With the trip up to Ben Ledi cancelled last weekend at the last minute I was determined to get out an about. I couldn’t think of many places to go that I hadn’t walked a thousand times before and a few people suggested various walks around Glasgow but at the end of the day I wanted something simple. I ended up walking from the bottom end of Victoria Road to the Peoples Palace (a quick stop there to see the video my Grandad is in) and then along the Clyde cyclepath. The idea was to follow the cycle path as far as I could and once I stopped for lunch I could wither turn back or work out some other way of getting back to the city centre. It didn’t work out that way.

The walkway heads out towards the SECC from Glasgow Green. Over the last wee while they have been upgrading the riverside walkway from the Casino onwards and instead of my usual walk along dusty roads without sight of the water I strolled along the shiny path instead. Everything was going great until the Fire Brigade’s search and rescue boat went rushing past. It was only out for some practice so I thought I’d catch a shot of it as it flew back down the river but with my 50mm lens on my camera I wouldn’t get close enough to it so out came my 70-300mm lens. I’d just changed the lenses over and was admiring the sun shining on the Armadillo when a ball came out from nowhere (or the SECC car park if you want to get technical) hitting my shoulder and knocking my 50mm lens out of my hand. It hit the ground and fell into two pieces.

It wasn’t their fault really as they we’re on the other side of the road and I had seen them so was aware they were there. It didn’t stop me from shouting blue murder at them though. I spent the next 20 minutes sitting beside The Ferry trying to put it back together. I was that pissed off that despite only being about 45 minutes into my walk I gave up and headed back into the city centre to see if the guys at Merchant City Cameras would be able to save my day and fix it. It turns out that the parts cost more than the lens sells for at retail and they didn’t even attempt to put it back together. I gave up completely and jumped on the first bus home.

I think the bus made it to Fernhill before I gave up and thought I’d try and have another go at putting it back together and it clicked at the first attempt. It works and doesn’t fall apart when you hold it upside down which is always a bonus. The focus isn’t as sharp as it once was but it made me one happy bunny to see it working again!

Tags: camera, CLyde, Glasgow, lens, walking

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

I want to say I don’t know whats up with me but I do.

These last two months have been hell in a basket. Every morning, and I do mean every morning, the babies have been up at some point between 04.30 and 06.00 every morning. It wasn’t so bad in the dead of winter because from 05.00 onwards it was still dark outside so I could get the babies back to sleep for a bit and if I was lucky get another hour myself. These days though once they are up they are up and I haven’t a hope in hell of getting back to sleep. It’s gotten to the stage that if I’m not in bed and asleep by 21.30 my vision goes and I’m a mess. In these last two months I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been awake after 10pm.

I was out on Thursday night for a works night out, all paid for, at the Casino in Glasgow. I hate those places with a passion but it was a free meal so I went along. The starter was served at 20.30 and I was falling asleep in my main course.

Last night once we had managed to get the kids asleep before we turned in Vonnie kindly put some toys that Nairn loves on his bed in the hope that he’d wake up and play quietly with them as he sometimes does. No such luck. At 05.34 he woke up and promptly started singing loud enough to wake me up. If it’s loud enough to wake me up it sure as hell will wake Erica up which it did. It was almost broad daylight outside so I didn’t have a hope in hell! When I told Nairn to go back to sleep as I gave Erica a bottle downstairs he would climb back in bed and curl up only to jump out of bed the moment I disappeared. when I went back upstairs each time you could hear him scurry back into bed and pretend to sleep before I reached his door.

Not amused.

In other news we got these yesterday from one Dave Brown’s old work colleague. Meet Bunty and Mac.

No tag for this post.

Tags: Dave Brown, Glasgow, Mac

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

So the weddings almost here and despite setbacks with the airsoft day we settled on going on a subcrawl. Not a lot of planning is required other than turn up on time which as you’ll see is where we went wrong from the get go.

The day before Vonnie had managed to secure us babysitters as the original plan was I went out on my stag night the previous weekend while she went on her hen night on Saturday night. This meant Vonnie was on the go from quite early on but it meant we both got to go out. And then on Friday night something happened that meant our babysitters couldn’t look after the kids. This left us with a problem as they were our last hope. I managed to get my parents to look after the kids from the afternoon onwards but we needed someone to cover the first few hours and we just couldn’t get anyone. Vonnie kept trying right up until I was due to leave without success.

