved on. We passed some fishermen on the hunt for trout and salmon and watched with some disgust as they scooped out their worms which wriggled and crawled all over their grimy hands. On entering the woods we heard strange shouts which we variously attributed to the spirits of the forests or neds having a drinking session. It was then that we spied the three jogging bananas.

I have seen many strange sights but none quite as strange as three grown men dressed in banana suits approaching along a forest track. It turned out that they were running for charity. Quite why running for charity justifies the wearing of a banana suit I will never know, but it made our walk that bit more interesting I can tell you.

At one point the woodland path had become so eroded that we had to continue our walk on the beach. Bemused families making sandcastles with their children watched as we strode past them in walking boots with rucksacks on our backs.

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that it is time to get up? It would appear that bats are just as susceptible to body clock dysfunction as we can be. Just as we were nearing the end of our walk we noticed what looked like either large moths or small birds darting over the path. On realising that they were bats and it was daylight; we can only assume that they had been rudely awakened from their slumber – perhaps by the banana joggers although we will never know.

At the end of our walk we did the sensible thing and repaired to the pub for a well deserved rest after all the strenuous exercise we had just undertaken. However, when working out just how hard and strenuous that exercise had been we discovered that we had been walking an average of 1.5 miles an hour. So not that strenuous then? Perhaps not, but just the kind of walking group that I am quite happy to remain a member of.

Plan B

2007-09-18T19:15:00.000Z

As a result of the rain on Saturday it was with regret (who am I trying to kid) that Plan B was put into operation. Perhaps Plan B should have concerned itself with maintaining the commitment to some sort of fitness but sadly it did not. In fact we ended up with “A Play, A Pie and a Pint”.

The aforementioned Play, Pie and Pint is an excellent idea offered by Oran Mor on the corner of Byers Road and Great Western Road in Glasgow. It does what it says on the tin and for £10.00 of your British Money you get a drink, a pie (it literally is just a small pie on a small plate, but we managed to get two of them each) and a play.

The play in question concerned your average female with two men in her lives; a cross dresser and a chap with a drink and anger management problem. Of course she chose the cross dresser over the charming other fellow (well you would wouldn’t you?).

After the play and after rescuing my very badly parked (ie abandoned) car we decided to have a wander along Byers Road.

There are a number of very good second hand shops in Byers Road and taking me anywhere near them is a very bad idea indeed, for my friends in any case. At a good 50 paces I can already smell the gloriously musty books, authentic vintage clothing and other assorted nick nacks. By the time I’m in the door I’m drooling and counting my available cash. And that cash was spent liberally in a fair selection of Aladdin’s Caves full of bright colours, interesting smells and mystery. Well, they were “bargains” after all.

We ended our day in Thornton’s where we shamelessly ate ice cream despite the fact that it was pouring with freezing rain and summer had given up trying to perform its intended task and gone home.

So that was our day out in the name of Plan B. A pretty good Plan B by my reckoning. I’m supposed to be going on a hike on Saturday, so, if it’s raining I’ll meet you in Byres Road for Plan B – The Sequel.

Saved by the Hail

2007-09-14T20:00:00.000Z

For once it would appear that the vagaries of British weather will save me tomorrow from the agony of physical exertion. It had been suggested by friends much fitter than I that tomorrow we would go cycling. For fit people this might consist of a jolly day freewheeling up hill and down dale, but for me it would tend to offer the prospect of hoisting myself in a rather ungainly manner into the saddle and puffing and panting up steep hills with every muscle in my body protesting at my lack of training. When I looked at the weather forecast in the middle of the week it showed glorious sunshine for Saturday, making my heart sink every so slightly and my muscles tremble in fearful anticipation. Everything however changed today. As so often happens, despite the fact that we are at present bathed in glorious sunshine, the forecast for tomorrow has changed from a sunshine symbol to one depicting a cloud and three drops of rain. There will of course be many more than three drops of rain but there is only so much space available on a weather symbol.

In the event of rain, Plan B will be put into operation. I have to admit that Plan B has not actually been planned but here’s hoping that it will involve as little physical activity as possible.

I will keep you posted.

Do Teenagers Ever Sleep?

2007-09-11T20:02:00.000Z

It was my pleasant duty at the weekend to accompany 38 teenagers to Alton Towers. We left at 3 in the morning and returned at 12 Midnight the same day (but only just!) and not once did several of them actually sleep. Where do they get their energy? They just kept going and going.

We may have been a formidable sight on entering Alton Towers. Two of the boys wore kilts and most of the others had painted Scottish Saltires on their faces. Be afraid, be very afraid.

I have to admit that I am an absolute wuss and the closest I got to going on a ride was going on the cable car from one end of the park to the other just so I could say that I had been on a ride (of sorts) at Alton Towers.

I did however conquer my fear of Oblivion. Oh yes; I managed to stand beside it as squealing adults and teens hurtled to their doom. That was scary enough so there was no way I was actually going on the thing itself.

Myself and the other leaders spent the day on a restaurant crawl and it’s best that I don’t think of the calories I must have consumed on the day. Perhaps calories don’t count on crossing the Scottish Border. It would be nice to think so.

The homeward journey again echoed that of the outward one, with 38 teenagers all screaming and shouting when they should have been sleeping. Someone had won a giant red dinosaur and the bus driver was none too happy at midnight when all the stuffing came out and went all over his bus. The dinosaur was last seen adorning our village roundabout.

It was on getting home that I got my first real fright of the day. I was confronted by a massive spider. It was so big that, had I managed to catch it, I could have kept it as a pet. I chased it round the room to no avail. I was only going to safely catch it in my spider catcher and deposit it out of the window but I assume that it thought that I was about to mercilessly kill it. It shot round the room and eventually found sanctuary underneath my bookcase. I decided to leave it there as I knew that the only way in which it would prove lethal to me was if I tried to move the bookcase, with the result that it came crashing down on top of me.

I finally collapsed into bed sometime after midnight and was dead to the world for more hours than would normally be necessary. As for the spider, I’m sure it is still crawling about the house somewhere waiting to pop out when I least expect it.

Scratching at the Surface

2007-09-07T17:20:00.000Z

You may remember a blog post of a few weeks ago dealing with mysterious goings on in my street. I felt under an obligation to uncover what I felt was the murky truth of the matter, for research purposes only of course. Sadly I didn’t uncover the truth of that particular matter but in attempting to do so, I unwittingly stumbled upon a much bigger and altogether darker story.

Picture the scene if you will. A young teenager full of the joyful anticipation of young love gets a nasty wake up call when she discovers that her beloved is seeing someone else. Obviously she is distraught and keen to find out who the “other woman” is. Imagine her horror on discovering that the “other woman” was in fact her own mother. They say that “blood is thicker than water”, but so enraged was the teenager in question that spilling blood was in the forefront of her mind.

One day while her mother was gardening the girl saw her chance. Finding some handy garden twine (they don’t tell you in the shop but I believe it’s pretty good for this kind of thing) she attempted to strangle her mother. In the words of my 16 year old informant she “strangled her TO THE GROUND!” Quite why to the ground should be any more lethal than any other kind of strangulation I’m not sure but our 16 year old friend seemed to feel that it was. *

Happily (for the mother anyway we can assume) the strangulation itself was not lethal, the mother survived and the young man in question is now seeing neither the young strangler nor her mother (wise chap).

So you see, you may think that you live in a very quiet and unassuming street but to quote one Charlie Rich “no one knows what goes on behind closed doors”.

*To be honest there is just the outside chance that young J. has made up the whole thing but I hope not.

Ain’t No Fun When You Gotta Run

2007-09-02T21:56:00.000Z

It was my painful duty yesterday to embark on a “Fun Run”. Now, in my experience the words Fun and Run are a contradiction in terms. I can see no fun at all in running and to be honest no necessity to do so. For me, the only possible use for running would be in any instance where one was unlucky enough to find oneself chased by a lion or a tiger, not common occurrences in this part of the world and still not an experience that could ever be classed under the term “fun”.

Anyway, on the basis that it was for charity and that it was only 5K I reluctantly said that I would have a go. However between my offering to take part and the actual day I had hatched a cunning plan.

I am a member of a walking group. To say a walking group perhaps gives the impression that we manfully (and womanfully) stride up Munros and the like every Saturday barely breaking sweat in the process. This is however an outrageous fallacy. In fact we amble rather idly through the least hilly paths we can find. As you can imagine in Scotland that takes a huge amount of research and preparation so it is no mean feat in itself.

Therefore it was decided that the members of the walking group would, merely by dint of being in the walking group, not be required to run. Instead we would turn up on the day and proceed to walk with no fear of humiliation or retribution.

We turned up at the allotted time and were given our numbers. Ominously mine was 13 which is never a good sign. I had expected a good number of the walking group to turn up to support our quest for a run free fun run, but in the event only another two turned up. Nonetheless it was walking we were doing and we strode out as the runners (after having gone through a very serious looking limbering up session) streamed past us. Our striding soon became our usual amble and pretty soon we were chatting and not really too worried about what time we would come in at.

Due to the cyclical nature of the design of the course (to try to maximise our embarrassment perhaps) we had only just set out when the first runners passed us on the way back. It couldn’t be said that they looked like they were enjoying themselves so we took some comfort from that.

Eventually we returned back to the start after a very pleasant stroll. By the time we got back to the start (5K in 1 ½ hours which I thought was a splendid time) the award ceremony was over and the organisers had given up and gone home. Sadly we didn’t get a medal or any plaudits for our achievement but equally we had not had to go through any of the agony. We might even be persuaded to do 10K next time.

Going Down to Liverpool

2007-08-28T19:50:00.000Z

We arrived at the Speke Marriot Hotel in Liverpool on Friday night to be met by a dazzling display of slightly over the top Art Deco. Blues clashed with golds swirling up spiral staircases to meet dazzling light fittings illuminating the whole sorry affair. I would advise you not to visit after taking any hallucinogenic drugs.

The hotel used to be an airport before it became John Lennon Airport and got a fancy new building. In the bedrooms we are treated to Aromatherapy everything including an Aromatherapy shower cap and sewing kit. I’m still trying to work out how a shower cap and sewing kit can be infused with aromatherapy oils. On going down for dinner I was asked by the manager if we were with the Saga Party. I feigned a little more disgust than I actually felt (finding it humorous in the extreme) and said how shocked I was that he had assumed me to be Saga age. It turned out that there was a large saga party in that weekend and the Manager was on automatic pilot assuming everyone to be with Saga. My dad at age 60 something has a very healthy fear of anything Saga so he was not best impressed. However the irony of this for me was that at the end of our meal we met up with some 80 – 90 year old family members and I couldn’t take the pace and had to go to bed several hours before they did. Maybe I would have been better off on the Saga Tour.

The morning of the wedding dawned and I was helping my grannie get ready.

“You know, I’m not sure I really like this outfit now” she said.

I advised her not to say anything to my mum who had spent a long and fretful day with her finding something which she appeared to be happy with at the time.

Then grannie happens to glance at the mirror.

“Why do I see such an old person’s face?” she sighs.

At the age of 93 I wonder just who she does expect to see.

Eventually we managed to make it to the church to wait with the groom and the rest of the family for the appearance of the bride.

Before entering the church, however, we were greeted by a group of lads singing Beatles songs in the graveyard of the church. Further investigation revealed that we were in the midst of a Beatles Convention and the lads were paying homage at the grave of Eleanor Rigby. I assume that it was that very song they were singing but one can never be too sure.

After this strange diversion we eventually made it into the church. The bride was in fact early and the mood of anticipation and suspense for the groom was ruined by the minister coming up the aisle and cheerily stating “She’s here”. That’s not how it is supposed to work is it?

I had bought a fascinator to wear, mainly because it’s not such a big commitment as buying a hat. However every time I bent down to speak to a small child or bent back to take a drink the blessed thing would fall off and I would spend the next five minutes scrambling about for it. If, like me, you have a small head, think twice before buying one.

The reception was lovely and gave me a chance to meet up with all my relations whom I rarely see nowadays. Sadly, however, the prize for the longest travelled didn’t belong to me, but to two couples coming from America and Canada respectively.

Young G aged almost 5 had a great time at the reception, spending most of it chasing older boys all over the room. His brother M. aged almost 2 took in most of the evening with an air of utter bafflement, only broken by the couple of occasions when G. returned to the bosom of his family to lovingly beat up his younger brother.

His favourite bit of the evening was “throwing the paper” (confetti). G. had in fact been given the highly important task of passing around the confetti from a wooden basket which he discovered was much more fun when balanced on his head.

Young G. eventually fell asleep around 11.30 followed soon after by his dad (an alcoholic beverage or three may have been involved). M. fought the onset of sleep all the way but eventually all the boys were in bed out for the count.

Did I manage to keep up with the drinking? Actually I think I may have done. I always had a glass in front of me anyway and can’t actually remember how much I had so I must have been doing well.

The scariest story of the weekend was finding out that a girl who only a few short years ago was a bridesmaid at another cousin’s wedding is now a mum at 18. That makes her father a grandfather at 40. Distinctly frightening as I’m sure that you will agree.

How Clean is Your Liverpuddle?

2007-08-23T20:32:00.000Z

Hi all

I will be away until the beginning of next week as I am off to a wedding in Liverpool at the weekend.

I am hoping to bring you back lots of stories about the wedding. At the advice of several friends I have been practising my alcohol drinking skills so that I will hopefully be able to consume more alcohol than I did at the last wedding I attended without feeling ill. I have certainly been trying and really pushed the boat out last night at a work do in Wakefield by having two glasses of wine and drinking the last one in 10 minutes flat as we had a train to catch. Ooh I’m such a wild one am I not!??!

Anyway we will wait until the weekend to see if my training has paid off.

Before I go I’d like to go back to the subject of dreams. I had a really funny one about Kim and Aggie (of “How much can we Criticise the Cleanliness of your House?” fame) last night. It was incredibly funny and I woke up in hysterics. The only problem is that now I can’t remember the full details. I think it had something to do with finding out that the one with the blond beehive (Aggie I think) was actually only in her twenties but that years of obsessive cleaning had led her features to deteriorate so much that she looked like she was in her 60s.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my subconscious has a bit of a problem with reality sometimes, but it’s a wonderful feeling when you wake up laughing.

Well I must go because my trusty green packing case is calling and it’s not sounding very happy.

Have a lovely weekend whatever you do.

Exam Stress

2007-08-21T19:25:00.000Z

I was out last night with friends of mine who have teenage kids. Talk turned to the exam results and one story really made me laugh.

A. is a very clever girl, expected to get 1s or at the very least 2s in her standard grades. She was away on holiday with her parents on the day the results came out and didn’t trust going onto the internet to find out how she had got on. Subsqeuently her gran had been despatched to her house and instructed to call her and tell her how she had done.

The fateful day arrived and A. was on tenterhooks. She had studied hard and just knew that all her friends would have done really well and she just couldn’t be seen to have done badly. Not only that but she was on holiday with two of her friends who had already found out that they had done well by accessing the internet on the previous day. As an aside I thought that everyone under the age of 25 was fully comfortable with the internet these days but it just goes to show.

The phone rang and A. dived for it, breathless and barely able to contain herself.

“So gran, how did I do?"

“You did really well dear you got, now let me see, I’ll just adjust my specs and, oh here we are, yes.”

“Come on gran, what did I get?”

“You did really well dear, like I said you got a 5 for everything.”

“WHAT!!!! A five! That’s a fail. How? That’s not possible, it can’t be."

By this time young A. was in hysterics.

“This can’t be happening. What will all my friends think? My life is over? All fives, and I studied so hard.”

“Well dear” continued her gran “That’s what it says here. I thought that a 6 must be the highest mark and so I thought that you had done really well."

“What, so as well as telling me how badly I have done you also think that I wouldn’t have got the highest mark. Just what are you trying to say here? Do you have any idea that my life is now officially over. I’ll have to leave school. I’ll be destitute. What am I going to do?"

By this point A. had got so hysterical that her mum intervened and a voice of a little more reason spoke to gran.

“So mum, not good news then? Can you read me out what it says exactly.”

“Gran starts to read from the sheet - French Standard 5, History Standard 5 etc etc.”

As she does so a little lightbulb had come on in A’s mums head.

“Are there any other numbers after the 5’s on the list?” she asked.

“Now you come to mention it, yes there are. Now let’s have a look, French Standard 5 and then there’s a little 1, History Standard 5 then a 2. Does that mean anything?”

“Well yes, it means the difference between my daughter consigning herself to the scrapheap or not. Those are her actual grades Mum. 5 refers to the Standard Grade Level she sat not the grade she got in the exam.”

“Oh dear” said Gran “I hope I haven’t upset her too much then.”

“No, nothing that the right information and some chocolate won’t cure. Thanks Mum. You’ve given me a good laugh today if nothing else. I’d better go and let A. know.

I believe that Gran’s now back in the good books, but come A’s highers she may not be asked to repeat the same “favour”.

When Planning World Domination, Get Your Facts Straight First

2007-08-18T12:03:00.000Z

In a series of very occasional pieces entitled Strange Dreams I Have Had (this only being the second in the series) I will relate an odd dream that I had last night.

