The Boy Wonder and Wolverhampton

On a Saturday, early in April, the Boy Wonder and I made our way east along the Golf Coast Road. He and his mum – my sister – were in Edinburgh for a long weekend. It was a breezy and mostly sunny day in East Lothian. We made quick work of Longniddry, Aberlady and Gullane.

‘Turn your phone off and talk to me,’ I said.

He killed his screen and put it back in his pocket, only semi-reluctantly.

‘Can I drive?’ he asked.

‘You’re thirteen,’ I reminded him.

He seemed to find this an unacceptable reason for his request to be turned down.

On the beach at Yellowcraig, we kick a ball about, with the wind making it awkward, and a bit chilly. We passed and volleyed our way along the beach eastwards.

‘Hang on,’ he said. The football was suspended for a time, while he found a rock pool and attempted to recreate something he saw in a TikTok video. It didn’t work. I suspect trickery may have been involved in the original. 

Back in the beach car park, he suggested I let him drive for a bit. I resisted. We set off for North Berwick, and the conversation turned to lunch options. Having earlier hit up McDonalds for Second Breakfast, the gastronomic bar for the day had been set high. My suggestions of “fish and chips” or “a sandwich from Costa” were met with a disapproving silence.

We were no further forward on this most important of issues as we rolled into the neatly kept streets of the East Lothian seaside town, round the one-way loop, past the award-winning toilets, and back up the High Street, passing Greggs. 

‘Oooh, Greggs,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been to Greggs, but my friend says you can’t beat it.’

And that was the lunch decision made. We sat on the beach and ate sausage rolls and chicken bakes in the spring sunshine.

‘Well? Was your friend right?’

‘He wasn’t lying.’

Now, one month later almost to the day, I find myself in Wolverhampton. A change of career has landed me here, on three days of training courses, learning about outer ear disorders and cerumenolytics. All in all, I expect to be away from home for a full month. How does one pack for being away for a month?

I wasn’t sure, so I threw the limoncello, some chocolate and a spare pair of pants in the car and set off. I stopped in Moffat, having taken rather longer to get there than I would have liked, finding myself behind an especially-slow-moving caravanette for a long stretch of the Beeftub road.

The public toilets in Moffat, I discovered, are most definitely not award-winning. It’s been a long time since I drove south with any regularity, but many things remain the same. Most of the buildings and shops in Moffat, for example, and certainly their paintwork, which doesn’t appear to have been refreshed in the last twenty years. And the increasing southward busyness of the M6, peaking around Manchester, and settling down thereafter.

Wolverhampton is a new destination for me. It has an interesting-looking mosque, a lot of roundabouts, a city layout designed by someone with a one-way street obsession, and a grimly industrial vibe. 

My travelling companion Shona and I were booked into a country hotel near our training venue. I collected my room key at reception, made my way along several corridors, through multiple double-doors, passing bizarrely mirror-lined alcoves along the way, and found my room. On entering it, I was reminded forcibly of Mordor, although I confess I’ve never been.

The paintwork was in poor nick, the taps were tenuously attached to the bathroom sink, the light switch for the bathroom gave way a little on pressing it. There was a bare bulb in the light fitting beside the bed, the shade having been broken by some earlier occupant. The mattress springs in the bed introduced themselves to me, individually, when I lay down. The mains socket nearest the bed didn’t work, but the lamp on the dresser did pass a PAT test in 2018, so that was something.

We stayed one night, Shona faring much worse than I with a sleepless night brought on by a full-scale domestic abuse situation unfolding in the adjacent room, before she headed home, and I beat a retreat to an Airbnb in Wolverhampton. 

Tomorrow is the final day of courses, and then it’s on to London, where the Boy Wonder will no doubt want to drive my car again. 

I shall resist, again.

The COVID jab and Neighbourhood Apps

Back in March, I got myself a new high-backed camping chair for beach sitting, in preparation for what will surely be a long hot Scottish summer.

I was inspecting this in the scheme’s car park when Irene bustled over.

“Are you Edward?”

“No, I’m Andrew.”

“I’m Irene. I’m the chair of the resident’s committee here. Have been for 20 years.’”

I know, I thought. And the editor of The Newsletter.

Irene was clutching a fairly nice-looking tablet, in the manner in which a highly-organised teacher would clutch a clipboard on Sports Day.