So anyway the girls came round to start off the hen night at our house while I packed up the kids and waited to hear from my mum. The original plans were for my mum to come and pick them up and my brother and I could head off into Glasgow straight away but when she phoned and Vonnie passed on what was happening I picked her up wrong. I was actually supposed to take them down to my parents but instead I ran about the place stressed because my mum hadn’t turned up yet. It turned out that I didn’t have the kids ready anyway until we did actually leave so the delays were my fault entirely.

So anyway on to the day. Mark and Dave had headed in to town early on to get breakfast with the idea of meeting us at 12 noon. I think we actually ended up getting into Fat Boab’s Ale House in St Enoch Square for 3pm. There goes the day right from the beginning. We had a choice to make. Scrap the subcrawl and just make it a normal pub crawl, attempt the subcrawl anyway knowing there was noway we’d actually finish it as the subway shuts at 11pm or jump ahead a few stations and just continue as if we’d started at noon as planned.

The last option won out and it wasn’t until we were actually on the train that it was decided to start at Ibrox. It was actually in the Stadium Bar that I came up with the idea on how i could record the night. I was going to review the toilets of every pub we went into that night. Not the best idea I’ll grant you but it was fun whilst I could make out the text on my phone as I typed them up as we left.

So anyway here goes on what I remember.

St. Enoch – Started of at Fat Boabs for the first pint of the day. We wandered in and I almost died. I wanted to by this place so I wouldn’t have to change the name back when I was a student and they were playing really crap 70’s pop music. My heart actually bled.

Ibrox – The Stadium bar was the pub of choice seeing as we were to busy trying to get indoors and away from the multitude of police that were about. This was where I thought of the toilet reviews as when I went in it was like any normal Southside pub I’ve been in except there was literally an inch of mould on the pipes under the urinals and it came out a good foot onto the floor. Ick. Nice enough place despite it looking like a cowshed inside.

Govan – Next stop was Brechan’s. It was quiet when we went in but by the time we were almost finished it was full of pissed old men. As for the toilets, the sign said mind the step. What it didn’t say was mind the step and oh by the way is bloody sloped as well so you might want to watch that. I almost ended up face first in a pool of piss on the floor.

Partick – Hayburn Vaults. What can I say about this place other than two guys tried to accost me when I went to the toilet because one of them wanted me to back him in a fight with the other one and the other wanted the same. They were at least 70! Oh and the toilets smelt like a colostomy bag.

Kelvinhall – The Three Judges. Small but bus. This was where I was given my Groucho-style fake nose and glasses. One of the other subcrawl groups going about found it hilarious that I had one on my t-shirt so made me wear it for photos. The bogs smelt of flowers but were absolutely tiny. This was Willie’s first pub of the crawl.

Hillhead – We ended up in Vodka Wodka on Ashton Lane. Not the busiest place on a Saturday night. There was about 9 folk in there and most of them were us. Still…at least the toilets were interesting. The disabled toilet opens up into the guys toilet for some reason and some girl was in there trying to sneek peeks just as we left.

Kelvinbridge – This is where it starts to go a little fuzzy for me. I haven’t a clue what the pub was called and all that I remember about it was there was an elephant skull thing hanging from one of the walls. The toilets were huge though!

St George Cross – This one took a bit of finding but we managed to find The Royalty. The regulars were a good laugh and despite the look of the pub the toilets were sparkling :p I think this was the place where Willie fell down the hole. Walking back to the tube station he just dropped by a few foot as he went down the hole in the street. Was ery surreal and something that only ever happens to Willie.

Cowcaddens – I believe we were in MacIntoshes and I say that because I’ve only got my phone as proof. This was the second one we had to hunt for. Its also where Barry joined us but it involved me running around to Trader Joes to get him which in itself was a feat. Firstly I could still run and secondly I could remember where it was despite only ever being there once. And lastly and more importantly I managed to find the pub we were in on the way back!

Buchanan Street – I believe we went in to Waxy OConners despite me meaning to go to The Vale. I believe this is my fault because someone asked where we should go and I stumbled in the back door.

