Thursday, December 27, 2007

Hibernation over, Hibernian overcome!

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything. Mostly because we’ve been far too busy doing stuff like spending 2 weeks in Lanzarote celebrating thewife’s 50th birthday. A whole lot of fun that was, sun, sea and excellent food as can be seen in the other blog.

Just got back to discover the sad death of an old friend from school. We had drifted apart since, but between the ages of 16 and 18 we were the best of friends. Dean, like me was very much into music and it was extremely important at that age to be ahead of everyone else, apart from the godawful Pink Floyd which we both loved then, we were also into early Springsteen, Robin Trower and Todd Rundgren amongst many others. Dean was a big, big fan of Frankie Miller, long before anyone else had even heard of him. My most enduring memory is of him borowing my extremely ornate guitar (probably aimed at the C&W market), slinging it over his shoulder and heading for the last bus to Kilwinning, whilst under the influence of mind altering chemicals. Apparently he bumped into his history teacher. I envisioned a scene like Spud's interview in Trainspotting. I would occasionally bump into him on a train or in the street and we'd both say that we must catch up over a pint sometime, but it never ever happened. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and died 5 weeks later.

This sad event was followed up by an excellent trip to London, staying with Reidski, doing some Christmas shopping and a whole lot of eating and drinking with Reidski and Jane and generally having a great time. I promised Reidski and Jane that we would post some picture of the Christmas lights on the houses around us, given that we thought London houses were epitome of restraint and taste. (Well except for naked guy painting open window – we have no idea, but we did see this.) Unfortunately, all the pictures I took turned out pretty rubbish, which was great pity I’m sure they would have loved the one with the hut-sized Santa’s grotto in the front garden.

We also popped in and visited Father Bell's partner at the palace of Westminster and she took us round the whole thing, not just the tourist tour but a behind the scenes look at gubbins as well. An all to brief luncheon call on the good Father at home, saw him rustle up a spectacular sausage casserole and a scrummy trifle to boot, washed down with copious quantities of as ever fabulous wines. He is a wine buyer after all.

After the visit Christmas pretty much landed on us. Santa brought both thewife and I bicycles, so as soon as we get round to getting a pump to blow up the tyres, we are off on a healthy exercise regime for the next year.

On the way to the footie yesterday Alex told us of a wee bump his son had when another vehicle swerved into him. I should love to see the insurance claim form for this one. I found the story a little difficult to grasp at first trying to get my head round the concept of Council Hawks. Nope it’s not a group of right wingers at all. They have in fact both a right and a left wing and are used by North Ayrshire Council to frighten seagulls from municipal dumps. Apparently, Alex’s son had just repaired his daughter’s car and was taking it for a test run, when one of the hawks in the van used to transport them had got loose. Driver then swerved into Alex’s son. I later related this tale to thewife who knew right away what the hawks were for.

On the footie front I have to say that Killie’s run of 7 games without a win came to an end with an absolutely fantastic performance against Hibs. A perfect end to Christmas with the exception of a ludicrous penalty given to an extremely lacklustre Hibs side.

Labels: friends and football

posted by timesnewroman at 12:26 PM  

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