There I was innocently checking my e-mails when a spam e-mail popped up and caught my attention.

The message was simple, direct, and to the point (and strangely had nothing to do with pulchritudinous ladies) “Phone this number now” it stated.

Perhaps in a rather ill-advised move (but it was a dream remember) I called the number and all at once, I found myself magically transported to a small untidy office wherein sat a man of indeterminate age (but probably about 60) and his lady wife. The lady wife had a non-speaking part and just sat behind her husband smiling benignly during the course of the scene.

“I’m glad you came” the man started. “We want you to join us and help us to take over the world”.

“I’d really like to help you, but not today thank you” I told the evil genius (as I now supposed that he must be) “I’ve got a perfectly good job to go back to and lots to do there so I really don’t have much time for taking over the world. It’s nice to be asked though, but I had really better get going now, if, you know, there’s nothing else”.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong” cackled the evil genius (well he is, isn’t he?). “I’ve contacted Mrs X in the Building Control Department of Inverclyde Council and handed in your resignation so you can’t ever go back. You’re stuck here with me! Ha Ha". (Imagine here an evil genius-like laugh if you will).

“Your plan is therefore thwarted” I countered “I haven’t worked in Inverclyde Council since 1999 and it wasn’t in the Building Control Department either. You may be an evil genius but you will have to work on your research gathering skills”.

At this the evil genius looked genuinely rather crestfallen and gave his wife a rather stern look. However, if you remember she didn’t have a speaking part so she could only give the evil genius a look that said “Whoops, sorry dear, I’ll be more careful next time”.

I did at that moment feel a little sorry for the evil genius. He looked genuinely distraught at the thought of this knockback to his career in world domination.

“So erm does that mean I’m free to go?” I asked.

“Well yes I suppose it does” he said looking a little confused. “I mean are you really sure that you don’t want to help me in my quest for world domination anyway”?

“No, not really I said. “The more I think about it the more I just don’t see the point, but, you know, best of luck and everything”.

And at that, as if by magic, I was transported back to my own bed where I had another strange dream about a cross dressing groom on his wedding day, his wife-to-be very put out that someone had turned up with the same outfit on, and then I woke up.

Feel free to analyse this rather strange concoction or, maybe just advise me not to drink so much before I go to bed of an evening.

Fawlty Towers

2007-08-16T20:22:00.000Z

And you thought that the saga of the wedding was over, well here’s a strange little postscript.

About a year ago, when my friend the bride-to-be first announced her impending nuptials I decided to look into booking myself into a guest house for the night of the wedding as the journey back home takes a good 1 ½ - 2 hours. I called round a number of B&Bs and eventually settled on one which sounded nice and reasonably priced. I asked if they had any beds free for that night, they said that they had and sent me a brochure on the establishment. I left the situation to marinade but it would appear that it became a festering sore. Because I had been made redundant and had got the offer of a lift there and back I decided not to go ahead and book a room. I thought nothing more of the matter. Nothing more of the matter, that is, until I received a tersely worded letter from that establishment in tones of high moral umbridge.

It appears that they had assumed that I had booked a room, had waited up for me until 11.00pm (oh the horror!) and were now demanding that I pay for the room which I had booked but not had the decency to spend the night in.

I called the lady in question to see if I could explain my side of the story (ie I had no idea that I had booked a room) and see if I could dissipate her umbridge. It appears that umbridge dissipation is not my forte and she was as immovable as ever.

I then did something which proves that I am advancing in years. I wrote a strongly worded letter.

Having first checked the literature which she had sent on her B&B I stated that it clearly says that a deposit is required when booking and that the room will be held for 5 days to allow said deposit to reach their fine establishment.

As they had not heard from me in almost a year and no deposit had been received from me I felt that it was a reasonable assumption to make on their part that I had not in effect booked a room and was no longer interested in doing so.

Furthermore in our telephone call she stated that she only had a postal address for me and appeared quite put out that I had not provided her with a telephone number and an e mail address. I would imagine that the mere fact that I had not provided her with this information would again tend to indicate that I was not interested in booking a room. In the light of her attitude I am very glad that I did not give her any more contact details than were absolutely necessary. To be honest I am now regretting ever giving her my home address.

In an attempt to sweeten the bitter pill I was delivering I did state how much I regretted our “misunderstanding” but felt that in the circumstances it would be entirely inappropriate of me to send her a cheque. This especially in the light of her own literature which would tend to make real the assumption that I had in fact not booked anything.

And that is what I did with my umbridge. The letter is now sent – second class post of course as I’m not spending good first class money on this one. It will be interesting to hear what she says. Will she bring down on my the full weight of her lawyers, or will she just invoke fire flood and pestilence on my wicked soul? Who knows. Over the next few days we may surely find out.

Too Much Champagne

2007-08-13T21:09:00.000Z

Most of my friends are married. I attended the wedding of one of the last of our little group of old school chums at the weekend. She walked down the aisle, a vision in sparkling tulle to “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”. It seems to be a pretty popular choice for brides these days and I suppose that the Kaiser Chiefs might not go down so well with the grannies.

The bride herself was, of course, late. Brides are meant to be late but this one has never been early for anything so she was very very late. Her mum called across the church to reassure the grooms’ parents that she was on her way, although they didn’t appear to be too concerned. It turned out that her dress had come adrift and her dad had had to take a needle and thread to it and sew her back in. It was a bit of a revelation to us (and perhaps him) that he was so nifty with a needle and thread.

Weddings always make me cry. This has got nothing to do with still being single (honest!) but more to do with the overall emotion of the whole thing. So of course we were midway through the first hymn when little droplets of water started in the corners of my eyes, quickly becoming rivulets and then small floods. My attempts to stem the flow were watched avidly by one of the bridesmaids. A look of extreme puzzlement crept over her six year old face and continued for the rest of the evening whenever she saw me. I may have put one small child off ever getting married. I do hope not.

Later on in the evening another single friend got very drunk (well I’m assuming that that was the reason) and made me make a pact with her that if we were both single at 40, we would each buy a cat, move in together and embrace a life of eternal spinsterhood. I reminded her that 40 was not such a long way away for either of us (although I will be getting their first) and tried to dissuade her from any such foolish notions. Sadly she was not for having it. I just hope that she was drunk and forgets because it is not a pact that I have any intention of following through on although cats are quite pleasant creatures…..

I thought that weddings were supposed to be joyous occasions. Granted, most of the guests appeared to have permagrins on the whole time but one chap was in quite a maudlin mood.

“Well” he said “That’s most of the weddings out of the way, so the next time you (myself and my old school friends) see each other again it will be at a funeral.”

“Thanks a lot” I almost spat “I think it will be quite a while before there will be any funerals involving any of us”. I mean, honestly, we are only in our 30’s. What a terrible thing to say and especially at a wedding. I will just have to assume that it was a spectacularly bad attempt at humour or that, again, drink was involved.

Speaking of drink, I had hoped to speak to a former primary school teacher of mine, but unfortunately she had one glass of champagne which proved a bit too much for her and she spent the rest of the night recovering in her hotel room.

She’s not the only one who has a problem with holding her drink. I myself just can’t seem to drink as much as I used to be able to do. I was hoping to hit that just slightly nice, woozy feeling but after one glass of champagne and half a glass of wine the only thing I was feeling was queasy. I drank a glass of water to stop any potential hangovers in the morning and gave up the alcohol as a bad job. Gone are my wild drinking days it would seem.

And then it was all over. The bride and groom slipped off into the night, the dancers kept on dancing and I headed off home to recuperate and prepare myself for another wedding which I will be going to in a fortnight. Perhaps I should work on my drinking technique between then and now.

Edinburgh Festival 2007 - A Tale of Two T-Shirts

2007-08-10T21:14:00.000Z

Part Two – "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"

Fortunately we weren’t blown apart by either my rucksack or by terrorists and were able to stagger to our feet at some point in the next day to see Robin Ince.

When I was younger I was given a book on dinosaurs. I was devastated as it immediately ruined any street cred that I might have had. One can imagine Robin Ince being given the same book and clutching it to him, atremble with anticipation at the knowledge bestowed upon him and the comedy potential just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

The idea of a comedy set revolving around science sounds to me (who failed every science subject possible) like a contradiction in terms but he was actually very funny although I might have got a little lost around molecules and atoms. I wish my science teacher had been more like him. I might have actually passed something.

The religion jokes went down well but, Comedians Beware! In Scotland, never mention the words Catholic or Protestant, especially not in the same sentence as previously mild mannered atheist catholics and mild mannered atheist protestants could come to blows down some dark alleyway after the gig.

However, for all Mr Ince seems to know about science, he knows very little about the potential of the common or garden sweat gland. He wore a light grey T-Shirt which was a bad move as it steadily darkened in the requisite areas until he looked like he was wearing a map of the world. Not a good look. He would do well to follow the example of Mr Herring and wear a dark T-shirt. I do hope that Mr Ince has a good change of clothing strategy and decent washing facilities.

I would however recommend going to see Robin Ince. Just don’t sit upwind of him – or Richard Herring for that matter!

The mayhem however didn’t end there. Oh no, it continued until 6am the following morning, although for most of that I was out for the count…………………….

The evening progressed (as these things tend to do) into somewhat of a pub crawl, and after a few hours in this vein, picking up a very drunk Irishman on the way, I decided to head off on my own back to L’s house. After a struggle to get in the front door (not the drink – honest it is a bit stiff after all) I gingerly lowered myself onto the bed. The gingerliness was again not to do with the drink but down to the fact that a couple of years ago L’s ex boyfriend had, on being dumped, decided to take his rage out on the scene of their intimate trysts. As a result the bed was in constant danger of collapse and the slightest movement could have sent it, and its occupant, plummeting to the ground. (OK it’s not six feet in the air but I like plummeting in this context.) After some careful manoeuvring and exhortations to myself not to turn over in the night, I drifted off into blissful sleep.

L and R’s night was however not over by any means. After a much longer pub crawl during which time they managed to lose the Irishman, who by this time was, I believe, paralytic, they headed off home. As they got off the bus at L’s house they realised that they had a new friend. A young lad of 22 stepped off the bus at the same time as them and engaged them in conversation. Neither R nor L have been 22 for quite some time, and maybe he had seen The Graduate, but when asked he was more than keen to give R a piggy back into L’s house in return for a massage. He then produced a video camera and filmed the ensuing action but it was all totally innocent I was assured when I heard the gory details the next morning. The climax (?) was reached when L. suggested that she go and get her camera and take a picture of him. R. advised him to get out while the going was good, and, perhaps not surprisingly, he did.

The next morning (actually mid way towards the afternoon) a very weary R. and L. surfaced.

“Oh you really missed yourself last night”

“Well at least I had a good night’s sleep, and I was very careful not to let the bed collapse”

“Why?”

“Well, you know, the slightest movement and I would have been pitched off with broken bits of wood flying around me.”

“I doubt it” said L. once she had finished laughing at me. “That bed won’t be collapsing any time soon. It’s a new bed”!

Edinburgh Festival 2007 - A Tale of Two T-Shirts

2007-08-07T21:26:00.000Z

Part One – Is That a Rucksack on your back or ………..

Risking life and limb by travelling through so many railway turnstiles with a rucksack on my back, I made my merry way to Edinburgh for the festival. I pitched up with L. at a small pavement café on Cockburn Street eating pasta and breathing in the heady scent of flowers in baskets hanging precariously above us, mingled with cigarette smoke wafting over from other pavement diners. After a leisurely pasta and smoke avoidance in the drizzle (because we are trying to pretend that it’s summer round here) we headed off to see Richard Herring, but not before R. had called to inform us that we were late and in danger of not getting in. (Note: we are always disgustingly late for everything but always seem to get in.)

Richard Herring did not disappoint. Perhaps the paedophile joke was teetering on the edge but he didn’t fall in to the muck and the Chris Langham reference was hysterical and got an excellent response from the audience. The sperm joke was surprisingly profound but perhaps that was just me.

I felt also that he was surprisingly restrained when two people walked out to the toilet right across his stage. He said absolutely nothing and said nothing again when they walked back in. It would seem that he’s a well brought up boy.

Now, I must bring up my concern with the T-Shirt that he was wearing. The T-Shirt in question was an intrinsic and funny part of his set and must have got pretty sweaty during the course of it. I am therefore seriously hoping that he has a few identical T-Shirts to wear during the course of his run so that he can perform the same joke without knocking his audience senseless with layers of built up sweat. Can you imagine the stink if he were to wear the same T-shirt for his whole run. I don’t wish to put anyone off going to see him, but you might wish to check with his agent about his T-Shirt strategy and cleaning facilities. You might also want to ask a similar thing of Robin Ince’s agent but that’s for the next instalment.

Despite this, go and see Richard Herring. He will not disappoint.

And then we were off into the city with its drinking potential stretched out before us and we certainly didn’t waste any of that potential. We pitched helplessly, from one bar of heaving humanity to another until we were part of that heaving humanity. We finally ended up squashed into the corner of a large bar with a beer garden where it would appear that half the lost souls of Edinburgh had chosen as their home for the evening. Despite the rain, people spilled out of the bar into the beer garden to watch helplessly as the rain plopped into their pints.

More people kept coming into the bar. It was standing room only as they squashed and crushed their way in, leaving barely room to breath, never mind drink. And drink they did, copious amounts disappeared down throats and into cavernous bellies. I kept banging into people with my blessed rucksack and those people were giving me some very strange looks in return.

The smile on R.’s face broadened and a wicked gleam came into her eyes.

“This would be a good place for the bombers” she said.

It's Edinburgh Time

2007-08-01T21:51:00.000Z

It’s that time of the year again. I won’t be blogging for a few days now as it’s time to make my annual pilgrimage to The Edinburgh Festival (Hooray). Among the highlights for us this year will be Richard Herring and Robin Ince. I’m not sure what my friends have chosen for us to see, but that adds to the general excitement of not knowing quite what to expect.

What you can expect however, is a full round up of the Festival goings on on my return at the beginning of next week. Have a lovely weekend whatever you do.

I will leave you with Shower Protocol (not my own work but doing the e mail rounds at the moment and sent to me by R.) Enjoy!

Shower Protocol
How To Shower Like a Woman

Take off clothes and place them sectioned in laundry basket according to lights and darks.
Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg-lifts, etc.
Get in the shower.
Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone.
Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.
Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean.
Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced.
Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red.

Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.
Rinse conditioner off hair.
Shave armpits and legs.
Turn off shower.
Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower.
Spray mould spots with Tile cleaner.

Get out of shower.

Dry with towel the size of a small country.
Wrap hair in super absorbent towel.
Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head.
If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.
How To Shower Like a Man

Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile.
Walk naked to the bathroom.
If you see wife along the way, shake willy at her making the 'woo-woo' sound.
Look at your manly physique in the mirror.
Admire the size of your willy and scratch your bum.
Get in the shower.

Wash your face.
Wash your armpits.
Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.
Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower.

Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area.
Wash your bum, leaving those coarse bum hairs stuck on the soap.
Wash your hair.
Make a Shampoo Mohawk.
Wee.
Rinse off and get out of shower.

Partially dry off.
Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of bath the whole time.
Admire willy size in mirror again.

Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on.
Return to bedroom with towel around waist.

If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake willy at her and make the 'woo-woo' sound again.
Throw wet towel on bed.

Is it just me or is it easier and more fun for men?

Never a Dull Moment

2007-07-30T20:44:00.000Z

Perhaps it should have been a dark and stormy night. In actual fact it was a bright and sunny evening but real life isn’t like the movies and let’s be honest, who would want it to be? Fighting off the advances of Hugh Grant while Batman and Spiderman try to outdo each other in the superhero stakes isn’t my idea of a good day, but I digress.

It was Saturday evening and all I was doing was innocently carting computer equipment into my garden shed (maybe another post if it becomes an interesting enough story) when sirens began to wail and police cars and an ambulance raced along our road until they very quickly realised that it was a cul-de-sac and skidded to a rather abrupt halt.

Thoughts of “the PC’s mine officer, it’s not knock off, honest” came to mind but the policemen and ambulance men had other things to think about.

Thankfully this time their thoughts did not concern terrorists but the ubiquitous “group of teenagers” who were milling around in the way that they are wont to do. This does, in the minds of many, constitute them playing havoc with law and order, so had someone called the police and the ambulance just on the strength that they might be about to commit some heinous crime like well, standing in the street and talking?

A serious faced policeman, who didn’t look much older than his interviewees, took statements and the youngsters tried to look innocent with a well practiced attitude of “it wisnae me what done it sur”. Of course, by this stage I was wondering just what been done and it was at that moment that a girl was wheeled into the ambulance. She looked a bit older than the other teens so had they been with her or had they just seen something happen to her and called the police and the ambulance. Should Hercule Poirot have been on the scene with his little grey cells?

A couple of people passed with dogs and I really wished that I had had a dog as it would have given me an ideal opportunity to walk past, nonchalantly like, and hopefully find out what was going on. I could even have trained my dog to do its business near the policeman so that I could dawdle longer and hear more. Sadly it was not to be.