‘Closing the Circle’ – Although we didn’t do the full crawl we still felt as though we had to go back to where we started. This involved braving Fat Boabs again. They had Kareoke on. I hate Kareoke. I refuse to sing Kareoke. After about 3 drinks in there Willie and Barry dragged me up with barely a struggle from me. I couldn’t tell you what we sang. I don’t think I could tell you when we were singing it what we sang.

I have to say I had a great night but feeling sick before you head home never mind when your in your bed sets you up for a bad hangover.

No tag for this post.

Tags: ale, Barry, Buchanan Street, Dave, Enoch Square, Glasgow, Mark, Southside pub, St Enoch Square, Stadium Bar, Willie

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

What is this weather like? Aparently theres been a strange depession sitting over Scotland for the last week and it’s causing no end of problems. It started with the snow last week and on Monday there was a place in Edinburgh where on one side of the building you had the normal everyday wet carpark and on the other side you had 6-7 inches of snow with a very definate border between them. I’ve sat looking out the office windows today and depending what side of the building you look out of you get different weather. On one side we had sunshine, on the opposite side we had heavy horizontal rain and at the far end of the office the wind was that bad the snow that was falling there was actually going up rather than down.

And whats with the wind? I thought we’d got off lightly with our wheeliebin lying in our neighbours front garden this morning and it seems we we didnt just get off lightly we got off almost scot-free! Our neighbour had her brand new brick wall blown down and the building site next to our office looks more like a demolition site. One of my colleagues noticed a bubbling this morning after a window had blown open during the night and thought it was just the rainwater bubbling on the radiator and didnt think that for that to happen the radiator must be literally boiling. About an hour after that one of the bosses passed comment on a burning smell beside the printer and could hear crackling. It turns out thatwater had came from somewhere and got under our floating floors and the electrics all around there were sparking. Needless to say about 10 fuses were blown by the time the technition turned up to check it out and we’ve had to turn off the power on half our section by the looks of things. Luckily the office is quite today so theres plenty of room for people to hotdesk.

As for damage elsewhere it seems half of The Eastern on Duke Street in Glasgow has fell down and plenty off roofs have blew off in the city centre. At least one of the huge trees on Glasgow Green has been uprooted and numerous walls have been blown down. I didn’t think it was that bad last night until I seen teh damage this morning. I’ll need to check my roof when I get home which suggests a 3.30pm finish so there will still be daylight to see by :S

No tag for this post.

Tags: demolition site, Duke Street, Glasgow, Scotland

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

We were very close to not going on this holiday. Between the stresses of the house and straining bank accounts from Christmas and the upcoming wedding it was a close run thing.

Thursday
I’d managed to get a half day to help finish the packing as we’d only finally decided to go that morning. Once Finn got home from school we headed straight to the airport. I’d never flown from Prestwick before and to be honest its certainly not my favorite airport in the world. Largely forgettable and the closest I’ve ever gotten to finding an airport that looks like the one I flew out of Moscow from. It is a barn. Anyway on the way there the wind and rain were terrible and we actually thought we’d either be delayed for hours while it calmed down or the flight would be canceled. In the end though it went ahead but the turbulence was horrendous and the landing was the worst I’d ever experienced.

Yet again I was using an airport I’ve never been in before. I usually fly into Heathrow and get the Heathrow Express right into Paddington so I know my way about the Circle Line and getting to and from Victoria. Getting the train from Stanstead to Liverpool Street totally threw my bearings. Thankfully where we were going was on the Central Line anyway so it was actually quite simple. Kirsty’s brother Simon was kind enough to let us stay at his flat while he was in Barcalona for the weekend so financially we could actually enjoy ourselves. Simon met us at the station and led us round to his flat we’re we took over his bedroom. Both Nairn and Erica were beyond tired though and so screamed for at least an hour. It couldn’t have been good for Simon or his flatmate but at least they were in a different room.

Friday
We hadn’t actually worked out what we were going to do during the weekend other than to say what we’d like to do in general. We got up that morning though and decided to hit Hamleys first and start off as we meant to finish and let the kids enjoy this weekend as much as we hoped to. We managed to navigate from the flat to Leytonstone Tube Station very easily which was actually a sign of things to come. Being fifteen minutes by train outside of the centre of London sounds great until you realise that it can take another 30 minutes at least to get from one side of the centre to the other and even more if it involves changing trains. Anyway we got off at Oxford Circus and sauntered round to Hamleys. It was mobbed. We managed around the top 3 floors but had to leave after Findlay spent a while playing with a remote control car and bike. It was just to claustrophobic but the boys were loving it though.

