bookmark_borderThere's nothing like a good book

We are off to Spain next week so there are some vital things to sort out. Namely what music to put on my iPhone (I’ve got Series 1 of The Wire on there already), and most importantly what books to take!

I’ve got a Jeffrey Deaver and an Ian Rankin on standby and have just ordered Casino Royale and Live and Let Die so that should get me through the week, in between trips to the pub and general lounging around of course.

I don’t really make time to read all that much these days, in fact I struggle to get through the two monthly magazine subscriptions I receive (Esquire and Runners World if you must know). Aside from that mostly everything I read is for work related purposes and even then I’ve got a backlog, it’s just never that high up my priority list to be honest. I’ve tried to ‘hack’ my habits to get back to reading more often but nothing has worked, my attention and thoughts continue to lie elsewhere and, if I’m honest I’m fairly happy with that at the moment. We’ll see if that changes any time soon but my take is that, if I was REALLY that bothered I’d have done something about it.

Obviously I’m not.

That said there is a part of me that is looking forward to getting away, purely to be able to completely zone out in a good book, or at the very least a trashy thriller. There is nothing quite like losing all sense of time whilst you frantically flip pages, desperate to get to the next part of the story, and the quiet sense of despair you feel when you reach the end and, just like that, it’s over. You don’t get that with every book, some just fizzle out and leave you somewhat deflated but others take you on such a journey that the temptation to re-read them immediately is almost overwhelming.

Go on then, what are you reading right now? (aside from this blog, obviously!).

bookmark_borderThe weekend that was

Friday was damp. Friday was wet. Friday was a pretty fucking good day mainly because a band called Radiohead was playing at Glasgow Green and, whilst it there was a light drizzle for most of the evening I really didn’t care. I was just happy to be there and listen to them blast their way through most of my favourites; 2+2=5, There There, Everything In Its Right Place, Paranoid Android, Just(!), Fake Plastic Trees, Jigsaw Falling Into Place, and more.

As usual there were several knobs who did their best to spoil it but it didn’t work. Why do these people go to gigs? Regardless a good time was had by all, even if by the end of the second encore we were all kind of huddled together and beginning to feel a little sorry for ourselves.

Still, that was only part one of the evening, part two was a joint leaving night for my boss and our receptionist, both of which will be missed. Having joined the throngs of people leaving Glasgow Green, we all managed to cram onto the Underground for a quick spin round to The Loft in the west end of Glasgow. The first beer was a good one, and was soon followed by another and a couple of G&Ts. Then it was onto Boho for a wee boogie and then my lovely wife picked me up at 2.30 in the morning…

… which was mainly because on Saturday we were back out to spend the day socialising with friends and family in a late birthday celebration for Louise. We kicked off at 2pm, cocktails were involved and it was only the addition of a rather nice steak that stopped me being completely dead on Sunday. As it was we got home around 3am, quite glad we had no plans for the next day.

I won’t mention that my mother phoned and woke us up… it was 11am after all.

Sunday was spent dozing and munching, sofa-bound for the day, watching crap movies (hello Enemy Within and Jumper) and enjoying Spain’s win over Germany.

And this morning? This morning I ache, with all that standing around on Friday finally kicking in. I feel like I’ve been set on a rack and stretched by some infernal torture device or something, twisted and contorted in ways for which my body was not built. All that from standing about in the rain.. time marches on, eh…

bookmark_borderRemember to live

It seems I can’t avoid this blog post so I may as well crack on and see what falls out of my head.

My father-in-law lives in small town in Spain and, as such, is part of a tight-knit ex-pat community over there. Early this week a man we’ve met a few times, and who was always friendly and welcoming, dropped dead. We saw him just last month. Quite a shock.

Then I read this post from Tom about a man who dropped dead in the street. Tom closes his post with some advice:

…live life to the full. Make yourself happy. Try to make those that you care for happy. Your life is the only thing that you truly own and you only get one – so don’t sweat the small stuff.

Sounds twee, sounds “new-age hippy crap” but he’s right. It’s not easy though, grabbing fragments of life during the bustle of your day, pausing long enough to breathe in a moment of beauty. But we must try, mustn’t we? If not, what else is there to this life?

We all face challenges, situations arise and every day we put off doing something simple and easy. Reality slips past unnoticed, our vision narrowed by repetition. There is always something beautiful and unique, always a moment to grasp.

bookmark_borderSpain was Spain

Peggy enquired how we got on in Spain last week and I guess I should mention it.

Thing is it’s not really a holiday as such. It’s more a sojourn, or retreat, or… some other words that has the connotation of going somewhere warm and doing sweet fuck all.