The ambulance drove off and the police and the youngsters were still deep in conversation. At one point someone held up what appeared to be a small yellow box. A detonator perhaps?

Much later when everyone was away and I was hopeful that aimlessly ambling along the street wouldn’t appear too nosey, I took myself off to the spot of all the excitement. I’m not quite sure what I expected to find. Blood? Broken Glass? A hand grenade? Sadly there was nothing there to indicate that anything untoward had happened. There was however a faint, intermittent siren like sound which lasted all night and into the early hours of the morning.

I never did get to find out what happened but there’s never a dull moment in these here parts.

Thoughtful Blogging

2007-07-30T20:37:00.000Z

Kelly has very kindly nominated me for the Thoughtful Blogger Award for making bloggers feel at home on my site. It’s a great honour and there’s always a kettle on and cakes on the go round here.

I’d now like to pass the award on to:-

Valentine Suicide in the hope that I might get some Sainsbury’s Fruitcake when I next visit.
Katie for braving the Scottish Weather and putting up with Glaswegian humour.
Debio for living somewhere hot and sunny.
Pepette whose blog is named Il Pleut Il Mouille. I had to look it up in the French/English dictionary and she’s right, it does.
The Good Woman who is leaving Scotland for sunnier climes.

I’d Have Been Quicker Walking

2007-07-26T21:11:00.000Z

I suppose I should have realised that there was something wrong when I approached the station platform to find far too many people milling about looking disgruntled. The announcement board told the story of their and my impending misery with its stark “Train Delayed”. Since I started my adventures in train travel there have been many imaginative reasons for train delays and cancellations. As well as the infamous “leaf on the line” and “the wrong kind of rain” other memorable excuses have included “the driver didn’t turn up this morning” (and we couldn’t be bothered to find a replacement), and “stormy conditions the previous night” (a slightly stronger wind than normal which let’s be honest, in Scotland we should be able to cope with).

Whatever the reason for the delay, we were never informed and eventually a train hauled itself along the track in the direction of the platform. Of course not the platform it was supposed to be at and we all had to shuffle our way through the throng of passengers whose trains had come in on time and were now rushing in the opposite direction.

When the doors opened we collapsed into the train as if our lives depended on it. Despite it having seemed to be an empty train when we started to step aboard, somewhat miraculously as soon as we were inside all the seats were taken. We were lucky to have got on mind you and felt for those with sadness and anger in their faces who we left behind. They could only watch helplessly as the doors shut in their faces leaving them to whatever fate they imagined awaited on the platform. Let’s be honest their fate would probably be their spouses shouting at them for being late and the dinner being ruined so it probably was a fate worse than death.

The train started its crawl out of the station like a sick old man, coughing and spluttering as he contemplated the last moments of his life. In stark contrast trim eager young trains set off beside us at an energetic pace and at least three had passed us before we even met the daylight outside the station walls. Even the posh voiced taped announcer sounded sick.

"Thi..i..i..i..s train is urgh"

"The…next…stop…will…aargh"

We didn’t hear any more. Either she had expired or she had thrown herself from the train in misery. We never did find out.

The train struggled on. Sometimes stopping for a breather and then hauling itself into unwilling motion again. No conductor came to take tickets and with the loss of the announcer we really hoped that someone was actually driving the train. Eventually, and thankfully, the train came to a standstill at my stop, taking roughly double the time it normally takes. I only hope for the other passengers’ sakes that it made it to the end of its painful journey.

I think I’ll take the car in tomorrow.

Harry Who?

2007-07-24T20:51:00.000Z

Who’s this Harry Potter chappie I keep hearing about? I believe he’s got a book out about gardening - Harry Potter’s Healthy Marrows. Is it any good? It sounds quite interesting and marrows can be so difficult to grow but I’ve heard that he’s a bit of a wizard so it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for him should it?

Apparently he’s had a few books out before this. I don’t suppose any of them are about cabbages? I’ve had nothing but trouble with them this year.

Rockin’ Girl Blogger

2007-07-24T20:49:00.000Z

I have been nominated for a Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award by Debio. This calls for a trip to the shops to buy a glamorous outfit and some killer heels.

I hope I get to meet George Clooney at the awards ceremony. Mmmm I think a trip to La Senza might be in order too don’t you?

Thanks Debio.

Now on to my nominees for the award. They are:-

Kelly the Domestic Goddess
Funky Munky
I Should be Working
Katie
Nunhead Mum

We can all chip in for a taxi but George is mine!

Sadly my blog seems unwilling to add a page element to the template thereby ensuring that the Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award picture may never see the light of day on my blog. If anyone can help I would be most grateful.

Life Begins at 30

2007-07-20T22:39:00.000Z

One of my new colleagues turns the big 3 0 at the weekend and is viewing the experience with some trepidation. This may have had something to do with the fact that her flatmate told her that the best time of her life had been that from 20 – 30 and after that it had gone downhill rapidly. To be fair there are a number of downsides that I have encountered since hitting 30 which I shall painfully relate:-

1. You develop an unhealthy obsession with “what the weather’s going to do tomorrow” and buy a sensible raincoat.

2. You dash home in time to see “Location Location Location” and know that your home must be “decorated in soft neutrals.”

3. You turn up to a nightclub only to have the bouncer ask you respectfully whose mum you are.

4. Your hairdresser has stopped asking you if you are “going anywhere nice tonight”.

5. All your friends are getting married and you haven’t met any single men of your own age for at least 10 years.

6. Your friends have stopped asking you if you are seeing anyone.

7. You meet your mum whilst admiring that lovely cable knit cardy in Marks and Spencers.

8. You realise that the 1980’s only seem like a few years ago.

9. You have colleagues who weren’t even born in the 1980’s.

10. And the worst? You find yourself quite enjoying that nice chap Terry Wogan on R2 of a morning.

I think that I convinced her however that things actually do get better after the age of 30. Actually hitting 30 itself was a bit painful for me but here’s why the subsequent years have been more than kind:-

1. Being cool and fashionable no longer matters and in fact it is quite acceptable to be a little eccentric.

2. You can economise by borrowing your mum’s clothes and shoes without fear of embarrassment or ridicule from your peers who are by now doing the same thing.

3. You now have friends who are older than you, thereby passing the important age milestones before you, making the process less painful when you reach them. (Thanks here must go particularly to R. and J.)

4. You start to mentally prepare for and look forward to the challenges of the mid life crisis.

5. You can criticise younger people for their taste in music and clothes sense and in fact it now becomes a new fun hobby.

6. Your boss doesn’t laugh when you mention that great new idea you have had. OK he also doesn’t take it much further but there is a sense of progress no matter how small.

7. You get to experiment with hair dye as a “gradual lightening” of your hair takes place.

8. Your auntie stops asking you what you are going to be when you grow up despite the fact that neither of you know yourselves yet.

9. When you buy far too many sweeties and the shop assistant gives you a funny look you can say “it’s for the kids”.

10. You can indulge in a relaxing snooze after lunch without anyone thinking anything untoward

See it’s not so bad it it? Now...... Roll on 40. (Gulp)

Kids These Days

2007-07-18T20:56:00.000Z

Hooray – I’ve made it through to the second day of my new job. I think that there was relief all round when I turned up this morning after yesterday’s run through of all the numerous tasks that had been allocated to little old me.

Yesterday on the way home from work on the train I encountered one of those horrors of children, recalcitrant and cruelly joined to an ineffectual mother. The child could possibly have been quite cute in a pleasanter alternative reality but his screwed up childish pout put paid to any notion of that. Said child had one of the biggest helium balloons I had ever seen tied onto his wrist which was battering into everyone within the radius of half the carriage. Mother, as you’ve probably already guessed, did absolutely nothing. Our balloon misery experience was intensified by an open window which gave the balloons trajectory more force as it thwacked into faces and rendered the reading of newspapers impossible. Grown men grew apoplectic with rage but, as is the British way, said nothing. At one point the boy whined that he wanted the balloon untied from his wrist, and when Mother said no in a rare moment of activity, he then proceeded to wave the balloon about even more maniacally. Everyone in the carriage was giving the boy and the mother dirty looks but she appeared to be oblivious and continued to do absolutely nothing as the balloon whipped into the faces of all the nearby passengers with gay abandon. The mother did say something about cutting it off his wrist when they got home. I was very tempted to find a pair of scissors and not only cut the thing off his wrist but also to burst his blessed balloon there and then. That would have shown them both.

When ah were a lass I wouldn’t have been allowed a helium balloon, never mind been allowed to take it on a train. Come to think about it, it is very possible that when ah were a lass they hadn’t yet been invented. Ooh, in my day it were a crust of bread before bed if you were lucky. Kids these days eh!

Schmoozing

2007-07-18T20:20:00.000Z

I'm really not worthy but it appears that I have been nominated for a Schmooze Award by Katie, a Long Islander now living and schmoozing in the fair city of Glasgow. The award is for "the ability to converse casually with others and make social connections". The blogosphere is of course an excellent way of making connections all over the world so long may it continue. Of course part of the fun of being given an award is the ability to pass it on. I would like to award it to Omega Mum for her constantly funny, witty and sometimes poignant posts which never fail to make me smile. The quality of her posts have given her a large circle of blogging buddies, making her an ideal recipient of this award.

Eating for Scotland

2007-07-16T10:48:00.000Z

I have been tagged by The Good Woman to recommend 5 Glasgow Eateries. I have to say that on being tagged I immediately encountered Bloggers Block and the names of the many restaurants I’m sure I must have have visited over the course of the last few months mysteriously vanished from my mind. This is of course the same mind that tried to enter a boarded up shop and car park so perhaps that’s only to be expected. Anyway, whilst I was desperately trawling the vast empty recesses of my memory and t’internet trying to remember where I was when I last encountered a Glasgow Eaterie, R. called me and reminded me where I was while I was with her in any case. So here are the combined recollections that we could rustle up:-

1. Café Cossachok, 38 Albion Street, Glasgow

This restaurant has recently moved into bigger premises in Albion Street and I’m very taken with its Russian, Armenian, Georgian and Ukranian menu which includes Blinis, Beef Stroganof and Musaka. There is a lovely homely atmosphere, the staff are very friendly and the food is very good value for money. There is also live folk and jazz music and an art gallery to peruse at your leisure. The only thing that lets the side down is the puddings which are not home made and appear to have come out of the frozen food section of the local Asda. However everything else is so good that, in my opinion, this small inconsistency can be overlooked.

2. Bombay Blues, 41 Hope Street, Glasgow

If you love Indian food and you love buffets this is the place to go. All manner of Indian delicacies are available in a cosy, friendly atmosphere and at the sort of prices that suit your average penniless P.A. Just don’t do what I did and take the phrase “eat all you can” too literally or your stomach will protest for the next week. I can assure you that when this happened to me it had nothing to do with the food – just my greed.

3. Thai Lemongrass Restaurant, 24 Renfrew Street, Glasgow

All manner of gorgeous, authentic Thai food which I can’t pronounce so it must be good. The service is very pleasant and the atmosphere and décor is fabulous. The prices are not overly cheap but it’s worth saving up for a couple of weeks and going to experience it for yourself.

4. Two Fat Ladies, 118A Blythswood Street, Glasgow

Fortunately you need neither be a fat lady nor have any interest in bingo to gain admittance to this fine establishment. A veritable feast of speciality fish and shellfish awaits, along with a friendly service, an intimate atmosphere and prices that should but won’t have your bank manager freezing your account.

5. Topolino, 285 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

A lovely little Italian establishment offering not just Italian Food, not even M&S food, but burgers, piri piri chicken and Cajun spiced salmon. A friendly service and excellent prices make this a real delight.

I would also like to give an honourable mention to Wagamama, 97 – 103 West George Street (outlets throughout Britain) who do quite the best noodles I have ever tasted.

I believe now that the correct form is to tag three more people to recommend 5 eateries in their necks of the woods. Rather than put the onus on anyone in particular I would just say, if anyone reading this would like to do such a review, I would be very interested to read it.

This Could be the Last Time

2007-07-14T13:43:00.000Z

I left the office, where I have worked for the past 2 ½ years, for the last time yesterday. Around a month ago I had been advised that I had been made redundant. To be honest, it didn’t come as a great surprise as things have been difficult financially for some time. It was still a huge shock though and a few tears were shed. The company will probably be wound up over the next couple of months and it will be sad to see it go. We all had our hopes and dreams for the business which just could not be realised on the basis that we were paying out more money than we were taking in. You don’t have to be a student of economics to see that things are not going to work out under these circumstances.

Maybe I stayed too long. Whenever things were looking bad my boss would say “Don’t worry, it can only get better. Better times are just around the corner.” I really wanted to believe him and fell for the line a good many times but things seemed to get progressively worse with each proclamation of better times ahead.

Over the past month I have been involved in the winding up of the business which has been extremely hard. Somewhat harder was letting the other staff know. Fortunately though they have all been able to find alternative employment with a bit of help from my boss’ contacts. I have also been fortunate enough to find myself another job, leaving my boss to take the ship down on his own.

I had taken a few days off last week and I returned yesterday armed with cakes to say goodbye. The electricity, gas and water had been shut off in most of the building, the formerly busy rooms had been stripped bare and the remaining staff were huddled together in a small room with sagging floorboards which appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

As I was leaving my boss took a phone call and I waited until he had finished.

“Good News?”

“A client is talking about a new big job that is coming up. This could be what we’ve been waiting for. This could really turn it around for us”

I smiled encouragingly and closed the door.

I'm Not From Round Here

2007-07-12T18:14:00.000Z

I had a day off work today (more of which later) and spent the day visiting old haunts and elderly relatives, namely my previous town of residence and my Grannie.

My first failed port of call was Tescos. Now I had been told that it was shut for 6 months for refurbishment but this fact had slipped my mind. It had still slipped my mind when I drove up to the boarded up building and gaily tried to drive into the boarded up car park. I do worry about myself sometimes.

“Can I help you dear?” said a man coming towards me.

“Oh, they must have new car park attendants” I thought

“Yes I’m trying to get into Tesco”.

“The store’s closed dear. You’ve got a long wait. We don’t open again for another 6 months.”

“Oh Dear” I said, somewhat embarrassed. “Erm I don’t come from round here so I didn’t know, sorry”

“Don’t worry you’re not the only one who has done the same thing” I’m sure he lied.

I feel that it may have been more truthful to state that not only was I not from round here but I was in fact from the moon. Far more accurate.

My next attempt at finding an open shop was the second hand bookshop, near my old flat, which I used to visit on a regular basis. On approaching, the first thing I noticed was the dog, a real live Jack Russell, sitting in the window of the shop. Showing excellent business sense, he or she wagged his/her tail whenever a customer came into the shop and barked to scare away any other dogs who approached. Obviously other dogs were serious competition to his bookselling business.

The shop itself was, as usual, in wonderful disarray. It is possible that at some time far in the distant past there was a system of books on subject classified shelves, but that had long since vanished and now books were liberally strewn all over the floor in and out of poly bags with the lucky ones finding shelf space wherever there was room. You must be prepared to spend a good couple of hours in the shop, scrabbling among shelves and on the floor, dodging angry spiders undisturbed for years as you search for a hidden gem which in all probability, and with a lot of patience, you will undoubtedly find.

The human equivalent of the Jack Russell was an animated chap behind the counter. As a small digression it was impossible to actually reach the counter as there were so many books on the floor in front of it. On purchasing a book you had to lean over all the books tossing the book you wanted onto the counter, careful not to trip up as you left.

The shopkeeper had either led an interesting life or had pilfered his interesting life out of one of the many books in his shop. It appeared that he was wanted by the CIA, the FBI, MI5 and various other intelligence agencies in relation to shady work which he had done some twenty years ago. I listened intently because some part of me warned that to show disbelief could prove dangerous. I bought a couple of books and made a hasty exit.

Next, it was off to my Grannie’s for lunch. It would appear that whenever I visit my Grannie we have fish and chips, either from the chippie or Tesco’s. Today was the Tescos option brought to us by the second Tesco that the town is “fortunate” enough to have. We always have tons of tomato ketchup on our fish and chips which is great because when mum and dad visit they don’t approve of tomato ketchup so we miss out. Aren’t we just big kids?

We spent the afternoon rambling about the nearby dams and watching the wildlife (swans, pewits, curlews, swifts) and trying to avoid the seagulls who make it their mission to pelt any hapless humans who come under their flightpath.

Then it was hometime. Having loaded up with sucky sweeties to accompany me I set off. My journey was slightly delayed by a tractor which appeared to be doing about 60mph in the field it was in, hurtling over just in time to pull out of the said field in front of my car where of course it slowed down to 10mph all the way home.

And there we must leave it. Holiday and day out over, it’s back to work tomorrow. Could be worse, at least it’s Friday.