We then headed down the Victoria Line and got off at Victoria Street Station to head up past my work and onto Buckingham Palace. I took everyone along Victoria Street until we found Westminster Cathedral. WE wandered around there for a wee while before I dragged them up Palace Street past my work whilst confusing my mate who was in the office by asking him where I could get a bottle of juice from. Buckingham Palace isn’t really much to see. Unless you catch the changing of the guard I can’t quite work out why such large crowds would come and see it. Anyway we walked up past a park and down to the riverside. I’ve seen the London Eye from a distance before but even although its ‘only’ 135m high you just don’t quite get how high it is until your standing underneath it. We’d had a choice to make earlier about whether to go up during the day or go up after the sun had set. Thankfully we went up when it was dark and the whole of London was lit up. It made it look more like a toy town from the very top than the grey mass it really is that you see during the day. We managed to get back to the flat for about 8pm going past Tesco on the way. There is a Christian charity shop on Leytonstone High Road that has some of the most amazing furniture and we clocked this amazing dolls house in the window but on closer inspection it was actually a birdcage!

Saturday
It rained. And rained. And rained. It was also bloody freezing. Did I mention it was a bit wet? I don’t know wether it was stupidity or sheer brilliance but we headed to Camden Market that morning. I really must look more into the tube stations though before we do things like that. Trying to carry an occupied pram up and down the 96 step ‘emergency’ stairwell because its the only way in and out is just sheer lunacy at the best of times but when you’ve got a train full of folk around you as well it just gets silly. We made it though. And this is where we discover the one thing that annoys the hell out of me about London. Unless your at a huge supermarket or a tube station there are no speed bank machines anywhere! We walked the full length of Camden looking for one until we hit Morrisons and ended up in there for a cup of hot chocolate. Thankfully the boost of heat brightened up our day so we went back around the markets for another look. Vonnie was a bit disappointed that we only spied one ‘fake’ celebrity in the form of Peaches Geldof but in a town of 5 million people what are your chances? We came to the conclusion that we could actually live in Camden but I can’t stand the commuting

After that we headed over to Covent Garden for some more markets and shops. It looked lovely but my god you get some amount of pretentious folk down there. I was also in what has to be the worst laid out shop on the planet. Lush in Covent Garden really needs some traffic lights and a one way system put in. I’m not joking when I say there is barely enough room for one person to move in an aisle never mind a shop full with bags of shopping!

We finished the night off with the Transport Museum. I didn’t think it was as good as the one in Glasgow but then it only deals with London transport rather than any and all forms. No row upon row of old cars but plenty of buses and trains. The kids loved it though which it why we were there.

Sunday
We were up early so that we could meet Despina and her family for a jaunt around the Science Museum. Lovely people and Findlay got on great with Josh. I don’t know how we managed it but we managed to spend about 5-6 hours in there and it flew past! Nairn did a bunk at one point though from one of the kids areas and almost made it to the lifts but we caught him just in time. On the way out we were surprised to find a piper so Vonnie had to get him playing Flower of Scotland and Scotland the Brave! We went for dinner in a wee Italian restaurant around the corner which was nice. The pasta was a bit weird but still nice despite that. I don’t actually remember much after that as I think I dozed off on the tube back to Leytonstone.

Monday
How there wasn’t any bloodshed I really do not know. We headed back round to Hamley’s to pick up a few things and then jumped the train back out to Stanstead. We decided that rather than rushing about with the kids and possibly being late for the flights we’d get there early and try and relax. Between all the carrying of prams, bags and very little sleep from the night before I was a walking wreck and how Vonnie didn’t snap and stab me at several points I really do not know. Anyway we made it onto the plane only for Erica to scream the entire flight and Nairn to act up. If he wasn’t headbutting Findlay for his toys he was trying to open the lifejackets under the seats. We did win a free flight out of it though so its not all bad. We will be using that for a night/weekend away for us and ntothe kids though as I don’t think we could handle that again until the kids are a wee bit older.

No tag for this post.