“I’m just waiting for family to arrive,” she said, and bustled off towards the car park entrance.

Not a word about The Newsletter. I’ve been here for five full months now, and still not seen an issue.

Last Thursday I got my COVID-19 jab in an East Lothian drive-thru. The whole process was super-organised. I almost fell in love with Ruth, the lady injecting me in the arm, she was so sweet. This may have been an overly emotional reaction to finally seeing the daylight at the end of the COVID tunnel, as she was clearly too old for me. Although with the mask, it’s not always easy to tell these things, these days.

Straight afterwards I felt like I’d drunk a mid-strength lager a bit too quickly. When I moved my head it felt like the contents of my head took just a fraction of a second to catch up.

But after my self-monitored fifteen minute recovery period sitting in the car, I drove off home, stopping off for a McFlurry in my second drive-thru of the day, as a reward to myself for being so brave.

At 4am the next morning I woke up feeling achey and shivery, and stopped just short of crying for my mummy. In the morning it had all subsided a bit. But I took what I am confident is a well-earned break from running for a few days.

The same day I got an envelope through the door, addressed to ‘Joppa Neighbour’. This, in itself, is controversial, as my mum is insistent my flat resides in Joppa, and I maintain it’s in Portobello. I have not shown this letter to my mum, as it would strengthen her case. 

But I was excited that perhaps the envelope contained a Newsletter.

Alas, it was an invitation to join the local Joppa neighbourhood app.

“Your neighbourhood is using it,” declared the letter, “and you should join too.”

Well, should I, now.

It felt very much like Irene had a hand in this letter.

Apparently, downloading and using the app will provide a host of benefits, like lost pet notifications, and safety issues in the neighbourhood

Disco Dave and I have had mixed experiences of neighbourhood social media. At his previous address, he was a fully paid up member of the street’s WhatsApp group, and reported on several occasions getting messages that the water was off in the street, which would then be confirmed by fifty other people immediately. Similarly when the water came back on.

I message him about the Joppa Neighbourhood App.

“You should join. 100%,” he affirms. “Otherwise how will you know when your power is off?”

It’s a fair point.

Today is 17th May. Still waiting for the hot Scottish summer to begin. Must be any day now.

The C-19 Diaries. Late night snacking and long walks.

Day 48

Snacking, particularly late-night snacking, has become a thing. I am snacking HARD.

Also, I think I might be suffering from Delayed Onset Creativity Syndrome. On both occasions that I have owned flats, I wanted to do nothing to either of them for approx. three years, in fact, the very idea brought me out in a rash. And then, one day, I woke up positively brimming with creative intent.

When I say creative intent, I mean I wanted to paint a wall or two in the living room. But one has to start somewhere.

This year, three years after I moved in to my current flat, and before there were face masks, and painted lines at 2m intervals, I said to my Flatmate that we should really do something about the back garden. And we did.

After nigh-on seven weeks of forcing myself to run in order to get some meaningful exercise (besides stretching up to the top shelf to get a new packet of biscuits down), I decided to get more creative.

Today I played squash, by myself, against the wall of the local McDonalds drive-thru. I was going to use the back wall of the nearby abandoned car wash, but the wall surface was a little irregular, and there was a decent smattering of broken glass on the ground.

It was especially pleasing to do some exercise which didn’t involve running. I was initially worried that there would be an adolescent McDs manager lurking inside, who would come out all raging and fist-shaking and throw me off the premises, possibly calling the police, but nothing so dramatic happened.

I attracted almost no attention from passers-by either, beyond one guy calling out “Go on yersel’ bud”. I took this as encouragement.

I confessed to Nicola that I had violated a McDonalds drive-thru in this way. 

“That feels like you were dancing on one of my relatives graves,” she replied.

I knew I could count on her for a measured response.

I really need to step the McDonalds violations up to 3 times a week if I’m to continue with this level of snacking.

Day 50

Today I decided to go on an epic walk around Edinburgh. It seemed prudent to take the opportunity, while both motorised and pedestrian traffic is at a minimum, to explore. 

I found all manner of interesting closes and wynds. Some littered with broken bottles – remnants of late night revelry or attempts to stave off despair, I couldn’t tell which.

I walked along Royal Park Terrace, Royal Terrace, and up the Royal Mile. I ran up Calton Hill, or some of it, until I was fit to drop, and was concerned the family of four coming the other way might call an ambulance.