Absolute Friends

2007-07-10T20:34:00.000Z

I have just finished reading Absolute Friends by John Le Carré. I don’t tend to read a lot of spy novels but thought that I would give this one a try. I thoroughly enjoyed it but would have to say that I was at a loss to understand what was going on for much of the time. This is, you understand, not a fault of Le Carré but a fault of mine. As far as I can ascertain the two main characters were not only spies but double agents and I believe double agents twice over unless I’m much mistaken. Does this make them quadruple agents? Then there were a host of other supporting characters who may or may not have also been spies and who may or may not have been double crossing them. Then there were the various shadowy groups that they were spying for, along with the multitude of ideologies supported and denounced which I think may or may not have been the reason for the spying taking place to begin with. Or perhaps not. (Phew!) Add to this not one but two love interests pertaining to one of the lead characters and some evocative descriptive passages and you have a great novel, just one which I struggled to follow from beginning to end. Is it just me as I fear it may be?

To be fair, by the end I was beginning to understand a bit more of what was going on, with the book’s denouncement of the war in Iraq and comment on the media portrayal of terrorism (I think). By that stage, however, it was a bit late for our two slightly hapless heroes but I will say no more in case you haven’t read it. If you haven’t read it you really should. It is a good book despite my confusion. As I’ve said, I think it’s just me.

Well things could be worse. I did finish it and I didn’t get past the first page of Ulysses, but anyone who claims to have finished that one is clearly lying.

The Frontline of the War on Terror

2007-07-08T08:44:00.000Z

Hearing last weekend that Glasgow Airport had been a terror target was bad enough. I didn’t think that things could get any more scary. And then they did. It was reported on the news that the terrorists had been holed up only a few streets away from my very house. Not to diminish the sentiments of my previous post on the subject, but after that things took on a rather surreal edge.

No sooner had my village and county of residence been horrendously mispronounced on News 24 than R. called me in somewhat of a panic.

“Have you been evacuated?” she started, and then

“Is there a bomb in your house? I always thought that your neighbours were a bit strange. It’s them isn’t it? “

I tentatively peered out of the window, but seeing no policemen, vans, sniffer dogs or crime scene tape felt that it was safe to assume that the terrorists had not made my street their base. I advised R. of this and she rang off not sounding entirely convinced.

Of course the terrorists in their “wisdom” had decided to make another small street in my village their base. In a way it does make sense. We are extremely close to Glasgow Airport and so quiet that the last thing you would expect here would be a terrorist cell. They had obviously done their homework on us which is, in itself, pretty terrifying.

Of course it was the talk of the village and everyone laughed. It was the sort of dark, tension filled humour that is used at times of great stress just to stay on the recommended side of sanity. The only people not present were those who lived in the same street as the terrorists as they were not allowed to leave their homes. Mind you I did hear of someone nipping out a back way and shimmying under police tape to get away for an appointment.

Later on, out of sheer nosiness I took myself along to the street in question. There didn’t appear to be any fear in the air, only a strange sort of exhilarating excitement amongst those watching the scene. Reporters and cameramen sat at the end of the street in an expectant manner, with police crime scene tape indicating demarcation zones. Policemen went in and out of houses but didn’t give anything away. A Glasgow Cabbie bringing Japanese reporters told anyone who cared to listen about how he knew the real story. Of course being a Glasgow Cabbie he knew so much more about the incident than the police or the intelligence agencies. (Or maybe he actually did!) Most of the village also turned out and waited in the same expectant manner until about lunchtime when hunger pangs drove all but the most hardy (and those who had brought their picnics for an interesting day out) away. I noticed a couple of the local girls hanging about. No doubt to attract the attention of one of the hunky policemen on duty.

I returned home to a strange tranquillity. I cooked bolognaise sauce as next door’s cat lazily dozed in the front garden and birds gossiped in the trees. It was difficult to imagine that terror had been so close at hand.

Catching Up

2007-07-06T21:57:00.000Z

Well that’s me caught up on all the action since I’ve been away. I’m off now to write some more posts.

See you soon.

An Uneasy Truce

2007-07-06T20:18:00.000Z

Hooray! It would appear that I have success in IT related matters.

The modem and the PC are now talking to each other again, with the PC promising not to nag as much and the modem promising not to criticise the PC’s driving skills.

Things are looking up and long may it continue. Thanks for all your messages while I’ve been “down” and I’m now looking forward to visiting you all and finding out what I’ve been missing.

I'll Be Back

2007-07-03T15:17:00.000Z

I may be away for a couple of days as my modem and my PC are no longer talking to each other. They have been sent to marriage guidance counselling (aka the local PC repair shop) to try and resolve their differences. I therefore have very limited access to IT equipment but will be back as soon as hostilities have been brought to a peaceful resolution.

Glasgow Airport

2007-07-01T09:41:00.000Z

When terrorism comes to only a few miles from your door (and potentially even closer according to some news reports) it does tend to bring it home somewhat.

I have nothing particularly eloquent or intellectual to say on the subject of terrorism but there is nothing particularly eloquent or intellectual about smashing a burning car into an airport terminal full of families with young children going on holiday. The only blessing is that no-one was killed.

Can you imagine the utter panic and terror of the people inside the terminal? Can you imagine how you would explain the unfolding events to the children present? What sort of warped mind conceives and plans these atrocities?

We can only hope that Gordon Brown can succeed where Tony Blair has failed – to halt the cancerous spread of terror.

Balderdash and Piffle

2007-06-29T09:21:00.000Z

Sadly I’m not nearly as sexy as Victoria Coren but I have been asked by RDAL to find out a bit more about the origins of the word Punk and I thought that I would also throw in a bit about These Boots were made for Walking. On worrying that so many words in one comment box would probably cause it to explode I thought that this really merited a post of its own, so here goes.

Due to lack of time I have just done a quick internet trawl on this and I’m not sure how accurate all of the stuff you find on the internet is so I have merely reproduced what I have found. However if anyone else can come up with any other theories I would be most grateful to have them here.

To answer your question about Punk and the origins of the word RDAL I have come up with the following:-

The earliest meaning for punk is a 'prostitute or a whore'. Its origin is unknown but it first appeared in print in England in 1596, and soon was in very wide use. Shakespeare uses it four times, twice in Measure For Measure.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, punk was coming into use in the late 17th century meaning 'rotten, slow-burning wood, used as tinder'. The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology says that it may have been borrowed from the Algonquian word ponk which means, literally, 'living ashes'. The sense that the wood was rotten gained importance as punk began to be used widely. From there, the word took on the meanings of 'something worthless; foolish or empty talk'; 'an inexperienced youth'; and 'a hoodlum'.

The term punk rock was coined by rock critic Dave Marsh and first appeared in print in 1970 in the magazine Creem. He says this about it in an interview: "Our [Creem's] point of view was vulgar, belligerent, often less respectful to rock's major institutions...with the result that all of us--and especially me--were frequently assaulted with the epithet: 'You are such a punk'. I decided this insult would be better construed as a compliment...in order to emphasize our delight in rock's essential barbarism."

Another internet source states the following:-

The word "punk" first made an appearance in music journalism in a 1970 essay, "The Punk Muse: The True Story of Protopathic Spiff Including the Lowdown on the Trouble-Making Five-Percent of America's Youth" by Nick Tosches in Fusion. He described a music that was a "visionary expiation, a cry into the abyss of one's own mordant bullshit," its "poetry is puked, not plotted." That same year, Lester Bangs wrote a novella titled Drug Punk, influenced by William Burroughs' book, Junky, in which there is a line, "Fucking punks think it's a joke. They won't think it's so funny when they're doing five twenty-nine on the island." Dave Marsh used the phrase "punk rock" in his Looney Tunes column in the May 1971 issue of Creem, the same issue that introduced the term "heavy metal" as a genre name. Marsh wrote, "Culturally perverse from birth, I decided that this insult would be better constructed as a compliment, especially given the alternative to such punkist behavior, which I figured was acting like a dignified asshole." Tosches, Bangs, Marsh, Richard Meltzer, Greg Shaw and Lenny Kaye used the term to define a canon of proto-punk bands, including the Velvets, Stooges, MC5, the Modern Lovers and the New York Dolls (DeRogatis, Let It Blurt, 118-119).

And the final source states the following:-

'The word "punk" originally meant a prostitute, moldy wood or fungus. By [January 1976, when New York-based] Punk magazine took its name, it had gone on to mean a person who takes it up the ass in prison, a loser or a form of Sixties garage rock'n'roll' (John Robb, Punk Rock: An Oral History, London: Ebury Press, 2006, p. 150).

And now for something completely different.

On the subject of These Boots were made for walking, the correct title is "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", a song composed by Lee Hazlewood and first recorded by Nancy Sinatra. It was released in February, 1966, and got to Number 1 in the United States and the United Kingdom Pop charts.

Nancy Sinatra was encouraged by Lee Hazlewood to sing the song as if she were a sixteen-year-old girl giving the brush-off to a forty-year-old man.

The song was adopted by troops in the Vietnam War when they marched, and Sinatra traveled there in the mid- to late-1960s to perform for the U.S. soldiers. It was used on the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). Sinatra also sang it on an episode of China Beach in the late-1980s. In 2005, Paul Revere & the Raiders recorded a revamped version of the song using Sinatra's original vocal track. It appeared on the CD Ride to the Wall, Vol. 2, with proceeds going to help Vietnam veterans.

If anyone else can add anything to this I would be very grateful.

I hope this helps, RDAL. Please visit again for more words, although as to whether they are wise or not is a moot point which if you are interested comes from an Anglo-Saxon term for meeting. (Oh I will have to stop this now, I’m actually turning into Victoria Coren!!)

China Buffet King

2007-06-27T17:48:00.000Z

Crackers to my right, spring rolls to my left and I’m stuck on the horns of a dilemma. Not for long though…..

We’re under starters orders at the 7.30 at Braehead. Dinner plates (as large as you like) at the ready, and we’re off. The going looks good. There’s every Chinese dish we could conceivably want to eat. Not only that but we have a certain obligation to eat every conceivable dish merely because it is a buffet and if we’ve paid for it we might as well eat it. Coming up on the inside we start with prawn crackers and spring rolls, moving swiftly on to sesame toast, jumbo shrimp and sushi. Totally foregoing the notion of separating starters and main courses we further pile our plates with Spare Ribs, Mussels, Aromatic Duck, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Lemon Chicken, Beef in Black Bean Sauce, Peking Duck and finish the mountain of food with onion rings, noodles and chips.

People give us strange looks as we go back to our table and a baby starts howling as we pass, but we are beyond worrying. We are at China Buffet King, it’s cheap, it’s cheerful and we are starving.

Ten to fifteen minutes later the going gets a bit harder and we are not so much starving as struggling. The mound of food on our plates does not seem to have decreased any but our stomachs would beg to differ. Those said stomachs are protesting and have started making strange groaning noises (or is that us doing the groaning?) No matter how bad it gets we have to clear our plates, as to do anything else would be ungrateful and what did our mothers always tell us about the starving children in Africa? So we persevere and our trousers and skirts start to strain at the waist. Buttons are surreptitiously undone and our rate of eating slows almost to a standstill.

Eventually after a Herculean effort over the remaining hurdles, our plates are cleared and we’re stuffed. We should of course really have ended our dining experience there, but one final hurdle awaits in the form of dessert. There is of course a well known law (whose name escapes me but Glutton’s Law would be appropriate) which states that no matter how full up you are there is always room for dessert. And so it is that we struggle up for our mandatory visit to the dessert section of the buffet. And what an incredible selection lies therein. The pangs of overeating and tightness around the waist miraculously leave us as we approach and take in the spread before us.

We’re on the home straight now and the plates are again piled high, this time with syrupy pancakes, profiteroles, black forest gateau, cheesecake and, of course, jelly and ice cream. The God of Gluttony has a kindly eye on us though and we manage to finish off our mountains of dessert with no ill effects although we are deserving of much lingering agony for our greed.

At weigh in we had been around a normal healthy weight but come weigh out we’re pronounced unfit to be in the close proximity of food for, oh another week at least.

It’s been 2 days now, my belt’s still tight and my stomach’s still protesting…

Spa Life

2007-06-23T19:16:00.000Z

Luxury is not something that I do a lot of or something which comes at all naturally to me. An exception occurred at the end of last week when I indulged in a Spa Day. To be truthful it was a “Mini Spa” which I believe is the economy version for people who like to think that they are in with the Hoi Polloi but in reality can’t afford it. The TK Maxx of Spa Life if you like.

Ladies and gents who no doubt lunch lazed around the pool and jacuzzi as we entered, complementary towels and robes strewn casually over poolside deckchairs. I spent most of the time in the jacuzzi alongside a chap reading Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (Very good choice sir). Let’s be honest I spent ALL my time there because the pool was too cold and the sauna and steam room were too hot.

Our next port of call was the massage room. As I was later to learn, all the rooms have a theme, and the theme of this one was “The Moroccan Room.” Sadly there was no luxury Marrakesh riad or flying carpets but there were a couple of nice ethnic style cushions delicately arranged beside the CD player.

Soft music emanated from the un-ethnic CD player. The sort of music which would probably have a name such as “Moments of Calm” or if we were lucky “Moroccan Moods”. At one point the masseuse left the room and, as if on cue, some cheery banjo music started up from the CD, only to fade out as she re entered. I got the feeling that cheery banjo music wouldn’t have been her thing and the CD player must have known.

I was a little worried about the massage as I have been told that my shoulders are less than relaxed and was afraid of a Dr Gillian McKeith type lecture from a straight laced “school marm” type in a uniform. Fortunately my masseuse said nothing as we started the massage and in fact said next to nothing from then on in. I had thought that she might have told me with some pride what she was doing and with what speciality products she was doing it with, but no explanation came. Presumably clarification does not come with the “Economy” version of the spa experience.

As the time came for the foot scrub to start, a small worry entered my head. I have incredibly tickly feet and was worried that when the foot scrub started it would reduce me to a giggly fit. I had to fight very hard to stop this happening I can tell you. In fact, she must have previously seen the rather ugly state of my feet and when the time came, she dimmed the lights considerably so that she would not have to witness their full horror.

All too soon time was up and our health conscious spa day was over. Fifteen years ago I would have been swimming in the mud at Glastonbury. What a difference a decade and a half makes. Too much health can only be a bad thing however and we did what can be the only natural conclusion – we headed off to McDonalds for a Big Mac.

Here’s to healthy living.

PC Heaven

2007-06-23T19:12:00.000Z

Hooray. After a few false starts I finally have a PC at home that does what it says on the tin. I can now use e mail and the internet and therefore blog at home to my heart’s content without my PC taking a hissy fit. This hissy fitting PC is currently regarding me with some hatred from the corner of the room wondering why I feel the need to be using that new fangled internet thingy on my fancy new modern PC. I tell it that it is because everyone uses the Internet these days but as we speak it is preparing to join some Luddites and smash up some of these new fangled PC’s.

There’s just no pleasing some people is there?

Avast, Me Hearties!

2007-06-20T12:24:00.000Z

What was the weather like with you this morning? Here, I drove to work through a river previously known as the M8. My little Daihatsu Charade acquitted itself very well and a new career as a boat surely awaits. The rain has now stopped but as we all know only too well could start up again any time.

When will summer come back or have we had it?

Hi-De-Hi

2007-06-18T12:36:00.000Z

The campsite which perhaps at some stage in its life could have been called terra firma was less than firm now, having been beaten into a muddy pulp, and that was before 400 teenagers descended upon it. The rain started the assault on the campers, drenching even those with waterproofs and the wind finished the job, blowing a chilly wind through wet bones. Just a normal summer’s day in Scotland then.

The rain started on Friday and didn’t stop until Sunday. The grass turned brown with mud, and the mud seemed to permeate through our whole camping experience.

Fortunately we were not camping under canvass and had sensibly decided on the log cabin option. We are actually talking camping luxury here because the cabins had central heating and showers.

Within minutes of moving in, the girls’ room looked like an explosion in a beauty salon. Make – up, hair care products, towels, clothes and iPods were liberally strewn on every available surface. Soon the devastation had extended to the bathroom and the hall, with clothes soaking in the sinks, all manner of toiletries ready to topple off ledges, and 20 pairs of shoes strewn about the hall ready to trip up anyone foolish enough to cross it.

All the other teenagers at the camp seemed to be wearing welly boots and other assorted sensible shoes. Not ours. Silver pumps, beaded pumps and stilettos waded through the mud and will probably never look the same again.

Activities had been organised for the kids, but those that had not been cancelled due to the bad weather were not deemed cool enough for our youngsters so they spent most of Saturday having sweetie fights in the cabin.

I took myself off to a “Youth Leaders Seminar” where I managed to fall asleep, waking up just in time to ask a few pertinent questions, in the hope that no one would notice my lack of wakefulness.

The seminars were held in strange little huts, which although very basic, had curtains which could have graced a grand house, held back with fancy tie backs. The floors got progressively muddier and then the mud started climbing the luxury curtains. Whose idea was curtains?

In the evenings the campsite had a “Cinema” which was basically another hut with black bin bags on the windows and a DVD player. Despite the DVD player (possibly on loan from George W Bush) refusing to play “An Inconvenient Truth” on Friday night, I saw it on the Saturday night on a second DVD player. I also saw The Last King of Scotland and Hotel Rwanda. All are excellent films and well worth seeing.