Tags: bank, Buckingham Palace, Camden, christmas, Covent Garden, Glasgow, Italian restaurant, Leytonstone High Road, Leytonstone Tube Station, Liverpool Street, London, Moscow, Palace Street, remote control car, Science Museum, Scotland, Simon, speed bank machines, Tesco, Transport Museum, Victoria Street, Victoria Street Station, Westminster Cathedral

Looking through a few blogs this lunchtime and I’ve realised that although I talk a lot about photography be it my poor attempts or someone else’s I don’t really post many of my photos up here. I keep forgetting that although I post them on my Flickr account it’s mostly set to friends and family so if you don’t have a Flickr account or are a random passerby you won’t actually get to see any of them.

So here are a few of my favorites that I’ve uploaded recently. (That doesn’t mean they were taken recently though )

Not a very interesting picture description-wise but I loved the lighting on this plate in Cafe Andaluz in Glasgow.

Taken somewhere in the Galloway Forrest Park.

The Elf from Glasgow’s Botanical Gardens

Mark during a stop on the decent of Sgurr nam Fiannaidh.

The roof of one of the glasshouses at the Botanical Gardens.

The rotting pier at the north end of Loch Etive.

With a bit of luck it might get me back in the mood to go out and take photographs. I seem to have lost the urge recently which is very strange.

No tag for this post.

Tags: Cafe Andaluz, Galloway Forest Park, Glasgow

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

I think I was about 15. I know I was in 3rd or 4th year and the more I think about it I think it was 3rd year. I’d been in school that morning and everything was fine. For once I didn’t have a problem in my English class and I’m sure we’d had PE that morning. I went home for lunch as normal and while I was waiting on my lunch going ping in the microwave and Scott arriving with his mates the phone rang. It was my dad wanting to know if my mum had called. He said my Grandad had died that morning. The only other thing I remember from that phone call was my dad asking if I was OK. I must have been OK enough to convince him though as I ended up back at school. I can’t even tell you if Scott ever came home that lunchtime. I sat in a daze during French which didn’t phase Mrs Hughes as it was my worst subject anyway. I can’t even tell you what the last period was. I say it was Geography if you were to push me for an answer but that would be a guess to be honest. He was gone and I couldn’t get that thought out of my head.

Talk to anyone that has known me well enough and they’ll know that my Grandad was my closest relative outside of my immediate family. Some have said I hero-worshiped him. I wouldn’t go that far but being so close to him and him being the only member of my family that I remember dying sort of puts him on a pedestal. My Gran died when I was 6 months old so I never really new her. He taught me how to swim and took me away almost every summer with my cousins youth hosteling around Scotland. We joined the Claremont Rambling Club when I was 10 and traveled all over Scotland with them every fortnight. It was only when his body started hurting to much that we gave that up but he stilled looked after my brother and I every summer while my parents worked. As a parent he had raised 9 kids, 4 of his own, 4 fostered and 1 adopted and was working his way through his grandkids as well. I could go on and on about him and his involvement with the labour party and the CND but this is about my memory of him and not about his life in general.

Then he started going downhill. I found it really hard to see him that way. He, to me at least, quickly went from being able to look after himself to having to sell up his house and move into sheltered accommodation where he spent most of his time not able to get about under his own steam or without help.When he went into hospital Scott and I managed up twice to see him I think. I really didn’t want to see him like that but I understood why I had to go. My mum said afterwards that he seemed to have an extra wee spark of life in him when we were there even although he had trouble remembering who we were at times.

Then he died. There’s been a lot said in the past about what happened at that point. My mum was down as the person to be notified should anything happen as she worked across the road from the hospital and could literally be there in minutes. Somehow though my uncle Raymond, one of the fostered members of the family, was there before her and had contacted everyone. I think my mum got there before he died but I can’t say for sure. I know I found out at the time but as I said I wasn’t really concentrating that afternoon or the days after it. To make matters worse for my memory I can’t bring myself to actually ask my mum about any of it. I don’t know if its to stop my mum feeling down because of my asking her to remember about it or whether I just don’t want to remember myself. I can’t actually tell you the date he died. Something in me tells me it was the 14th of April but again I have no way of knowing for sure. I think we have a copy of the death notice from the paper somewhere in my parents house but its an awkward thing to ask for.