I ran up a flight of steps I didn’t know existed, connecting Greenside Row to Leith Street. The new St James Centre is finally beginning to take shape. Along Princes St to Waverley Bridge. It was about this point that I felt a coffee would be in order. But this proved troublesome. 

Williams & Johnson – closed.

Baba Budan – closed.

I found a place open on the Royal Mile, and bought my first takeaway coffee in months. It was terrible, and landed in the bin after a solitary sip.

Now on the High St, and under severe provocation from Disco Dave and Nicola, I tentatively swung around an historic lamppost, while listening to B*witched.

Cut down to Victoria Terrace, at the end of which I found the Edinburgh office of the Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association.

Along the Grassmarket, up to Lauriston Place, and via a back lane to Brougham St.

Machina Espresso – closed.

Into the Meadows, where there was a kiosk selling lovely coffee to people at 2m intervals. The barista was playing reggae from his twin record desks, as well as making stellar coffee. I decided I want to be him when I grow up.

Sat on the grass for an undefined period. Sun was shining, mostly. 

Called my mum from Meadow Lane and its row of colourfully graffiti-ed lock-ups. On past some pretty sweet-looking new apartments. Buccleuch Place, George Square, a deserted Bristo Square. Back to the Royal Mile and a quick visit to the Castle Esplanade, also deserted.

The One o’Clock Gun is still working. I guess the One o’Clock Gunner can’t work from home.

Back home through London Road Gardens, where I almost climbed a tree. I found myself unsure as to whether this would be an offence or not. I resolved to come back and climb it another day.

19,046 steps and 15km. And sore feet. 

But it was great.

Not in Lockdown yet…

The pre-Coronavirus Diaries, continued

Tuesday/ cont’d

Download and watch Salt, for perhaps the third time. I consider it to be one of Angelina’s finest works. My flatmate elects to stay in his room.

Given that the government advice precludes meeting together, church is now off for the foreseeable. Preliminary plans are made to begin filming and editing a video-based online church service.

Wednesday/Thursday

I have very little recollection of these days. Video editing was involved.

Friday

I do remember having an Empire Biscuit on Friday, so some of life’s rhythms are still intact. 

I make various visits to various supermarkets. The food items-shopper ratio is gradually decreasing.

Where are all the stockpilers putting all their stuff? Surely they’ve run out of space by now?

Sister is in touch on WhatsApp. She raises the thorny question of what would happen if the Queen passes on in the middle of all this. What will we do? Will all the meticulous planning be for naught?

“I’m sending turmeric to the Palace,” she affirms.

“Make sure you keep enough back for yourself,” I remind her. It’s easy to overlook one’s personal needs in times of crisis like this.

“I have 25kg” she replies.

Saturday

More video editing. I watch “We were soldiers” with my flatmate. He cooks a roast chicken for the occasion.

Sunday

First online church service passes off well. It’s a gorgeous sunny day. I spend the afternoon walking in Holyrood Park, along with hundreds of other people. It proves quite difficult to maintain a 2m bubble without appearing to be offensive.

Monday

I stay at home and join a series of four online meetings, which is a surprisingly exhausting pursuit, given the lack of physical movement involved. 

Having suddenly remembered that all UK McDonalds restaurants were closing tonight “by 8pm” (nothing like a vaguely-communicated deadline to ensure some McDonalds panic buying), I nip out between two meetings to pick up some Chicken Selects for the last time for goodness-knows-how-long. (Four hours, as it transpired).

I join an epic drive-thru queue. By the time I reach the order point, with the help of Nicola’s advice on the matter via WhatsApp, I realise I need to make the most of it, and so order a milkshake AND a McFlurry.

However, the “ice cream” machine is being cleaned. So no milkshakes or McFlurrys available. I settle for the a 3-Selects meal.

Make it back narrowly in time for the next meeting. Switch my camera off for the first part so as not to make everyone jealous while I scoff McDonalds.

Realise afterwards I had missed a solitary fry, which is lurking in the corner of the cardboard container. 

Is this in fact the correct singular spelling of fries? I have never before had occasion to refer to one on its own. Today’s fries were perhaps the limpest and most disappointing I’ve had from McD’s in recent years. And so the solitary lonely fry, now stone cold, having not been the warmest to begin with, is not an appetising prospect.

I optimistically throw it in the food recycling.