Of course, our youngsters were not at the cinema, preferring the disco where the music was rotten but the boys were cute.

At the end of our stay the girls cried uncontrollably on leaving a friend who had moved away. She, however, seemed strangely unmoved, and was more interested in her mobile phone as she was driven off.

I arrived home on Sunday night with some song by Justin Timberlake and “Eye of the Tiger” ringing in my ears. I still maintain that for teenagers they have some strange musical tastes.

Teenagers with Attitude?

2007-06-14T16:33:00.000Z

On the basis that I can fit into a minibus with an inordinate amount of hair straighteners, iPods and make up I am away this weekend to camp with a group of 20 odd teenagers. I will be taking a couple of good books with me (Michael Chabon – Kavalier & Clay and John Le Carre – Absolute Friends) for reasons of sanity maintenance.

The last time they saw me they thought that they would “introduce me” to the joys of modern music, so were a little surprised when I said that I had actually already heard of Maroon 5. I personally think that Maroon 5 is a bit tame for a group of teenagers. Should they not be listening to something a touch more rebellious? Mind you now they know that I have heard of Maroon 5, that band’s “cool” appeal will be lost and they will hopefully find something more appropriate. They then let me listen to something called Akon (I think). Again I had to admit that it wasn’t too bad. I’m not sure if that went down with them too well either. As an adult who likes the music they like, am I not gradually destroying their faith in it? Well I jolly well should be. They should be out there listening to cutting edge difficult music that I haven’t any hope of understanding never mind liking shouldn’t they? They don’t make teenagers like they used to.

Anyway, if I make it back in one piece I shall see you here again on Monday.

Have a lovely weekend.

Tearing It All Apart

2007-06-13T13:43:00.000Z

What would you do if you wanted a new telephone system in your home or office? Would it be reasonable to assume that one of the best known telecommunications companies would be able to service your needs? One would think so. Feeling confident in this course of action I called out such a company (lets call them UKTEL) asking them to visit and give us a quote. Imagine our surprise when we were told that someone was in the area and would be with us within half an hour. Our faith in the multinational corporations was some way to becoming restored. Come the hour, come the telephone engineer and at the appointed time he duly arrived and proceeded to take detailed notes and measurements, leaving us with the assurance of a swiftly delivered, reasonably priced quotation. And there it should have ended. However we were of course naive in our optimistic assumptions.

A couple of days later we received a phone call from UKTEL wondering if we would like a quote for a new telephone system. An uneasy feeling of Deja Vu swept over me.

“No, that was last week’s conversation and you’ve been and gone.”

“No, no one has been out to see you.” the UKTEL rep assured me.

Now either I had slipped into some parallel universe or an international terrorist had infiltrated our company under the guise of a telephone engineer. I didn’t much like either explanation but was truly flummoxed so the UKTEL Rep said that he would endeavour to investigate. A couple of days later he called back.

“The wrong company came out” he informed us.

“So it wasn’t someone from UKTEL who came out.”

“Yes it was someone from UKTEL.”

“So you’re not from UKTEL?”

“No we are from UKTEL.”

Are you confused? By this stage I certainly was. He then gave me a detailed explanation of the internal machinations of UKTEL involving franchises, umbrellas, mergers, devolvement, involvement and unilateral nuclear disarmament (probably) by the end of which I had lost the will to live.

Essentially someone from the wrong franchise had come out and now this would have to be rectified by someone coming out from the right franchise to get identical information from us.

“Would it not be easier” I suggested “just to get the information you need from Franchise 1 and then you can send us the quote?”

The UKTEL rep probably then shifted awkwardly in his seat and said “Well you see they won’t give us the information”.

It turns out that for a major telecommunications company, they don’t seem very willing to communicate with each other. You see Franchise 1 was annoyed because they had lost the job to Franchise 2 so won’t give them our details. Franchise 2 are no doubt too scared of the big bullies at Franchise 1 to ask a second time if they can have their ball back. At this point I felt compelled to ask him which nursery school he was phoning from, what with the company throwing its toys out the pram with such velocity. With the prospect of yet another UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist coming to visit us to get exactly the same information which we had previously given to the first UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist we politely informed them that we would not be using UKTEL for our telecommunications needs.

As a little postscript to this, shortly afterwards, another employee from UKTEL contacted us to find out the phone number of the UKTEL rep that I had spoken to. A telecommunications company with no internal communications, and to prove it, not even an internal telephone directory. Just what sort of set up are we dealing with here? I don’t think that Sir Alan Sugar would be too impressed.

Sunshine on Leith

2007-06-11T11:08:00.000Z

As you may be aware, my usual attitude to the weather in this part of the world is one of healthy despair. However Saturday was somewhat of a revelation. The sun not only peeped through a chink in the clouds, it positively told the clouds to take a long walk over a short cliff, which, for once they did and a glorious sunny day was the result. And what a result. Sandals, t-shirts and shorts were fished from the bottom of drawers and faces metamorphosed from frozen wet misery into radiant sun-kissed happiness. Actually the sun-kissed may have been the result of a few too many tanning sessions, but we’ll let that lie.

Somewhat appropriately I went to see Sunshine on Leith in Glasgow. Taking previously written songs by The Proclaimers and moulding a musical around them might seem like a challenge, but themes of love, loss, separation and heartache run through musicals and popular music in such equal measure as to minimise that challenge considerably.

The storyline involves three couples who variously fall in and out of love, surrounded by a supporting cast who help them through the pain by singing an appropriate Proclaimers song to them, further enhanced by a quirky dance routine. Having watched a fair number of musicals, this form of “Musical/Dance Therapy” seems, by the time the curtain falls, to be an effective emotional problem solving strategy. I’m sure that Psychotherapists the world over are taking note.

I did take some issue with one central character being actively dissuaded from following her dreams of going to America, a move which by the final scene offered apologetic undertones which did not sit easily with me.

To add to this, my viewing experience was somewhat curtailed by a thicket of acutely angled hair sitting in front of me. Further interruptions ensued when, over the course of the evening, an inordinate amount of people felt the need to excuse themselves causing us to spend a good deal of the time bobbing up and down in our seats like demented penguins.

All in all however, because I don’t want to end on too negative a note, a good night out was had by all. Well, the weather was nice and we could all use a few Proclaimers songs to cheer us up.

* * *

This morning, on coming into work, I have just heard the worst possible news. Apparently the weather is to get progressively worse over the rest of the week, culminating in a disastrous 11 degrees and rain by Friday. I am quite distraught. What did I say about ending on a negative note?

Watch the Wall my Darling while the Gentlemen Go By

2007-06-08T16:38:00.000Z

Some time ago when my circumstances were altogether different from that of today I lived in a street whose circumstances had followed an oblivious downward trajectory over the years, similar to Charles Handy’s frog, but without the boiling water. At this time I had the good fortune to live within cruising distance of a brothel and a drug den. Not that I partook of any of their services you understand.

The drug den was a rather unassuming flat whose novel feature was a rather attractive globe in the front room. Obviously so as to educate clients from where in the world their purchases had come.

The brothel was a large mansion which had lost the grandeur of its former days. Paint peeled from the walls and the garden had become a vast wilderness, attracting only the neighbourhood cats, living out their fantasies of stalking gazelle in the Serengeti. The ladies of the night whirled and stumbled along its driveway back and forth at all hours of the day and night. The naive would comment that both houses were home to rather large families and those who knew better would say nothing, only give a weary smile.

One day there was a fire in the drug den and the local paper said that “flames shot up into the air”. However I watched the whole thing and there wasn’t much more than a puff of smoke and a couple of ladies standing in the street in their nightgowns. This is, you understand the same paper that on 9/11 led with the headline “Drug Dealer Jailed” and had a small paragraph entitled “A Bit of Trouble in America”* hidden away on page 10.

The nights were noisy. Door slammed, people shouted and someone once landed in my hedge. In the mornings strangely attired ladies and gentlemen would stumble their way to the corner shop to buy whatever they needed to bring them down from the night before.

Then one day the police were on the scene. Attempting to be unobtrusive but failing miserably, they made their presence felt. Cars were loaded up from first the brothel, then the drug den and driven away. “Oh that nice family have left” one elderly lady was heard to say. “Well their teenagers were a bit on the wild side” another countered.

And that was the end of the bohemian dream. The flats where the drug den had been were knocked down to make way for “executive” (ie very over priced) new build flats and a new family moved into the former Brothel. I wonder if they ever found out about its former existence.

I moved away. Things would never be the same again. The street was becoming a bit too up and coming for my sensibilities.

* This may not have been the exact line but you get the picture.

He Doesn't Look a Thing Like George Formby but he Talks Like a Window Cleaner

2007-06-07T10:08:00.000Z

It had been a long day concerning itself with crunching numbers so hard that broken teeth were a recurring anxiety. The drive home was a relentless crawl, the monotony of which was broken only by mint humbugs slowly consumed before they disintegrated in the heat. Eventually I made it home, not before taking the long way round to avoid the new roadworks placed at just the right intervals to catch out the unwary motorist. I struggled up the stairs, coats and bags flung asunder to prepare dinner and thereafter a long luxurious soak in the bath. With dinner over, the warm froth of sweet smelling bubbles, flickering candles and soft music tempted me into the arms of sheer indulgence and relaxation. I entered the heavenly bathtub, to relax into the warmth letting the cares of the day melt away.

And then the doorbell rang. I thought about getting out of the bath, then decided against it. This was my moment and nothing should detract from it. The world could wait. A couple of seconds later and the door was rather unceremoniously thumped. Panic skitted across my brain. Could it be a burglar? Surely burglars don’t ring the bell first to ask politely if they can rob your house do they?

Reluctantly I levered myself out of my heavenly repose, threw on a dressing gown and, still dripping from every conceivable location, made my way to the door.

A badly shaven man in clothes apparently unwashed for several millennia stood in front of me, seemingly unmoved by my state of dripping undress.

“Window Cleaner?” was his monosyllabic question. I was tempted to respond with “No, I’m not but if you know of a clean one let me know”. However in the manner of the best of politicians I answered his question with another, “How much do I owe you?” Payment out of the way he sauntered off, but not before meeting his mate and throwing suspicious glances in the direction of my house. To be fair to him I have now got clean windows, in fact now so clean that I need to keep the curtains closed at all times so that no-one can peep in, thus defeating the purpose somewhat.

I tried to return to my bath, but the water was tepid, the bubbles had disappeared and the candles had burned down. The moment was lost and I let the water trickle its way down the drain with what was left of my relaxation time.

Why did I agree to have my windows cleaned?

Whisky A Go Go

2007-06-05T11:37:00.000Z

I have a bit of a quandary today.

I woke up with a rather sore throat this morning and over the course of the day it has got progressively worse. It’s hot, sore and when I swallow I feel as if it would be less painful to swallow rusty nails. Oh yes, it’s that bad. Now, in my experience, the best way to deal with this type of sore throat is to drink lots of whisky. Obviously only for its medicinal properties you understand. It will leave you with an incredible hangover but your throat will have returned to its senses or will at least have been numbed into the never never until it does. However I am going to a rather important meeting this evening where decorum and probably abstinence is everything. So what do I do? Do I turn up unable to talk lest I start another battle between the germs in my throat and my pain receptors or do I turn up slurring my speech, smelling strongly of whisky but free from pain?

I must make a decision soon because the pain is increasing and those pain receptors canna’ take much more captain!

When I’m (Not) Cleaning Windows

2007-06-04T08:18:00.000Z

I have, I fear, yet again been exposed as a disgrace to housewifery. The fact that I am neither anyone’s wife nor resident in my house for any lengths of time appears not to be the point. The heavy hand of Housewife’s Law fell upon me at the weekend when my next-door neighbour approached me. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a couple of weeks now” she said. Doesn’t your heart sink on hearing words such as these? They take you back to schooldays and the knowledge that some terrible punishment awaits for whichever one of your misdemeanours you have been found out this time.

“Morning” I said, affecting a weak smile and hoping that my apparent friendliness would diminish whatever cruel punishment awaited. “I’ve noticed that your windows are needing a bit of a clean” she stated. Now she does have a point. I have struggled to find a window cleaner for the last couple of months and my windows have become progressively darker to the point where they would soon have made effective WWII Blackout Curtains and if they were a van, someone would have written “plez cleen me” on them by now. I would imagine that introducing these darker tones to my windows was, in her estimation, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood somewhat. (She wants to live between a brothel and a drug den, but that’s an entirely different post.)

“Now I’m sure that you’re like me and you like clean windows,” she continued. On the evidence of my blackening windows I couldn’t think what could possibly have drawn her to that conclusion, but I felt that the only right and proper response was a resounding “Yes of course”. “Good” she said. “So I’ve organised for my window cleaner to clean your windows as well.” This was, you understand a statement of intent, which I could no less back out of than desist from breathing.

I thanked her profusely for her kindness and was about to hurry off when she hit me with her final thought. “And your parents have made such a good job of your garden”. Now that’s taking the cruelty too far because the person who has been slaving for hours at a time over a hot lawnmower, attempting to dodge death inducing blades, getting all manner of nastiness under her fingernails, and thereby not having the time to find a window cleaner has in fact been me. Thanks for that Mrs X..

I’ve Been Tagged

2007-05-31T10:17:00.000Z

You may have seen these on other blogs. Basically you are tagged as I have been by The Good Woman and you reveal eight interesting facts about yourself and then nominate five other bloggers to do the same. Actually I’m going to nominate eight. I’m sure the Blogosphere Powers That Be won’t mind.
My eight facts are:

The most interesting event to happen on the day I was born was that Paul McCartney was fined for importing cannabis into Sweden. Sadly not much else of historical note happened that day although my parents might beg to differ (well at least I hope so).

I stopped going to the gym after realising that I had actually gained weight since starting. This may have been due to the fact that I thought that now I was going to the gym I could eat more sweets. I have since discovered that it doesn’t work like that. The gym and the sweets had to go.

I used to be in a band. We weren’t very good. We only played the sort of gigs where the band pays the venue to let them play. Then they paid us not to come back!

I have had a tiny piece of lead embedded in my finger since I was five years old, but no lead poisoning to speak of up till now.

I am right handed but can write almost perfect mirror writing with my left hand.

I can speak a tiny bit of French, but not enough to carry me through a conversation with a real French person (sorry Pepette) (unless they are speaking English of course).

My two favourite shows on at the moment are Ugly Betty and House. What I would be interested to know here from any American readers (Katie) is, is Hugh Laurie’s American accent any good or does it make you cringe every time you hear it?

I cry at most films and have even been known to cry while watching comedies. I have also been known to fall asleep during films and slept through “In Bed With Madonna”, but that doesn’t count because in my humble opinion it was an awful film.

Added Value - Buy 8 get one free extra fact - I am obsessed with the weather. But I think you might already have guessed that.

Now it’s your turn. My nominations are:-

Crystal Jigsaw
Kelly the Domestic Goddess
Kirsty in N’Awlins
I Should Be Working
Nunhead Mum of One
Omega Mum
Pepette
Valentine Suicide

Have fun and I look forward to reading your interesting facts.

Ricky Throws Some Shapes

2007-05-29T10:53:00.000Z

It’s Tuesday morning and I approach my work PC with some trepidation. You see I have become somewhat of a jinx on technology. Over the bank holiday weekend I’ve managed to break not one, but two computers. The first to bite the dust was my home PC which has been at death’s door for nigh on a year and finally won its fight for self-annihilation on Saturday. On Sunday my dad allowed me to use his PC and how did I repay him. Yes, you’ve guessed it – I managed to break it as well. We are now a two broken computer family and the delight of IT helpdesk personnel everywhere.

My technological tale of woe had started when I attempted the view the “Rock at the Racecourse” website and it all became a bit too much for my PC, so perhaps I can blame Deacon Blue for my IT distress.

After all my weather worries, the afternoon and evening at Ayr Racecourse were lovely, not particularly warm, but a nice clear blue sky and no mud so no need for macs of any sort.

I had expected, on entering the racecourse/concert venue, to join a great swarming mass of concert goers all desperate to get into the concert to see their idols. Instead a few people wandered in the direction of the entrance in a rather haphazard manner. It was then that I noticed the Banjo Player.

“Banjo Murderer” might have been a more appropriate term however as he executed a dismal cross between “Duelling Banjos” and “Ye cannae shove yer Grannie aff the bus”. Every time I looked in his direction he gave me a strange unsettling stare. I hoped that, in the name of good music and my sanity, he was not one of the acts on the bill.

Things were now hotting up on the queue front. More than two people at a time were going in. I thought that my pre-concert experience couldn’t get any stranger, and then it did. I was accosted by a Market Researcher.

I ask you – a Market Researcher at a concert. Whatever next? If there are any younger readers out there, please tell me, is Market Research a common practice before going into concerts? In my day they handed out drugs and knock off tickets. I therefore fear for our coming generations if the best pre-concert experience offered is a bad banjo player and a market research questionnaire.