The day of the funeral came and its about the only thing I have any fixed memories from. In fact I can still see it in my head as clear as the day it happened. As the only blood family left living in East Kilbride, I think that was why at any rate as one of his foster daughters still lives here as well with her family, the funeral procession started off at our house. I woke up and came downstairs to find half my extended family already here. They’d been going through some of his possessions to find his will etc when they found a letter he had wrote to the family. I really want a copy of it but I haven’t a clue who has one as I’ve never seen one in the house since that day. There were a lot of things in there that we sort of knew anyway but he never confirmed them to anyone. He joined the communist party during WW2 in order to get a job so that he could support his family at that time, I’ve no idea though how he wasn’t conscripted, and he had a lady friend in his later years. We knew all about Betty and she was a lovely lady but my Grandad didn’t want to take the chance that he’d hurt any of his kids feelings by telling them he’d found someone else. He kept nipping away for weekends with the CND or the OAP’s and it turns out half of them were actually with Betty going down to London for the weekend or whatever. The thing that stood out for me was that one of the lat lines of the letter was my Grandad asking us not to cry for him. He’d had a hard few years and was at rest which could only be a good thing.

We arrived at the crematorium early as we were in the first car after the hearse and so we got to see all the people arriving. To this day I’ve not seen a funeral procession that strange looking. At the front end you had the big black cars for the family followed by your usual every day friends of the family. In amongst all this though there were the die hard CND supporter with the colourful cars and back windows full of ban the bomb stickers. Then at the end there were a couple of motorcades. That was the weird bit. I knew my grandad was involved in politics over his years to but to see the provosts old and new of East Kilbride and Glasgow turn up and a few labour folk as well including Adam Ingram it was surreal for me to say the least. I sat throughout the service with one thought in my head, ‘I must not cry’, but could see folk around me bursting into tears. I think it was because they were crying that I managed to make it through without doing it myself because I was young and stubborn enough to insist that at least one person made it through without shedding a tear of grief. My uncle David was supposed to be the one at the front telling people about my Grandads life but he couldn’t. He tried but my Uncle Mike had to take his place.

I still don’t feel as though I’ve really said goodbye to my Grandad. The ceremony didn’t mean anything to me and in his last few days I never seen him at the hospital either. Every time I go camping the thought of him is always there and when I was on the march in Glasgow against the invasion of Iraq I couldn’t help looking back down the hill to George Square, seeing all the people out that day and thinking of him.

I promise the next one won’t quite be so down

No tag for this post.

Tags: Adam Ingram, Claremont Rambling Club, CND, communist party, David was, George Square, Glasgow, Iraq, Labour party, London, Microwave, Raymond, Scotland

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been thinking about this for ages. How I’d ask. Where I’d ask. When I’d ask. But every time I came up with an idea something made me put it in the bad idea pile.

My main ‘problem’ was that I was refusing to do it until Vonnie was divorced. We’ve done everything else backwards so I just wanted one thing to be done right. I had no idea the divorce would be through by now and was actually expecting it to be another 3-4 weeks which is when we were going to be in London for a long weekend hopefully. There’s some doubt about wether we’ll be able to go anyway but suffice tit to say given when Vonnie’s divorce came through she’d have killed me if I’d waited that long. Which if you think about it is really something I’d rather miss out on.

So to the ring. I’d been looking about for something within my budget for a good while now. My plan was brilliant. In order that Vonnie never finds out just how much I paid for it I was going to use my empty credit card to pay for it. We’d paid it off with a loan a while and I’d been keeping it for emergencies. This way I could also spread out the payments a bit in case the money was needed sooner elsewhere for the wedding. We’d went looking for wedding rings, like I said backwards, a while ago and picked ours up but in doing so Vonnie noticed a few she liked the look of and as a couple of them were on my list of possibles I had something to go on. On the morning I went to buy the ring I found out my card was canceled. When I say canceled I mean that in the strangest way. I don’t remember doing it but apparently part of the condition of the loan was the card was cancelled. Normlly this would be a good thing but they never they didnt close it properly. I still had full access to the online side of things so as far as I was concerned it still worked. ANYWAY…we worked our way around that and I picked a ring. The one Vonnie really really really liked was already sold though so I went with plan B and chose my other choice. I spent the next few days fretting that it wans’t the one for Vonnie and that she’d hate it. I even tried to wangle time off to head back into Glasgow and see about changing it.