Two meetings later, I head back for my belated McFlurry. Join the drive thru queue again. Still no “ice cream” products available. I order another 3 Chicken Selects.

Still hungry. Maybe I’ll crack open some tuna tonight.

Posh toilets and a numb septum

I spent the morning of my day off masquerading as someone from another layer of the socio-economic sphere (a layer closer to the crust, I would say), as I made my inaugural visit to Jack Wills on George St and then, acting on a tip-off from the Admin Supremo, I tried out Burr & Co for coffee.

Trying out the toilets first – not because I judge establishments on the quality of their facilities, but because I needed to wash my hands – I found them to be very posh, and the broadness and lushness of the stairs and hallway reminded me of various American hotels of my acquaintance. 

Posh because they had the two liquid-soap-dispensers-per-sink arrangement a proper posh toilet demands. Which requires you to inspect the labelling carefully so as to avoid a premature lotion application. This minefield successfully negotiated, I returned upstairs and opened today’s Guardian. Not to read it, obviously, that would only bring me up to speed with what’s not happening with Brexit. I opened it as far as page 2, which had the table of contents, to find out where the crossword was, for it was not where I would have expected it.

Nina Simone is playing, distantly.

I sit opposite the counter, and watch various people, who look more at home in a George Street establishment than I feel, some of them knee-deep in make-up, enter stage right and order their drinks.

A number of them look like they’re part of the decaf-skinny-cappuccino-no-chocolate-sprinkles-please brigade. The question which I longed to put to these people when I worked in a café was, essentially:

“Why bother?” and

“Would you like a glass of water instead?”

As a coffee-related aside, McDonalds have recently been aggressively marketing their coffee offerings here in the UK. Taking aim at what they see as pretentious purveyors of coffee, they have a series of billboards which target the flowery naming of small/medium/large by the large chains, and other aspects of the hipster coffee culture. 

They also have an excellent, funny and, to be frank, very astute TV ad which debunks the mysticism surrounding the flat white. After a variety of common myths about the flat white are presented, a McDonalds server punctures the superciliousness by explaining 

“It’s just a stronger latte with less milk.”

Which it is. Despite what Costa will try to tell you.

The irony is, I have never known a proper hipster coffee shop to buy into the overblown hype around flat whites. And the thing about hipster coffee is, usually, it really does taste better.

Also, McDonalds include latte art in their targeting of hipster coffee.

“We could draw fancy patterns in our milk and charge more for it. But we don’t.” 

Or something like that. I take exception to this on the grounds that:

  1. No you couldn’t, McDonalds. You don’t have baristas capable of producing latte art. Nor a proper coffee machine which would allow them to do it.
  2. Coffee shops don’t, in my experience, charge more for producing coffee with latte art. A latte/flat white/cappuccino is £2-and-something, pretty much everywhere, whether it has a nice pattern in the milk or not.
  3. Latte art takes real skill and practice to produce, and I appreciate people adding beauty and creativity to things. 

So, McDonalds, I applaud you for your services to flat-white-demystifying, but as regards latte art, wind your neck in.

At the table next to me a lady and her daughter are having coffee. I am guessing at the relationship, but it seems likely. After a time, the daughter departs in the direction of the posh loo. The mother takes time to re-apply her lipstick.

Belatedly I realise that right behind me is a long shoulder-level mirror, which means that the mother could, in fact, have read everything I’ve been writing, provided she was sufficiently interested to make the effort to read backwards. I decide to take the risk, but furtively reduce the brightness on my screen a little.

It’s a long time since I attempted the Guardian crossword. I have recently been re-enthused in my crossword-solving attempts by re-reading Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8), which is one of my favourite books of all-time. Possibly number one, in fact, but definitely in the top five.

Since re-opening it, I have attempted a couple of Telegraphs, one of which was quite successful (only three clues left unsolved) but today is my first foray into Guardian territory.

Typically my attempts at the Guardian involve me managing to solve one or two clues on the first pass, and then maybe another one or two if I come back to it after a day or so. But the incentive to come back to it is not high, if I have been thwarted by 93% of the clues first time round. So today I am risking getting my day off to a bad start. But the sun is shining, so it won’t be all bad.

In other news, two weeks on from my melodramatic ski-in-the-face incident, my septum is still numb. Nicola has been parsimonious in her sympathy on the matter. I am considering changing GP practice out of protest. 