Despite this I felt that I was very helpful when asked my reason for coming. I told the Market Researcher that I was planning to crash Deacon Blue’s after show party, take loads of drugs and sleep with them all (even Lorraine). She left me alone after that. (Actually I didn’t really do any of these things although Ricky does have a certain je ne sais quoi.)

On entering the concert venue, we repaired to the bar. Much repairing was obviously needed and we stayed there for quite some time, missing all the hip and happening bands who were on earlier in the afternoon.

By the time we had finished repairing whatever it was that was broken (sadly not computers) The Saw Doctors were well through their set. I have to admit to not knowing a lot of their songs but they played the hits (including I Useda Lover) and apparently some new tunes according to the more expert R and M.

Now I’ve seen Deacon Blue before. I just don’t remember all the details, so it must have been a good night. They were certainly entertaining on Saturday. Witness, Ricky hunched over his guitar for the first song and then throwing some impressive shapes for the remaining ones. Further, his missus, Lorraine whirling like a veritable dervish around the stage rattling her tambourine and getting jiggy with Ricky and various other assorted bandmembers. Ricky glugging liberally from his bottle of water, then spewing it from his mouth over himself, his bandmates and the audience. One solitary plastic glass of beer was chucked from the audience but nothing could match Ricky’s water spraying technique.

The audience lapped up all the songs and a strange tale told as an intro to “Fergus sings the Blues” They sang “Dignity” for “The Blue” so that they didn’t have to, to the obvious delight of the band. Ricky was in total ecstasy. By the end of the gig he was bathed in spotlight, arms outstretched, Messiah like, declaring his love for Ayr and his wish never to go back to Glasgow. The crowd roared its approval. And then they were off. Presumably back to Glasgow after all and a terse meeting with the Lord Provost of that city about his inflammatory anti-Glaswegian remarks.

As for me, I hit the road home, glad that it had actually stayed dry and the field hadn’t turned into a mudbath. I did have a large bath towel in the boot of my car just in case though.

If I see Ricky about town in Glasgow of an afternoon I’ll tell him that I enjoyed the gig. I just won’t be asking him out for a drink any time soon.

Hailstones

2007-05-25T13:33:00.000Z

And talking of rotten weather, there are now hailstones bouncing off my window ledge with gay abandon - IN MAY!!!!!!!!

I Hope I Dry Before I Get Cold

2007-05-25T13:06:00.000Z

I’m going to a concert at the weekend. It’s Deacon Blue and The Saw Doctors at Ayr Racecourse. Hooray you might say, but I may have a problem. The weather forecast is for, yes you’ve guessed it, rain.

The prospect of rain is not one which fills me with any joy, although you could say that I should have got used to it by now, and it gives me a somewhat worrying clothing dilemma. You see I’m considering the wearing of a long green waxed trench coat because if it rains it will be the only thing capable of keeping me and the elements at a healthy distance. However I fear that this is not suitable concert wear and that I may be the subject of some derision.

Rain never seemed to bother me in my younger concert going days. This may of course have been because of the copious amounts of alcohol consumed as a precursor, cursor* and après cursor * to these events. However alcohol is not a luxury to be afforded me this time because I am driving to the concert. There and back. What a thought. In the heady days of youth the thought of going to a concert in a car, never mind in a green waxy trench coat would have been an anathema. Glastonbury and T-In the Park were serviced by a number of busses travelling from all corners of the country. The hedonistic lifestyle started the moment you set foot on the bus. Drinks were drunk, hair was braided, other things happened that I can’t discuss on a public site and the party began. By the time you arrived at your destination you might not have known what day of the week it was and a number of strange intermingling smells were permeating your consciousness but friendships had been made and a sense of community spirit prevailed. We thought that we were neo hippies, before we realised that our parents had been there before us and had done it so much better.

So here I am, an adult of sorts, and I’m going to be driving to a concert wearing, in effect, a long green waxed jacket. How we would have laughed on that Glastonbury bus, had someone so attired stepped on and I know that it’s not what my parents fought the hippie wars for.

So what do I do? Do I wear the trench coat and risk looking like a fool or do I wear my leather-look jacket and risk catching a chill? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

* I may have made these words up.

Happiness is a Warm Daihatsu

2007-05-23T11:06:00.000Z

“Over hill, over dale, through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale, through flood, through fire.”

Well maybe not through fire, but I’ve done most of the rest in my trusty Daihatsu. My favourite car of the moment and fortunately one easier to drive than it is to spell.

I give you the Daihatsu Copen. It’s sporty, funky, cute, almost cuddly and it’s red. Bright red and I do love a nice red car. It’s got alloy wheels, rear spoiler, and a fantastic hard top which opens up to let the wind blow through your hair as you cruise along Sauchiehall Street of a morning. And the best part is that I got to sit in one once.

OK, so I don’t actually own one myself. The budget won’t quite stretch that far (although for a sports car they are surprisingly cheap) and it wouldn’t last long parked in Glasgow City Centre (this makes me feel a bit better). What I do have is a Daihatsu Charade. A small nippy “city” car in silver (not grey apparently) and no less enigmatic than the Copen. The Charade and I have an understanding. As we tear up the countryside (responsibly of course) plotting world domination together, she pretends that she’s the funky Copen and I don’t disabuse her of this notion.

However back to Sports Cars. Owning one myself is of course a dream but there is something really special about having a sports car. To me it speaks of freedom, unfettered by the world and by responsibility. To be free to do what you want any old time. To spend the day cruising with the roof down and the radio on, just because you can.

Which is why it was with some dismay that I heard of the imminent departure of such a sports car from the family of G. The decision was taken on the discovery that baby number two was on the way and it was decided that a sports car was no longer practical. While I have every respect for them for holding out until baby number two, it’s an indication of a little bit of freedom lost and a little bit of settled down life gained.

Where will the sports car go? To a single girl like me, but one who has a bit more money to spend? And what will replace it? A sturdy practical family car ideal for shopping and school runs, while the sports car heads off into the sunset and life gets a little bit more settled down.

Sometimes I have moments of yearning for the settled down life myself, but tonight its back to the Copen/Charade, windows down (unless it’s raining) volume up and we hit the road to freedom.

A Cheery Dearie

2007-05-18T17:11:00.000Z

Here's a cheery thought for a Friday.

It was a damp, miserable day in Glasgow. The sort of day that we seem to get rather a lot around here despite the promises of Global Warming. To take my mind off the inclement weather I did what comes most naturally. I indulged in a spot of retail therapy. It was while shopping that I found myself talking to a little old lady who declared rather mournfully (in the mournful way that seems to come naturally to many Scots) "Well, that's us had our summer then".

Her little old face with its little old hang dog expression reminded me somewhat of a Basset Hound. Did I offer her calm, quiet, understanding sympathy. Oh no, not I. If I had known her better (or even at all) I would have advised her to pull herself together pretty sharpish. As I didn't know her from Adam (and let's be honest I don't even know Adam) I exclaimed in a friendly but not to be messed with sort of fashion "For goodness sake we're only in May. I'm sure we'll get better weather between now and the end of the summer". Wondering if I had slightly overdone it on the forcefulness I then added in a somewhat softer tone "Don't worry about it".

The little old lady didn't show any signs of relief. In fact she didn't show many signs at all. I hastily left the shop and this poor soul to her weather woes.

Why, you might wonder was she not reassured by the prospect of better weather. My theory is this. The temperature will rise ever so slightly. The clouds will part and the sun will start to sizzle the streets. Wherever you look people will be out in shorts and T shirts embracing the heat. Where will she be? I’ll tell you where. She’ll still be in that little shop, with the same hang dog expression and this time she’ll be saying “It’s just too hot these days, I just can’t cope with this heat.” There's just no pleasing some people is there?

Compensation Culture

2007-05-17T15:53:00.000Z

What is the world coming to? Spotted in the paper this news item:-

Jessica Turner, 12, of Chicago is demanding £250,000 in compensation after a teacher showed the “gay romance” Brokeback Mountain to her class.

Jessica said she suffered “psychological distress” after seeing the film. Her grandfather and guardian, Kenneth Richardson said “I had complained before about curse words in books but this was the last straw."

Now I’m sorry, but what a load of nonsense. I admit to not actually having seen the film, but having seen this news item I really wish I had. So the “curse words” in this film are very much worse than the words she must hear (and let’s not beat about the bush, probably uses herself) in the playground every day? I don’t know any 12 year olds who wouldn’t want to see a film with some swearing in it. They’d be raving about it for weeks afterwards (as well as repeating all the words concerned.)

I fail to see that a film which won three Oscars could cause “psychological distress”. A film about love, longing and ultimate despair. OK some of this may have gone over the heads of some schoolchildren but psychological distress is unlikely.

Apart from anything else, what is a 12 year old going to do with £250,000? Now I admit that I’m not the best with figures but when I was that age I wouldn’t have had any concept of how much £250,000 was. She’ll get through a lot of McFly CDs with that sort of money. Unless McFly CDs contain too many curse words for her delicate constitution.

Of course it’s not quite as simple as that. Jessica is suing the Chicago Board of Education jointly with her grandfather and I’m sure he has a very clear concept of what £250,000 means. Me, cynical? Never.

Sadly they’ll probably win, and when they do, and little innocent Jessica jumps in the air and says “Shit” or something similar, I hope that the Chicago Board of Education are taking note.

Tomato and Basil Loaf

2007-05-17T14:37:00.000Z

After what has been a hectic morning, here is the Tomato and Basil Loaf recipe. I wish you better luck than I have had, and any hints and tips would be very gratefully appreciated. My problem seems to be in getting the bread to rise.

Ingredients (Makes 2 good sized loaves)

300ml/10fl oz/1 ¼ cups warm water
1 sachet Asda or equivalent dried yeast (this is probably equivalent to about 2tsp)
Pinch sugar
15ml/1tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
450g/1lb/4 cups strong white Bread Making Flour
5ml/1tsp salt
1.5ml/1/4 tsp black pepper
50g/2oz/1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
15ml/1tbsp sun dried tomato paste
15ml/1tbsp chopped fresh basil (1 – 2 tsp dried will do)
15ml/1tbsp chopped fresh parsley (1 – 2 tsp dried will do)

1. Put half the warm water in a jug. Sprinkle the yeast on top. Add the sugar, mix well and leave to stand for 10 minutes.

2. Heat the olive oil in a small frying pan and fry the onion gently until golden brown.

3. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl with the salt and pepper. Make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture, the fried onion (with the oil) the sun dried tomatoes, sun dried tomato paste, herbs and remaining water. Gradually incorporate the flour and mix to a soft dough, adding a little extra water if necessary.

4. Turn the dough on to a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. (The recipe says 5 minutes but I think 10 to 15 might be better)
Place in a mixing bowl, cover with a damp dish towel and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours until the dough has doubled in bulk. . Lightly grease a baking tray. (I find that greasing it with olive oil is good. Never never never use 1 cal spray or the bottom of your bread will be a burned black mess!!!)

5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead again for a few minutes. Split the dough into two and roll out to form 2 loaves. Place on the prepared baking tray. Cover and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes until well risen. Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/Gas 7.

6. Dust the loaf with a little flour. Bake for 10 minutes then lower the oven temperature to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas 6. Bake for 20 minutes more, or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped underneath. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool slightly before serving.

James Bond Has Left The Building

2007-05-15T14:44:00.000Z

The sun had got his hat on, but his mum didn’t allow him out to play. And so it was that on Saturday, the day of our big James Bond Event, it was a touch cloudy and chilly. Rain hovered in the air, aquiver with warning of impending downpour, but fortunately, the warning came to nothing.

I got to look official and important carrying a clipboard and pen around all day, somewhat incongruously dressed up as a “Bond Girl” in a floaty dress with a large red rose perched atop my head. I don’t think that either Eva Green or Ursula Andress ever carried a clipboard and pen so I felt pretty special. It must be said that I came near to freezing in said floaty dress and had to be told to smile occasionally. This was somewhat hard having had 3 ½ hours sleep and a mouth so cold that I could barely talk, never mind smile.

Sadly, despite our best attempts, no celebrity was forthcoming to perform the opening ceremony. As one of our team members would say “we’re just not sexy enough”. I personally think that they had had a tip off that a certain someone would be writing a post about them afterwards.

Our bouncy castle, coming somewhat inexplicably from China, was impounded at Customs. Apparently the Chinese, on hearing that it was destined for James Bond, thought that it was part of a dastardly plot by the British Intelligence Service for world domination. They may release it on delivery of Daniel Craig and an Aston Martin.

The youth group were unhappy about the lack of a bouncy castle and complained that there just wasn’t enough for older people to do. Older People? I couldn’t quite imagine my 93 year old grannie negotiating the now non-existent bouncy castle, but it was nice of them to think of their elders and betters. Of course it turned out that by “older people” they meant 15 – 16 year olds ie themelves. If they are old now, what will that make them when they hit 93?

Having said that, the event was of course a tremendous success. Our small village gets together, has copious amounts of coffee, tea and buns, and a huge amount of money is raised for charity. It isn’t sexy but it’s important because not only do charities benefit, but it also brings people together in an age when community spirit can be somewhat lacking.

Now I’ll have a well earned rest for a couple of months, before the planning for next year’s extravaganza starts. Anyone got a good idea for a theme and/or a celebrity?

A Decadent Westerner

2007-05-12T22:36:00.000Z

I had a rather scary dream last night in which a terrorist was trying to blow me up because I was a "Decadent Westerner". I tried to persuade said terrorist that, while I could not quibble with being a Westerner, I really try not to be too decadent if I can possibly help it. I did refer him to my previous post but I'm not sure if he read it or if it made any difference. I woke up before he had had a chance to detonate the bomb. Will tense negotiations reoccur in the wee small hours tonight, or will I have somewhat more pleasant dreams. The thought plickens.

A Bit of a Do

2007-05-10T14:19:00.000Z

I’m looking wistfully through some lovely dresses. Dresses which are lovingly wrapped in tissue and are, for most of the time, stored away out of reach. The dresses all belong to me and I have a little tear in my eye. Why so sad? (as the hooker said to Michael J Fox in the Film “Bright Lights Big City”).

(Why such sad film trivia knowledge? – but that’s another post.)

You see I have some lovely dresses, bought in a fog of positivity and hopefulness, with the budget pushed to its limits, and nowhere to go in them. I never seem to be invited to the sort of functions which require the men in “Black Ties” and ladies to complement this with a dazzling array of sparkling, floaty evening gowns. I admit to going to many a great gathering where jeans are the norm, much drinking and fun is to be had and wouldn’t miss them for the world. But just once, wouldn’t it be nice to go to some fancy event where I could put on a posh frock, put my hair up and pretend to be sophisticated for an evening?

Not actually being trained in etiquette and the ways of the posh, I suppose it’s quite likely that I would disgrace myself by spilling red wine down myself, tripping over my dress or eating one too many canapés. I know of no men who would be seen dead in a black tie (or any other type of tie for that matter.) I’d probably try to talk to someone like Posh n’ Becks and find them dreadful bores. I might even drop off to sleep with the sheer tedium of it all although I doubt that Posh n’ Becks would notice. They’d be too busy worrying about who was noticing them. All in all I would probably have had an awful evening but at least I’d have got to wear one of my good frocks.

My horoscope (which of course I don’t take too seriously) said that today I would “have to let go of one of my dreams”. I think perhaps that this might be the one. Posh functions are perhaps not really me, so I will pack the dresses away again until the next time I feel the need for a little wistfulness.

Domestic Goddesticity

2007-05-08T15:21:00.000Z

I’m all for feminism and being a career woman. The only problem is that I like a bit of domestic bliss as well and therein lies the problem. I just don’t have time for both. In my ideal world I would be holding down a sensible and high flying job during the day and spending my evenings and weekends, socialising, baking, reading, shopping and taking long walks followed by hot baths. It all sounds like heaven. Sadly it would appear that I don’t have time for heaven, as was brought home to me over the weekend.

It should have been so simple. With a busy week in front of me (our big event happening this coming Saturday) I was going to do some leisurely cooking and baking in advance and then freezing it, ready to be defrosted for quick and easy eating after a long day.

The plan was to make Chicken Paprika and some bread as an accompaniment. Delicious, or so I thought.

First to be made was the Chicken Paprika. Secure in the knowledge that I had correctly followed the recipe, I dished the chicken into individual portions to be stored in the freezer. It was on opening the fridge/freezer door that I noticed the yoghurt which I had forgotten to add to the Chicken Paprika. I can now expect to find my tongue ablaze with Paprika on eating this first delicacy.

I then realised that I had burned the pot I had cooked it in. Not just a little burn. Oh no, the kind of burn that a days soaking, a few hours boiling and some CIF couldn’t shift. I’ve now given up and will try to put a positive spin on the black crusty thing lurking at the bottom of my pot.

Now I know that Bread is a recurring theme of this blog so I apologise in advance but my second disaster was with yeast and dough. I made it once, it didn’t work out. I made it a second time and it was fine. I rested on my laurels and forgot the phrase “pride comes before a fall”. Oh and what a spectacular fall this was. I fell right out of those laurels and bashed my head on the ground, with not even a soft bit of bread to break my fall.