On holiday I like to do things, visit places, learn about the area, sample the cuisine, the nightlife, the culture etc etc. But when we go to Spain we are there to visit my father-in-law and so we fall into his routine. We’ve seen the surrounding area and he’s not big on doing tourist stuff anyway… so our days were pretty straightforward:

  • Wake up around 9am, sometimes later, sometimes earlier.
  • Breakfast, coffee, then up onto the roof terrace for some sun.
  • Midday, lunch. Usually in the flat, sometimes out for tapas.
  • Either back to the roof terrace or out to the local shop for supplies.
  • 4pm, pub for a couple of hours. A couple of beers and a coffee or two (Dos cafe con leche, por favor)
  • Home for dinner.
  • Siesta at 7pm.
  • Back to pub at 8pm
  • Home around midnight for a nightcap and bed.

We did venture up into the mountains one day, and had dinner out a couple of nights but that is largely our schedule for the week.

Peter, my father-in-law, like other ex-pats in the area, tend to develop such a routine. We see the same people come and go in the pub(s, he visits more than one) whilst we are there, and if someone doesn’t appear on time a phone call is made to check up. It’s a very tight knit community out there, and it makes it much easier on Louise to know that her Dad is taken care of… not that he needs it of course, but his little girl does worry about him sometimes.

Louise and I occasionally walk along the beachfront and just to prove that I was in Spain, here I am trying to look nonchalant whilst the locals were walking past wearing jackets, hats and scarves.
Continue reading “Spain was Spain”

bookmark_borderThe happy luddite

Pen in hand I pause, tongue creeping out over my bottom lip in concentration (a McLean trait), and try to remember what the hell it was that I was about to write down.

I’ve been doing that for the past week or so, transcribing lists from notepad to notepad, striking out completed items with slightly too much fervour, and replacing each one with another two things that need done, phone calls that returned and so on and so forth.

I spent 34 minutes on the phone to New Zealand the other day, an incoming call thankfully as I was at home. And then spent a further 10 minutes talking to two different people from the same place, convincing both of them that the matter was in hand and could they PLEASE stop calling ME and talk to EACH OTHER.

AHHH!!! I need to get the number for the company that replaced our fence last year.. that was it.

Some other items I forgot to note the other day, include my sister’s skydive on Saturday (for charidee), which I won’t be able to attend as I really need to get a haircut, take four boxes of crap to the dump, and another two to the charity shop, before I head into Glasgow to pick up some new shirts for work.

And it’s also dawning on me that I need to start considering what to pack to go to Spain (not clothes, BOOKS!) and there is the small matter of a trip to Hungary in May. It’ll be a relief to sit still for a while on Monday morning whilst visiting the dentist.

Anyway, this is all leading up to my main point. I think everyone is, or should be, aware that I’m a bit of a gadget freak, and whilst I have been trying to simplify things for a while, there is one thing that I don’t think I’ll ever manage to convert from the current lo-tech method.

Lists.

Without pad and pen I am utterly, utterly lost. The past fortnight has been manic and it’s telling that, whenever I’m under pressure I go back to basics and start scribbling. The immediacy of writing and maintaining a list by hand isn’t something you can replace on a computer or PDA.

I know this is all obvious stuff but suffice to say that I’ve now made my peace with it… although that isn’t without it’s problems.

After all, pad and pen are still ‘gadgets’, right?

bookmark_borderGrand Plans

Speaking to my Mum on the phone earlier, we both discussed the need to have a “good clear out”, something we’ll be forced into next month as we are getting a new kitchen fitted. What better time to declutter one room and try and build some momentum to carry into others.

As we are getting the kitchen done then there is, of course, other things to be thought about. Tiles for the walls, flooring, heating (the kitchen is too small for a radiator), and assorted soft furnishings and final fittings. Today we visited a couple of tile shops and we’ve managed to agree on both tiles and flooring, it’s a miracle. Honestly, we have different tastes when it comes to these things and whilst we’d both kind of agreed roughly what we were looking for (a grey tile for the walls, and probably slate for the flooring… slate effect laminate that is) we are both equally fussy about the finer details of such things.

That said, if we can be careful with costs it is possible we might be able to get the bathroom done as well, even if it’s just replacing the mushroom coloured suite for a nice white one, and retiling the place. We’ll see.

It’s pretty much all go here at the moment, with a lot happening. Not only are we dealing with kitchen paperwork and considerations, we are still getting to grips with Ollie even though he’s made it very easy for us by being so laidback about things, we need to replace the fence in the back garden as it blew down in the high winds on Monday night (this time last year the other side was damaged!), we have our nephew’s 21st birthday next weekend, we are off to Spain early February and I’m down in London the week after that.

I’ve also been tasked with producing a long list of my ‘best’ photos, from which Louise will choose her favourite 12 to put up on the walls. We have the picture frames bought, having been inspired by Heather and Jon, so the onus is on me to get the next stage complete.

And finally, when the weather clears a little, we’ll need to paint the fence in the back garden and the porch needs re-varnished.

I really, REALLY, shouldn’t have bought a Wii…