Guardian crossword update: the first pass through yielded ten solutions, and the second pass another six. I am somewhat encouraged, and, fortified by my pain au chocolat and long black from Burr & Co (both of which were excellent) I stride out to meet the day.

I later found Haggis Pakora in Sainsbury’s, which I suspect may be the most perfect union of national culinary traditions ever.

I shall keep you posted.

Snowmageddon and Bacon Rolls

Tuesday 27 Feb

Went into town to see the movie Lady Bird. With the internet promising apocalyptic weather over the next few days I wasn’t sure when I would next get out of the house. The Beast from the East was on the way, they said. Freezing temperatures and shedloads of snow, they said.

Not likely, I thought. Winter after winter we get these predictions, and they do happen, somewhere in the UK, I’ve seen it on the news, all those drivers stuck on motorways and whatnot. But never in Edinburgh. Too close to the coast. Snow doesn’t really lie here.

I exited the flat into a shallow carpet of tiny hailstones. Drove into town. The Beast, it seemed, had made a preliminary foray into Edinburgh, and the old girl was clad in a thin veil of ghostly white. The wind was gusting a little. I parked up on London Road, and walked/slid up to the cinema.

Lady Bird was a great film. At some stage I experienced the gradually-dawning realisation that I was watching an American teenage girl’s coming-of-age movie. However, it was frequently hilarious, and often touching, and only spoiled a little by the fact that it was subtitled. This is the second Tuesday in a row I have been ambushed by unwanted subtitles at the cinema. Is Tuesday Subtitle Day at Vue?

I left the cinema. Some fresh snow had fallen in the meantime. Scraped the windscreen clear and headed home.

Wednesday 28 Feb

From 3pm today until 10am tomorrow, a red weather warning is in place from the MET Office. I normally drive into the office around lunchtime on a Wednesday, but today it seemed sensible to stay and work from home all day.

Working from home has benefits, some of which are bacon-and-egg-roll-shaped. I followed up that lunchtime benefit with a simpler, more austere second course of bacon-only-roll. One has to take one’s bacon roll opportunities when they present themselves.

Just recently I found myself in town on a Friday morning. A narrow window of bacon-roll-opportunity presented itself, so narrow it was more like one of those windows you get in castles, just wide enough to shoot an arrow through, but it was enough. I marched, expectant, into the New Town Deli.

The barista had tattoos. I was reassured.

“Do you do bacon rolls?”

She looked unsure. I scanned the blackboard. It was all smashed avocado and crushed fennel seeds.

“No, sorry,” she explained, after a short conversation with her supervisor. “That was yesterday.”

That was yesterday? Is Thursday Bacon Roll Day? I’m an Anglican, and thus primed to celebrate feast days on the appropriate occasion, but have now missed Bacon Roll Day AND the memo about Subtitle Day.

Anyway, back to the present. My boss has also decided to work from home today. We communicate via email, with Snowmageddon updates via WhatsApp.

14:17 Definitely worsening here. People are panic buying at the local shop. 

My boss lives in The Sticks. If the local shop gets cleaned out they might need to do food drops by helicopter.

I put it to him that he wouldn’t know they were panic buying there unless he was there panic buying himself. He is unable to effectively deny this. Meantime I am quietly panicking myself, as my coffee beans have almost run out.

14:59 One minute until Snowmageddon.

The wind picks up. Within an hour the snow is coming down hard. I do what work I can from home and eventually stop for tea. In the interests of a balanced diet, I eschew more bacon, and instead have sausages. And potatoes.

Flatmate returned from work with the disturbing news that our local McDonalds had shut.

Thursday 1 Mar

More snow overnight. Car looks like it’s not going anywhere for a while. I pulled back the curtains to see neighbours pulling their kids along the middle of the road in sledges.

No buses running today. Fresh coffee beans now gone. Had to make an emergency raid on the reserve coffee bean jar this morning.

Sky cleared a bit in the morning. My flatmate’s work is closed today, but he was asked to go and put up a sign on the door to say this. He wrapped up and walked into town.

Main roads are ok. Just passed one guy on skis!

He asked if I wanted anything. I realise that I have bacon, but no rolls, so ask him if he could stop off for some at Sainsbury’s. Apparently the panic-buyers have got there first.

Brioche only!

A bacon brioche doesn’t sound terrible, and he agreed to bring the brioches. Meanwhile I decide to revisit Morrison’s to see if it was open today.