My excuse is that I was rushing the bread because, again, I didn’t have a lot of spare time. Secondly I thought that as I was now an experienced bread maker, I could cut corners, experiment and generally do what I wanted. THIS IS WRONG. ALWAYS RESPECT THE BREAD OR IT WILL NOT RESPECT YOU.

Corners were cut, quantities were changed and the result was a charred soggy mess that took me 5 ½ hours to achieve. I could have wept. In fact, I almost did, but I had visitors coming, so I had to keep my chin up, buy some cake and carry on.

When they did arrive, one look at the bread told them the sorry tale and when their toddler tried to take some, he was hastily dragged away by his mum.

Of course I am putting this lack of culinary skill down to the lack of time I had to do it. Nothing to do with just not being the domestic goddess that I would dearly wish to be.

What Should She Do?

2007-05-08T13:07:00.000Z

A friend of mine has a quandary. She is the PA to someone reasonably well known (xxx - sorry, can't say who) who has been the subject of quite serious criticism in the press. There have even been (in her eyes) unfair critisisms of xxx amongst colleagues. She wants to stand up for xxx but is afraid that she will be vilified if she does so. She enjoys working for xxx, and doesn't want to leave, but the situation is getting her down.

My personal view is that xxx should get a better PR person, but that's just me!

An Alternative Universe

2007-05-03T15:49:00.000Z

Sometimes the sheer stupidity of an individual leaves me dumbfounded. I read a story yesterday about a motorist who thought that it was safe to drive after downing nine pints as long as he wore his seatbelt. (We must assume that the said nine pints contained alcoholic beverage rather than water.) So he thought that his judgement wouldn’t be impaired? He was doing 80mph in a 30mph zone! I would call that very impaired judgement wouldn’t you?

So if drink driving and speeding is OK as long as you have your seatbelt on, what else would be OK in this alternative universe?

Robbing someone’s house would be OK as long as you put back everything neatly when you had finished.

Attacking someone would be OK as long as you did it in a safe place where they couldn’t fall and bang their head.

Murder would be OK as long as the murderer gave a detailed explanation afterwards of his motive. This happens in almost all detective novels but almost never in real life.

If you can think of any more or any better examples (which I’m sure you can) please let me know.

Fancy a Cuppa?

2007-05-03T15:01:00.000Z

With apologies to Clair for sort of nicking one of her ideas, it occurred to me today that there might be some readers of this blog who have very nice blogs of their own which I have never visited. If that's the case, send me a link and I'll visit. I'll take a cup of tea if you've the kettle on, and a few biccies would be nice too. Alternatively if you know of any good websites which I might enjoy, leave me a link as well and I'll trundle over to take a look.

Cheers my dears.

PS - I was going to do a post about the Elections, but I think I'll wait until the results tomorrow.

I Wanna Be Elected

2007-04-30T14:40:00.000Z

Honestly, who would you vote for? I’m all for democracy, but having to vote isn’t the most fun thing on the planet now is it? To vote in Scotland seems now to require a degree just to understand how to fill out the voting forms. Then there’s the actual political parties and their policies to contend with. I’m afraid that I have a healthy disrespect for most politicians. I feel that they promise so much and then once they are elected, fail to deliver. Maybe that’s just me.

So we could have Labour, but do we really need more illegal wars and cash for honours scandals?

Then there are the Tories (ah no wait a minute, this is Scotland – that’ll never happen).

OK, so the next option are the Liberal Democrats. A viable option in policy terms but I’ve never forgiven them for the way they treated Charles Kennedy.

The Greens seem pretty sensible, but, even with proportional representation, always seem to me like a wasted vote which is a real shame.

The scariest observation I made was that there is a BNP candidate who looks pretty frightening even whilst wearing a suit in his election leaflet.

The front runner at the moment according to the opinion polls would appear to be the SNP who will offer a referendum on Independence for Scotland if elected. That’s a tough one. My main worry is can we afford it? Many of Scotland’s business leaders seem to think that we can, but a fair number have stated the reverse. Sadly, if we hit problems, it will probably be the poorest sectors of society who will suffer with increased taxes to pay for any economic miscalculations. Although a referendum does not mean that independence is a foregone conclusion I will be looking out my passport for travel to my relatives in England just in case.

Whatever happened to the Monster Raving Loonies? Come back, all is forgiven.

Roll on 3rd May!

Buy One Get One Free

2007-04-27T12:44:00.000Z

I have to admit to a problem. As well as being a chocoholic and a workaholic I must humbly admit that I am also a “Bargain Basement Shopaholic. A close cousin of the Common or Garden Shopaholic, the Bargain Basement Shopaholic can’t resist “Half price”, “Buy one get one free”, “Closing down sale” and basically anything in TK Maxx. You spend so much on bargains that you could have bought any number of full price items many times over, but that’s not the point. It’s getting a bargain that counts. It’s the excitement that overwhelms you as you approach the sale rack. The barely contained anticipation of getting something for less than the original price. The heart races, the pulse quickens. Will they have it in your size? Even if it’s not in your size, could you still squeeze into it to avoid missing out? Will someone else (with no doubt a better figure than yours) get there first? You approach the rack, your mind focussed, your body tense like an athlete’s. Yes – it’s half price and Oh joy it’s in your size. But wait, there’s another woman who looks about your size hovering near your desired purchase. You tense for a moment, assessing her movements and your options. She’s looking at it. Is she interested? She moves to touch the fabric. She’s serious! Action has to be taken and it has to be taken now. You’re off. In for the kill. “Scuse me” you state boldly as you elbow her out of the way, snatch the item off the rail and leg it to the cash desk. You don’t stop to look back, nor to think about whether to try it on, nor whether you actually like it and will wear it, nor even whether you have an almost identical one already in your wardrobe. It’s a bargain and they don’t come along every day. (Well actually they do, but when you’re in Bargain Basement Shopaholic Mode, such rational thoughts have left your consciousness).

So why do I tell you this? Well, as most aholics will attest, aholism seriously affects the health of your bank balance and mine is no exception. I decided that I must do something and, as a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, I decided to take a single step (and leave all the other steps for another time). I decided to do my Asda shopping on line. The benefit to this I deduced, was that I could, like most normal people, just pop into the virtual shop and pop out again, only having bought the items that I actually needed, and not having been sidetracked by bargains. This seemed like a plan that might actually work. I felt quite pleased with myself to say the least. So one fine day I made my list of my essential needs, entered the virtual shop ordered my items and left again. End of bargain avoiding story, or so I thought. I had however neglected to note that it was necessary when ordering to include your e mail address. My naivety holds no bounds sometimes and I just didn’t think about the possible implications of this. Of course by now you will know what’s coming and you will be looking at your screen with a mixture of pity and sympathy (well I hope so anyway).

The “bargain offer e mails” have now started. I have been inundated with offers of bargains on any number of home entertainment options (despite the fact that my original shop included none of these), a free iPOD if I buy a mobile phone, and many other “not to be missed grocery offers”. Don’t they know the poverty that can be created by Bargain Basement Shopaholism? Don’t they know that the mere mention of the word “offer” starts the pulse racing and the purse to become anxious? E mailed offers make it so much easier as well. My hand hovers over the mouse. One click and the bargain could be mine. Today I managed to resist, but on another day, things could be quite different. I will go now and delete all the ASDA e mails and if I can put a block on any subsequent ones, that is what I will do.

And now a plea to Asda. If I wish to shop in your virtual store, it is because I do not wish to be deluged with your offers of things that you tell me that I just can’t live without. If I choose not to buy them on my first shop this should indicate clearly to you that I can in fact live without them. Therefore I don’t want you trying to convince me otherwise. Please leave me alone and stop sending me e mails. Yes I really can live without the Sony Ericsson K608i on 3 video, talk and text 350, Bluetooth, 1.3 Megapixel Camera with Flash, Video Streaming, Triband and Mobile Internet. Let’s be honest I don’t even know what most of that means!

Just one more thing, Asda, while we’re on the subject, please BOGOF.

When is a Tuna Roll not a Tuna Roll?

2007-04-24T10:03:00.000Z

I had a strange experience whilst innocently getting my lunch yesterday. The conversation between me and the shop assistant (Roll Preparation Co-ordinator) was as follows:-

Me: “Can I have a tuna roll please”?

Roll Preparation Co-ordinator: “Do you want butter on that”?

Me: “Yes, just a bit thank you.”

RPC: “Fine, do you want tuna on that”?

WHAT!!! Had I heard her correctly? Was it not a tuna roll I had asked for? On the basis that I had in fact asked for a tuna roll would it not be likely that I would want tuna on the roll? What else would I be likely to want on a roll, having asked her for a tuna roll? Surely the definition of “tuna roll” would be a roll with tuna cunningly inserted into it.

Perhaps “Can I have a tuna roll” is some sort of spy code? If so maybe she was merely making absolutely sure that it was a tuna roll I was after and that I wasn’t really telling her that a Top Secret Agent involved in Project Underpants was ready to deliver his briefs.

I paused momentarily, not wanted her to see that I was somewhat flummoxed, shot her what I hoped was a winning smile and said “Yes, tuna please”, before grabbing the roll and diving out of the door to try to make sense of my encounter.

The tuna roll tasted OK though, but I think that the next time I go in, I will ask for a tuna roll and then complain when they don’t put cheese salad in it instead.

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier

2007-04-19T14:48:00.000Z

Yesterday evening was an evening of trying to appear responsible, sophisticated and mature and failing miserably.

In my capacity as Responsible Youth Group Leader it was my duty to visit and observe another similar group in all their youthful exuberance. Timings dictated that I had to go straight from work thereby ensuring that I was not too sensibly attired in a work suit, as opposed to the more sensible jeans and a T-Shirt, as is my usual wont in those circumstances.

One might think that, so attired, I could have moved around the group holding a clipboard and looking important. Sadly it was not to be. We were playing games and I was to join in. Gamely (sorry) I did so and was soon down on my hands and knees playing a game of snakes and ladders, observing as I did so, dice flying all over the room (we soon put a stop to that) and arguments on whether it might be possible to change the rules to allow players to move up snakes and down ladders (future politicians all).

Our next mission was a craft activity which involved coloured ice lolly sticks, pictures of cute teddy bears and pictures of flowers with, inexplicably, a rather evil looking eye in the centre. These kids might need counselling. In fact, as it turned out, we were making a noughts and crosses game but what we really needed was Rolf Harris on hand to say “Can you tell what it is yet?” I certainly couldn’t even when it was finished and it had to be explained to me.

Have you ever tried to play twister on a business suit? I can now say that I have tried it and it is not a course of action that I would recommend. A business suit strains and stretches with every spin of that twister wheel. And then there are the limitations of your own body to contend with. I thought that I was quite supple, but no, my body just refused to take me to the same places that the bodies of 7 – 12 year olds took them.

Playing twister has another unfortunate side effect. It always gets me humming Man on the Moon by REM due to the line about playing twister and risk (although we didn’t play the latter and to be perfectly honest I have no idea how to play it). Therefore, picture the scene. I’m variously contorting my body in all sorts of positions, falling over, trying to maintain my composure and humming Man on the Moon. And this is me trying to appear important and grown up? Perhaps not an unmitigated success but at least the end of the evening was in sight and I was soon able to skulk away to regain my composure.

This is not, you understand, my official report. In that, I will say that I was the undisputed Twister Champion, winner at Snakes and Ladders and made by far the best Noughts and Crosses game ever seen. Well you’ve got to have some positive statistics in a report haven’t you?

I'd like to thank

2007-04-17T14:54:00.000Z

I had a lovely surprise yesterday whilst perusing my “favourites list” of blogs to discover that I had been nominated for a Thinking Blogger Award by Katie whose excellent blog I would encourage you to read here. http://longayelander.blogspot.com/. Take a look and I’m sure that you will enjoy.

Of course this begs the question – Do I think while Blogging? What I can say is that in the light of the very high quality of writing in most of the blogs I have visited, I am on a continual quest to raise the game with my own blog writing. At the end of the day, that can only be a positive thing.

It is now my pleasure, according to the requirements of the Thinking Blogger Award, for me to nominate 5 blogs which make me think and which I would recommend that you visit forthwith.

1. I have to start my list with the blog which started all my blogging shenanigans. I give you Mr Andrew Collins. An excellent blog on films, TV, books and ornithology. Oh and he's also a very nice man.

http://www.wherediditallgoright.com/BLOG/

2. A bittersweet mix of thought provoking and funny articles from Clair. She also updates her blog layout on a regular basis which indicates a healthy interest in tidiness and spring cleaning.

http://theurbanwoo.blogspot.com/

3. Fun and frolics with Rich in his Sea of Cheese. Just don’t tell Mrs Rich.

http://aseaofcheese.blogspot.com/

4. Valentine Suicide: An iPod free zone providing a witty and insightful meander through life.

http://valentinesuicide.blogspot.com/

5. Ishouldbeworking: Informative, funny, good anecdotes, a nice blog layout and using words like rumpus and bedecked. You can't really go far wrong can you?

http://ihouldbeworking.blogspot.com/

Inching Ever Closer

2007-04-16T11:16:00.000Z

I had a birthday last week. It wasn't a scary age but it did have a 5 in it so it was halfway towards one or, if you prefer your cup half full, it was only five years away from a less scary one. I am very lucky to have friends both older and younger than me. I would heartily recommend this to anyone. Your younger friends will hopefully, in the main, be polite enough not to mention your advancing years and your older ones will have passed the scary age hurdles before you, hopefully lessening your fear to some degree as you approach the same stage. They will also mention with regularity just how lucky you are to be so much younger, and that can only make you feel better.

In order to celebrate, or perhaps just as an excuse, I had a party on Saturday night with the aforementioned friends. You know that you have reached that certain age when they bring their children. Don't get me wrong however. The children really were the life and soul of the party and it was great having them there. The prize for party animal of the night had to go to R. aged 2 who partied hard on a diet of water, smarties and wine gums until he fell asleep. The slightly older girls also had a ball and swapped fashion notes with us oldies to their hearts content.

I got some lovely presents - chocolates, wine, books etc so I really can't complain. We ate some of the homemade bread I have recently been trying to perfect and I think that I might have started a trend. It's now much better than my first attempt even though I do say so myself. One of my friends even mended my toilet seat which has never been right but I have never quite got around to doing anything about it. On a slightly stickier note, I was left with a lovely wine gummy mess attached to my sofa, but my mum thinks that she can get it off. You never can tell what's going to happen when you have a party.

Things wound up around midnight, and as everyone spilled down the stairs and out into the night, our next extravaganza was planned. Inspired, no doubt by the glorious weather during the weekend, we are now planning a Barbecue at my humble abode with no less than two barbecues so that we can invite more people (the entire village perhaps?).

A good night was had by all. Here’s hoping for some good weather over the summer so that we can have that double barbecue.

He Protests Too Much, Methinks

2007-04-13T07:23:00.000Z

Travelling to work on the train each morning, to beat the congestion and to try to do my bit for the environment I regularly pick up a copy of a certain newspaper. The paper in question has recently been celebrating the blog with their “2007 Brit Blog Awards”. Sadly, it would seem that not everyone shares their enthusiasm as a recent letter to the paper will attest. The pertinent points from the letter, as I can’t find a link for it, were as follows:-

1. No one reads them.

2. Those that write them are “a crowd of geeks with no friends, pouring out stuff that illustrates exactly why they have no friends……sharing their lame observations with us all day”.

3. “It disproves Borel’s theory – an infinite amount of monkeys battering away at an infinite amount of typewriters won’t eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.”

4. “It produces a lot of smug, self-satisfied dweebs endlessly filling cyberspace with their inane ramblings about Bush ‘n’ Blair and the war in Iraq.”

5. In a more enlightened age they’d be sitting alone in their damp bedsits scribbling away into a paper diary and no-one would ever have to read their nonsense.

6. Hopefully one day they’ll all discover Internet porn and find something more productive to do with their endless free time.

Is this criticism unwarranted and unfair? I would counter his argument with the following:-

1. A cursory glance through the internet would of course reveal that the meteoric rise in the number of blogs being created is mirrored by the huge growth in visitors to the sites, so in fact this would tend to indicate that many people do in fact read them.

2. Sadly my dictionary didn’t provide me with a definition of the word Geek, so, presumably in typically geekish manner, I took myself to Wikipedia where I discovered that The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word geek as

a. A carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.

Not really the sort of thing I’m into or would advocate – but you could call Ozzy Osborne.

b. A person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked.

I may not be universally liked (well at least by certain ex boyfriends anyway) but I’m not often terrifically intellectual .

c. An enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity.

Enthusiastic / expert in a technological field? I still struggle with the basics of technology so enthusiastic expert would stretching things a bit. Amateur on a steep learning curve might be more appropriate.