My main problem was Vonnie knew I had bought it and was getting stressed anytime I did something strange or went quiet. I thought she wanted the proposal to be perfect and I wanted it to be. I just couldn’t work out when that would be. The Saturday night we were at a friends engagement party so I didn’t feel right upstaging that one. Sunday was meant to be a family day I think but we ended up driving all over the shot while hungover and all we wanted was an early night. I tried to get baby sitters for during the week so we could go out to dinner or something but between the state of the house and the amount of work Vonnie was putting in with the kids meant even if I did get a baby sitter we wouldn’t get out the house. We’d just end up in bed sleeping or tidying up.

So I decided I’d do my best to make Wednesday night calm for everyone and hopefully see where that took us. I got off work early and came home. I was intent on making dinner and having us all at the table eating just like Vonnie wanted the previous night and once that was out the way I dealt with the kids while Vonnie took some time to relax. The night went really well except Vonnie was getting pissed off about the slightest things and neither of us know why. She was shattered and between everything going on I’d probably have been the same but the night was well needed though.

Thursday I thought I’d try again. Made lasagna from scratch but it wasn’t quite right. Managed to get the kids in bed on time but it was a struggle but Vonnie was getting the time to relax again. We’d talked earlier about how the only time we actually get to be ourselves and relax is that hour just before we go to sleep when we get in bed and watch an episode of CSI or whatever. It’s great. Every night without fail we snuggle up and watch one of the many programs we follow and get some us time. So anyway as we lay there I finally decided that was the time. I rolled over and we had a wee chat about a few things and I said a few things and made a few promises. Then I asked her to marry me. Thankfully she said yes and thankfully she liked the ring. I won’t go into the detail of what was said as Vonnie mentioned in her blog its kind of personal and lessens it a wee bit of post it up for anyone to read.

I’ve been terrified since then that anyone that hears the story of how it happened will think I copped out or that I just don;t have an ounce of romance in my bones. The thing is though it felt right at that moment. Anything else I could have done would have just felt contrived and thats the one thing our relationship has never been. I’m glad it went this way

No tag for this post.

Tags: CSI, Glasgow, London, online side

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

This weekend has been a blur. I honestly don’t have a clue where it’s went.

I havent a clue what I did on friday night and about all I can remember about saturday was that we didnt go for a family day out that we were planning because Allan was wanting to do something with Findlay. Oh wait thats what I did on friday night I looked after the kids while Vonnie went round to her mates for some well needed time out enjoying herself rather than being stuck in the house. Vonnie’s dad also came over with his dog Belle who we are dogsitting for whilst they are away on holiday. Erica really didn’t want to settle on friday night and I think it may have been something to do with having a fair bit of trapped wind along with the sound of Belle pacing in the hall with the toenails/claws on the laminate echoing around the house.

On sunday I joined Vonnie on a trip into Glasgow. While she was with the kids in chuch I was planning on heading into Jessops and having them talk me through cleaning my cameras sensor as alot of dust and hairshad got in from changing lenses all the time. It seems camera shops don’t open before 12 on a sunday so I spent an hour wandering around glasgow until I finally found somewhere that would sell me a blower thingie. Managed to get that fixed and then what was supposed to be a quick visit to Confetti to look for ideas for wedding invites etc ended up in a trip around the Argyle Arcade as well. We ended up getting our wedding rings while we were there which is another of the major things out the way. Need to sort out buying a kilt by the end of the week though so we can get another few things in motion.

After that we had our last treat before locking up the wallets to save for christmas and the wedding and headed to TGI Friday’s. We had some nice food and the bill was alot less than we were expecting so bonus. We headed home and picked up Finn on the way and dropped in on Vonnie’s Nana for a wee while. By the time we got home it was 8pm and the day had flew past. I think I was in bed within the hour after taking Belle for a walk and here I am now.

It’s honestly been a blur and almost completely non-stop since I finished up work on friday.

No tag for this post.

Tags: Argyle Arcade, christmas, family day, Glasgow, nice food

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

Carl Weather’s is currently getting pissed in OHenrys. This is the one and only reason why sometimes I wished I worked in Glasgow rather than EK.

Just hold on to that goddamn chopper

No tag for this post.

Tags: Apollo Creed, Carl Weather, Glasgow