It was. I stocked up on bacon, rolls, and other essentials.

Climbed the steep street back towards my flat, and say a cheery “Hi!” to a snowboarder going the other way.

Safely back in the flat, I reestablish WhatsApp communication with the boss.

Local shop is out of milk and bread…

And I used up all our bacon for breakfast

He sends a picture of his back garden, complete with snow ramp, and sledging daughter. It’s all happening in The Sticks.

After lunch the Rector’s Administrator emails. She is working from home in Morningside, and all is well – she has plenty of Prosecco and Waitrose hasn’t yet run out of quinoa.

H texts. H loves the snow, but not the cold. The heating in her flat has two settings: Clay Oven, and Old People’s Home. I suspect it’s on the latter today.

The blizzards continue all day. Looking out on my back “garden”, I realise that if the snow continues, it won’t be long before even the weeds are completely submerged. This is a non-trivial amount of snow.

I put the kettle on, and pop some brioches under the grill. Get momentarily distracted and before you know it, the brioches are smoking.  Who knew brioches toasted so quickly? I flip open the kitchen window, and the Beast makes short work of the smoke in the kitchen, before it even has a chance to reach the nostrils of the Loudest Most Sensitive Smoke Alarm in the world.

I have Blackened Brioche with marmalade. Surprisingly tasty.

Followed that up with a bacon-based tea. One has to keep one’s energy levels up at times like this.

Stay safe out there, Britons.

Adventures in the South

Mum and I spent a very enjoyable Christmas in London this year. Maggie, my mischievous niece, is nearly two. She finds noisy toys a little frightening at this stage, so perhaps a plastic chainsaw, complete with pseudo-realistic sound effects, wasn’t the perfect gift. Never mind, she got approximately one thousand other presents, and won’t have noticed. The chainsaw can remain in the toybox until her little brother arrives in March.

I managed to acquire a cold at the beginning of Christmas week, and so I lived mostly in self-imposed exile on the top floor of my sister’s house, and read books. Part of Christmas Day, however, was spent pram-racing in the back garden. It’s backbreaking work, pushing a tiny pushchair with a snowman passenger through the mud, and after each lap I longed for the blessed words “Dinner’s ready”. But the light would be snuffed out at the end of that particular tunnel with a cry of “Again!”, from about four feet below me and to my left, and off we would trundle.

Now that the festive period has passed, our two week holiday on the French slopes is fast approaching, although it hasn’t felt desperately fast as I’ve been looking forward to it eagerly for some six months. However, now that it’s actually imminent, I have upped my McDonald’s intake accordingly in order to be ready, expanding my usual order to not only include the scientifically-proven-to-be-helpful chocolate milkshake, but actual “food”. I use the term cautiously. I have taken a liking to their Chicken Selects, which, I feel, are a marginally less synthetic version of Chicken McNuggets. And they’re bigger, which is always a bonus. But back to the milkshakes. Why do they always taste of banana, even when you order chocolate or strawberry? And is there really any milk in them? I was reminded recently of an occasion in the mid-nineties when I fetched three milkshakes from McD’s in a friend’s brand new (only recently launched) Audi A4. Not a good moment to spill strawberry milkshake all over the footwell, so that’s what I did, swinging extravagantly into the car-parking space after having been the very model of ultra-cautious driving all the way home. The pink stain remained in the fabric until my friends replaced the car, but curiously, it never smelled… which if there was any milk involved, you would have expected it to.

Anyway. Last Team Gym session this week, and it looks like having a record attendance, as we all strive to become lean mean skiing machines. Even Wiseman has hinted at an appearance. DC has still not darkened the door, but claims to have climbed two mountains last weekend. He may also be spending the time profitably by devising inventive ways of spending as little money as possible in France, what with the Euro pounding us into submission at the moment. Leisurely lunches in mountain restaurants look to be a relic of years gone by. Current proposals include having picnic lunches on the piste, using the snowboards as a windbreak (knew they would come in useful eventually), and taking flasks of espresso onto the hill and adding it to mugs of free hot water from the bar.