Now – onto the friends bit.
I am lucky to have many friends who are quite happy to read my idle musings and know not to take them too seriously. Let’s be honest – are the observations which us bloggers share any worse than the ones which this person no doubt shares with his colleagues round the office water cooler? I think not. He does have the option not to read our observations while his colleagues do not, I would imagine, have quite the same luxury.

3. The age of the universe is dwarfed by the gulf of time it would take a monkey to type Hamlet, (or at least that's what it says on Wikipedia) so it is this and not the blogging phenomenon which in fact disproves the Infinite Monkey Theorem to which I would assume that he is referring.

4. I for one have never hit so much as a key on “Bush ‘n’ Blair and the war in Iraq”. I admit that I have, however, read blogs on the subject as, I feel, he must have too to be quite so specific with this comment.

5. I have a very nice warm and dry flat thank you very much with no damp problems and have never had the urge to scribble into a paper diary.

6. Does this person believe that Internet Porn is a productive use of time? If so, again, I would have to disagree most strongly.

Of course with this amount of vitriol boiling up inside of him the only real option for him is – and I’m sure that you are there already - to start his own blog.

Happy Easter to One and All

2007-04-05T08:02:00.000Z

I'd like to wish all readers a very happy Easter. I hope that you all have a lovely time over the holiday. I'm off to Aberdeen for the weekend, the highlight of which will be climbing Lochnagar on Sunday. So, if I make it down in one piece, my exploits in Aberdeen and on Lochnagar will possibly find their way here. I'll just leave you with a wee thought while I'm thinking about mountains. Why in the 80s did most Scottish Bands have videos which consisted of them playing halfway up a mountainside? It must have been pretty cold with nothing but a billowing shirt and frizzy hair. Added to that, the acoustics must have been terrible. I wonder if we will find some poor 80s Scottish Band still languishing halfway up the side of Lochnagar when we go. I'll look out for one and tell them to get down forthwith and into a proper studio. What were they thinking?

Ill - Communication

2007-04-02T13:11:00.000Z

The weather was wonderful over the weekend. One might reasonably expect that I might have been out soaking up some pre-summer rays but unfortunately that was not to be. Most of Saturday was taken up with desperately checking through my bank statements to make sure that the TK Maxx fiasco had not seen me lose any money to the computer hackers. Fortunately after some hours it would appear that I had not despite the fact that I appear rarely to do any shopping elsewhere.

Sunday consisted of an eight hour marathon training session. We covered all the usual points - Leadership, Working with People, Food Handling etc and then we got on to Communication. This started badly for me as a friend had phoned me on my mobile just before the session, so I was a bit late getting in. I apologised profusely, my embarrassment compounded as I discovered that the only chair available was on the far side of the room so I had to cross between the tutor and all the other trainees. The tutor looked none too impressed at my tardiness and fixed me with a steely glare.

"Let's talk about the different types of communication there are." she started.

No one answered. "Well" she said pointing an accusatory finger at me "What have you just been doing?"

"Talking on the phone" I mumbled.

"Well then" she said with a slight note of triumph in her voice "That's one already. Any more?"

The session edged along in much the same manner with no one willing to do much communication at all. We had to perform part of the play "The Steamie" which was a little difficult as some of it appeared to be missing.

Then the final humiliation. We had to write on a topic and then talk about it for one minute. Not only talk about it, but also be taped talking about it. We all thought of ways of stopping the recording taking place - ie taking out the equipment's batteries, but to no avail. We were all duly taped talking on exciting topics such as "My Holidays", "My House", "My Pets" , "My Family" etc etc - you know the kind of thing. What will happen to the tapes is anyone's guess.

The most interesting part of the training course is that those who complete it get to come back and tutor new trainees so I'll be thinking up some interesting future communication sessions I can tell you.

Home time arrived eventually. The sun had gone down and the weekend was over. My dreams last night were filled with taking batteries out of machines and generally disabling any equipment I could lay my hands on. Would that we had managed it at the time.

The Tesco Clubcard Challenge

2007-03-30T08:38:00.000Z

I had an interesting call from Tesco the other day. It seemed at first to be the usual marketing survey - "It's only a couple of questions". "It'll only take a couple of minutes". etc. etc. What I hadn't counted on was that this was more exacting than most.

Quiz Master: "OK so we'll begin with the first question. What can you spend your clubcards on other than store?"

Me: "Ah, Erm"

Quiz Master: "I'm going to have to hurry you. Not sure?

Me: "On the internet?"

Quiz Master: "Yes - I'll give you one point for that. The correct answer was on the Internet and in deals sent to you in the post. "

Quiz Master: "Right on to question number 2. How can you increase your clubcard points?"

Me: "Increase clubcard points? Erm, not sure really, sorry.

Quiz Master: "No problem, it's through clubcard and internet deals."

Quiz Master: "You're doing well, don't worry it's all still to play for. On to the next question. When did you last receive Clubcard Deals information?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I really don't have a clue."

Quiz Master: "That's OK, I'll note that down."

Quiz Master: "Now onto the final question. What clubcard deals have you used recently.

Me: "Oh err, none I think".

Quiz Master: "No problem. Thanks a lot for your time. You have just taken part in the Tesco Clubcard Challenge. Thank you and goodnight.

OK it might not have been exactly along these lines but you get the drift. Soon you will have to have a qualification in Tescos Knowledge in order to take a phone call from these people.

Building Gets Interesting

2007-03-28T13:30:00.000Z

What would Bob have made of it? The Builder Magazine has had a racy makeover this month. Gone is the usual front page photo showing, well you've guessed it, a well appointed building site. Oh No. This month's cover has more in common with Nuts Magazine, showing several attractive young ladies messing about with a racing car. OOh er missus. There's even a free glossy poster showing a couple of the aforementioned ladies and the car in the sort of positions and clothing that would never be replicated in real life. I was intruiged, and just had to discover what all this had to do with building itself so of course, further investigation was needed. It would appear that a saw manufacturer is sponsoring the Spyker Formula One Team this season and Builder readers are being asked to nominate their Builder of the Month. This may seem pretty mundane stuff but it just gets better (for the winning Builder anyway). The lucky fellow (as we must assume it to be in the circumstances) will receive a personal visit from one of the "gorgeous Rotozip Spyker Calendar Girls" (it says here and they aren't far wrong) who will distribute copies of their calendar and other goodies. It doesn't say here what the "other goodies" are but my imagination has run riot on it anyway.

I bet you thought that the construction industry was pretty boring. On this evidence it's time to think again.

Funky Blue with Shocking Pink Circles

2007-03-26T08:29:00.000Z

Yesterday was P Day for one of our youth club rooms. No more boring white walls - Oh No this room was getting a teenage makeover. Just after lunchtime we arrived bearing bright turquoise and pink paint to give the room the shock of its life. We made an enthusiastic start on the walls, covering them in the bright turquoise before planning our assault with the pink. Then us (allegedly more sensible) older ones went downstairs to let the paint dry, and to get ourselves some drinks. We thought that the girls would follow us but no, they were having too much fun upstairs.

When we returned after raiding the tuck shop, bright pink circles were starting to appear on the walls like some psychedelic dream. I thought that I would join in by painting a couple of circles, but no sooner had I drawn the outline than one of the girls had rushed in, bright pink brush in hand to enthusiastically apply the paint.

By the time we had finished, the room looked very impressive (or scary depending on your preference). The girls were happy, albeit with more paint on them than the walls (how does that happen?) and I was ready for a long hot bath.

The next person to go in will get the fright of their life and will hopefully not have taken any hallucinogenic drugs before they enter.

The bread could be said to have been baked

2007-03-22T11:55:00.000Z

This blog entry is a little later than planned because the end of quarter VAT returns are without mercy and the excuse of "I had to write a blog entry" just didn't cut it with the accountants, but anyway, taking a small break from the number crunching - Here goes:

I've finally done it. After many weeks of quite frankly not having had any spare time to do it, I have finally baked my first loaf of bread. It didn't go quite according to plan mind you. I don't have a breadmaker so am doing it the old fashioned way.

Everything was going fine until it got to the point of leaving the dough to rise. The recipe called for a damp towel to be placed over the bowl with the dough in it. For some obscure reason I decided that the towel should be soaking. This was a big mistake! Essentially the dough failed to rise. This was despite the fact that it was sitting next to a boiling hot radiator for two hours in what I shall describe simply as the smallest room in the house. I called my mum who said that there really was little more I could do. Undeterred I left it another two hours but again nothing happened. It resolutely refused to rise. However I gamely decided to carry on. I had spent a good 5 hours by this time on this piece of bread and I was not going to give up that easily.

I kneaded it again, rolled it into a rough baguette shape and baked it. When its baking time was up, I gingerly took it out of the oven. It actually looked OK so I was hopeful. The first thing I noticed however was that it was very heavy. It felt like the weight of possibly six loaves, not one. My heart sank and I was desperate to try some. Risking burning my fingers I took a knife to it and cut off the end and tested it. My joy returned when I found that it was still edible. It was, it has to be said, somewhat chewy but tasted quite good. My feeling of pleasure and everything being right with the world returned and I felt as if I had really achieved something - albeit not quite as it should have been, but an edible loaf nonetheless. I'm going to try it again soon, when time allows, with a towel only slightly dampened. Wish me luck.

The Noisettes

2007-03-19T08:59:00.000Z

So there I was. My usual Friday evening, leaving work and bombing it down to Glasgow Central Station as fast as my little legs could carry me to get to the train for the start of my weekend - Hooray! I was perhaps about 20 minutes away from the station when I was approached by a young lady who was obviously somewhat lost. It turned out that her name was Shingai and she was in the band The Noisettes. Now I was pretty impressed because I had actually heard of this band. She had to be at the Arches by 5.30pm and it was now 5.45pm, so, with the future of her career in the band at stake (perhaps!) I offered to take her with me to Central Station which is not much more than a hop, skip and a jump from The Arches. She was a lovely girl and as we jogged sedately through the pouring rain she told me about their gig the night before in Manchester and we discussed the best recipies for a nice piece of trout (honestly, I'm not making this up!) We finally got to the Station and the poor girl was soaked through, but a good run through Glasgow and a full Scottish soaking had not put her off one bit. She was still extremely cheery and not at all worried that she would be half an hour late. It is lovely to meet someone who can remain so cheery in the face of the worst that Scottish weather can throw at them. I gave her directions from there to The Arches and wished her well both for herself and for her band. She thanked me and said that she had been to Glasgow before and always found it to be a very friendly city. I hope that I have further reinforced this view. I'm sure their gig went well on Friday night. I hope so and I will look out for their name in future.

Later I told a friend my story and he claimed never to have heard of them and said that she must have been having me on. But no! They have a website and I wish them all the best for the future.

Shaken, Not Stirred

2007-03-16T11:28:00.000Z

I like to keep busy. Many people who know me would say that this borders on workaholism but you can never be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for too long (because when you do, you remember another job that needs doing).

The latest escapade keeping me out of mischief is organising a big James Bond Themed event to be held in a couple of months so no pressure there then. The event is held every year (this is the first year where they have been brave enough to ask me to co-ordinate it) and we always have a theme. James Bond seemed appropriate this year as it is 2007. I know, a bit corny, but that's the way we like it here.

As well as a theme we also like to have a celebrity to open it. This does tend to prove difficult as we are on a limited to non existent budget and celebrities just don't seem to go for that these days. We asked Madonna, and she would have loved to do it but she was going to be away in Malawi at the time. Something to do with a baby I believe.

So who could we ask now? Why Robbie Williams. Again he would have loved to have done it but he was booked into somewhere called The Priory. I've never heard of this place. It must be a luxury hotel I shouldn't wonder.

We were really stuck. Who would measure up to Robbie and Madonna. Then we hit on it. A Reality TV Show Contestant. And wouldn't you know it, someone in our team knew someone who knew someone etc who knew a certain former contestant in a Reality TV Show. That's six degrees of separation for you. By the way it's not Jade or Shilpa or both (which might make for an interesting day!). The said contestant has duly been approached but has "still to get back to us". We're not doing very well on this celebrity front are we but we are remaining positive that when this person realises that reality shows do not a career make, they will come running to us for a tiny bit of extra recognition. We can but dream. In the meantime it has been decided that we will get someone in our team to dress up as James Bond (he will have to dye his hair as it currently grey!) and open the event.

MMM I wonder if we should have asked the reality show contestant to dress up as James Bond? Maybe that would have persuaded them.

Beware the British Weather

2007-03-15T10:23:00.000Z

The good old British weather changes very rapidly. One minute it's brilliant sunshine and you think "How lovely, summer is on its way, I'll just take off my coat", and then as if by divine intervention with a wicked sense of humour the heavens open, leaving you coatless and soaking.

I considered this this morning when I saw my neighbour's washing being soaked by a nasty grey drizzle. Had she put the washing out the night before thinking "It looks quite dry out there. I'm sure I will get some good drying done overnight"? She may have got some good drying done overnight, but come the morning all the good drying work was undone by the rain.

Today's message is Don't Trust the Weather. The weather controller in the sky is watching you to make sure that it pours at your most inoportune moment. It will happen. There is no escape!

PS If it snows here this year again can I move to Canada? I'd love to live somewhere where they get proper snow and subsequently know how to deal with it unlike here where a couple of centimetres means the shutting down of the whole transport network.

Punk'd

2007-03-13T11:03:00.000Z

Isn’t the English Language a wonderful, ever evolving thing? To illustrate this I’d like to share a new word I learned yesterday at my Monday Night Youth Group – Punk’d.

The context was as follows:-

The Group: Are we being Punk’d?

Me: Are you being what’d?

The Group: Punk’d.

Me: You’ll need to tell me what Punk’d means before I can tell you if you are or not.

The Group: You know, being played a trick on. (They snigger, realising that this silly adult doesn’t know the meaning of one of their words and consequently isn’t as with it as she would like them to believe she is).

The Group: Well are we being Punk’d?

Me: No you are definitely not being Punk’d.

The Group: Cool! (well at least that’s one word that hasn’t changed then.)

What I really wanted to know but was too afraid to ask for fear of further derision was how does Punk’d come to mean being played a trick on. Any enlightenment would be appreciated. When I were a lass Punk (without the ‘d) meant something entirely different. Admittedly it still does, allegedly, although the lyrics just aren’t the same nowadays. Anyway back to the point. Where does this term come from? Could it be from Johnny Rotten’s infamous words: "ever feel like you've been cheated?" Well I might not be Miss Cool, Hip and Down with the Kids but at least I know my music history.

Grand Designs

2007-03-08T08:48:00.000Z

It was the second of the new series of Grand Designs last night. I quite enjoy it although Kevin McCloud (that is not how you spell that surname Kevin by the way) can be a bit condescending. "Oh I really think these people are being very foolish and just won't achieve what they want". Anyway I like the idea of something impressive being created from not very much to start off with. Last nights was a disaster scenario. A couple had lovingly restored a period English Cottage which then caught fire and was almost destroyed not long before Christmas, with the wife pregnant and their house insurance lapsed (you just couldn't make this up could you). How they afforded to re do the house even with a second mortgage I will never know. Kevin kept asking them why they didn't just walk away (he's such an optimistic soul). Anyway despite Kevin they managed to restore it to its former glory.

However my lasting impression of the programme was nothing to do with Kevin or the house. It was their daughter. She was very cute but, unless I heard wrongly, she appeared to be called Beaver. I mean WHAT!!!!! The poor child is going to be teased mercilessly at school with a name like that. What on earth is wrong with normal names. I despair.

Water Water Everywhere Part 2

2007-03-08T08:33:00.000Z

Referring back to my previous post http://mckg.blogspot.com/2007/02/water-water-everywhere.html which concerned the mysterious black stain on my downstairs neighbours bathroom wall, my dad got into their house and had a look at it yesterday. My dad isn't a plumber but is handy round the house (my mum tells me I should find a man like that but I digress).

My dad does know quite a bit about these things but can't work out where the stain is coming from. Strangely it doesn't seem to be coming from under my floor (not directly under it anyway) or from the outside wall. Taking either her ceiling or my floor apart seems now to be the only option to find source of the problem. Of course my dad would rather do the former so it is up to me ask her today whether she would be willing to go ahead. We shall see.

The thought of having either her or my bathroom taken apart isn't a nice one but then I watched Grand Designs and realised how lucky I am that it is only the bathroom that might have to be messed with.

Richard Madeley Tackles a Mugger

2007-03-07T13:15:00.001Z

You can just imagine Richard Madeley tackling a mugger can't you. From the safety of his TV studio of course!!

http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/news/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=3850633

He shook his fist at the camera did he? OOOh he's so hard.

Toys Out The Pram

2007-03-07T13:15:00.000Z

There are two things I really don't want to do too much on this blog

a. Rant

b. Talk about my job.

BUT

Just for today this has annoyed me.

Why do some grown adults have to behave like children. You calmly and rationally explain to them why something is not possible and in return you get an irrational reaction and the person storms off in a strop. Is it just me or is this highly frustrating.

Sorry. Rant over. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

DHL - Dead Heads and Livers

2007-03-06T10:55:00.000Z

The next time DHL deliver to you, think twice before accepting the parcel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6456010,00.html