The potential reduction in café time may explain why Nasty Jen has elected not to join us this time around. In her absence, it follows that someone will have to take up the mantle of being the sartorial envy of the pistes. I feel I am up for the challenge, what with my sister having knitted me a hat for Christmas and everything. And having taken some ski lessons recently from a pretty dark-haired Austrian ski instructor, I may even be able to ski while looking elegant, something Jen never managed…

Team Gym

In advance of our skiing holiday in the New Year, some of the more dedicated members of the party have been meeting up, weekly, at the gym, in an attempt (perhaps a forlorn one) to get fit. Our current gym of choice is Ainslie Park, which I keep wanting to call Astley Ainslie, for some reason. The Astley Ainslie is a hospital, mostly full of old people recovering from serious conditions. I have no doubt that I will end up in the gym there soon enough, but am in no rush.

For some of us, though, notably Filipideedoodaa, once a week at Ainslie Park is no longer enough, and so she has suggested we start going twice.

“How’s six o’clock at Meadowbank on Monday?” enquired F….

“Do you work near Meadowbank on Mondays?” I asked, wondering about the change of venue.

“Well, it’s on my way home if I go home that way” she replied.

There, in one sentence, the logical genius that is Filipideedoodaa is encapsulated.

The whole gym thing, so far, has been a rewarding, but exhausting experience. Last week, on returning home, I felt so drained that I promptly devoured most of a box of Lindt chocolates. I confessed this to the Admin Supremo the next morning at work, who confidently asserted that this wasn’t a bad thing, since good quality chocolates don’t contain very much milk. Or something.

This week, having confessed my indulgence again, this time to Broon and F…, Broon immediately and confidently backed up the Supremo’s claim, and followed it up by claiming that the best thing after exercise is a chocolate milkshake. WELL, I can tell you, that piece of news went down well in my corner, if not F…’s, as she has renounced all chocolate products since a large chocolate bar fell on her head when she was six years old, and being a bloody-minded Welsh redhead, she isn’t breaking her fast for nobody. On further querying, Broon appeared to be quite genuine in her chocolate milkshake belief, and after all, she is a qualified physio, so off I popped to McDonalds, which is on my home if I go home that way. I have resolved to go home that way after every gym night from now on, in the interests of the quick recovery that chocolate milkshakes provide, according to Broon et al, 2004.

I pulled up at the drive-through.

“Chocolate milkshake please.”

“Regular or large?”

I thought for a moment.

“Large please.” After all, I had done thirty reps on that fiendish leg press thing. This gym malarkey is starting to look up. And the gym at Meadowbank is slap bang opposite…. McDonald’s. Good choice, F…

The ageing process

Now, I know that we all get a little older every day. But whereas on most days this a fairly imperceptible process, today I think I aged 10 years in a matter of hours. Firstly I caught myself listening to Radio Scotland, to some programme where a panel of ‘old’ people were discussing what it was like to be ‘old’ and the things that annoyed them and made them grumpy. Things like people not talking properly and, like, using bad grammar lots. And not being able to remember what they did last week while being able to sing their school song verbatim, in Latin, at the drop of a hat. It was quite an amusing discussion, at least until I realised that I had, for probably the first time ever, deliberately been listening to a radio programme with people TALKING. No music. (Clearly football and cricket commentaries don’t count here). On Radio Scotland. And I was enjoying it. What’s more, I found myself agreeing with a lot of their experiences, especially the being-grumpy ones. These people were, on average, about 70 years old. I am 32. This is worrying.

It got worse. After this trauma I went to see a customer who showed me a photo of her new baby grandson. And I had to agree that he was cute. And then I experienced the sinking realisation that all babies don’t look alike after all. I have definitely seen a lot of babies that were uglier than this little kid. I am not going to mention any names. I have always thought that all babies looked the same. It is almost a defining characteristic of my bachelor-ness. This worries me. I think I may have got married and turned into a sap without realising it. Interestingly I had a dream the other night where I got married. My ‘wife’ started out as one person, and halfway through the dream morphed into someone else entirely. Once again I’m not going to print any names here. I think this was a visionary illustration of how women change dramatically in a relationship from the fun-loving game-for-a-laugh character they are when you first meet them into… well I’d probably better stop there.

My Radio Scotland experience occurred while I was parked in the car park of McDonald’s, having a McFlurry. This, in hindsight, seems like the behaviour of an ageing man desperately trying to cling on to his youth. Perhaps I’m overreacting. Perhaps I need to spend more time in the company of older people, which always makes me feel ‘current’.

Wiseman, where’ve you gone, m8…