My Grampa is 90!

I just can't imagine what it feels like to be 90 years old. But my Grampa now is.

A few years ago we didn't think he'd make it this far, I don't think he wanted to but since late last year he's been a lot cheerier and a lot more well.

apparently he did not think a party was a good idea, but my family tend to ignore things like that so he got one anyway. 21 of us went for dinner in The Tannochbrae Tearoom. http://www.tannochbrae.com/index.html My Mum had booked for 20 people and when there was 21 of us Neal, the proprietor of the tearoom and inventor of the spon remarked that this was the first time that more people had turned up than booked for in the whole 16 years that he has owned the establishment.

It was also, apparently, the first time any of my uncle's family have been in the tearoom which is odd as my aunty worked next door and my cousin used to throw things at the windows and they all used to live next door to Neal and this meant that I had to order the soft drinks because they couldn't do it themselves.

The food was delicious as always, at least everyone said so. I was enjoying my chickpea, spinach creamy, cheesy bake until it was looked over with some derision by my Grampa's cousin. She felt bad for me that I had to eat it and was not entirely convinced by my explanation that I would definitely rather eat that than meaty things.

The potatoes were amazing, my two (friendly) male cousins, my mum's cousin and myself were horrified when we saw that the serving (you help yourself to potatoes and veg from a large dish) near the birthday boy was left almost untouched and got stuck straight in with our forks. Martin's plate and cutlery were cleared away before we were done but luckily he still had a fork left from his starter cutlery and was able to continue. yum yum. It appears that my potato obsession may be genetic.

I really enjoyed looking at the old photos of my Grampa that Mum had made into place mats. Even if, as Paul pointed out from one of his merchant navy photos that we were related to the one that someone else 'brought along' - everyone else being smartly dressed in hats and uniforms and our relative on the end with no had but a glass of something in his hand, big ears and huge grin.

Paul was staying with Mum and I and spotted the Lord of The Rings board game sitting out from Friday nights failed attempt(s) by Emma, Jamie and I to save the world from the Dark Lord Sauron. Paul mentioned that he has the game but doesn't know anyone geeky enough to play with him from his friends of close family. The Rowley's being the geeky sort dutifully obliged and failed again to save the world.

You have been warned, The Dark Lord is now gathering strength. The time of men is nearly over.

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Disturbing news

work is now so boring that my lunchtime visits to the gym have become the highlight of my day.

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so behind with blogging

Basically I was completely exhausted so I didn't bog then I was busy enjoying annual leave so I didn't blog. I'm back with a very belated blog.

I didn't finish Berlin. our last day we had a great meal in cookies cream - an amazing veggie restaurant. Otherwise not much to say about that.

Last Week May and first week June I had annual leave . yay! It was possibly the busiest annual leave anyone had ever.

First I had three nights in Marrakesh, then a few days later was Kirsty's hen weekend in Edinburgh, then  started a two week exercise bootcamp half way through that was Al and Nicola's wedding in Cupar. so busy busy busy.

I'll post a separate Marrakesh blog because it deserves it. otherwise, Kirsty's hen do was enjoyable with great games and food and a pinata. the wedding was ice Nicola's self-designed dress was lovely, best man really gave his brother a ribbing during his speech, there was a fight but after I left so I missed it.

boot camp was painful and hard but even in just two weeks my fitness has really improved. I had the gym make my programme harder so I can keep up the good work but so far as my knee has been excruciatingly painful from bootcamp I haven't been keeping it up very well.

tales from the allotment.

I have not been to my plot for a while what with the injured ankle and then being on holiday. I'm pleased to report that it is looking good. Today, amongst other things I planted three very poorly looking courgette plants. They really should have been planted out a couple of weeks ago. I gave them all a scoop of chicken manure pelletts, lots of water and put a little blanket of comfrey leaves round each. I hope they will grow big and strong.


My other discovery today is that mice have eaten half of the bar of soap that I keep up here.

Berlin day 4.

Day four was hogmanay. So we had a relaxing day to save our energy for the night. We made a second attempt to visit the Reichstag Dome but it was closed due to being covered in snow. Lynne and I shopped for dinner (it was stressful) we made some soup and ate crisps, drank Sekt and then headed out to the huge outdoor party at Brandenburger tor. The photos below show us eating dinner in the flat then on our way to the street party.







When the clock struck midnight there were fireworks, a Michael Jackson medley and snow falling. We danced in the snow to some German folk songs for a while then entered a dance tent and had a boogie to some dance classics and pop tunes. While we were dancing Claire kept trying to put all of her clothes onto the ground which was wet, dirty and beery so I was rescuing her clothes and balancing them on my head while dancing. Lynne took a few good photos of me with my huge turban on.   It was good fun, we got home around 4am and all felt crap the next day.

Lorna flew home on the 1st. Lynne, Claire and I had a walk on the 1st and wen to an award winning cocktail bar named after Claire's crush du jour. (Gainsbourg) it would have been a nice walk if I wasn't so hungover and kept getting waves of nausea. Berliners seemed to be out for kaffee und kuchen too and it was nice to be in a less touristy part of town and to get to feel a bit like a local.  

My new toy

I am excited about my new Blackberry and wanted to show it off. No one in my office knows what it is. They appear to think that e-mail and text messages are the same thing.

What century is Stirling stuck in?

Pecha Kucha

Lynne and I went to a Pecha Kucha night at Tramway. It is an interesting concept created by a Japanese Architecture firm who were inviting tenders but knowing who much people like to waffle on created a strict code 20 slides 20 seconds per slide.

So in Tramway the same rules applied - Pecha Kucha events happen in many cities across the world. The event was running as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual art and it was mostly artists who were represented. The presentations varied a lot in style and topic and the short time scale meant that if you found one boring you weren't bored for long.

My favourites were the funny ones David Shrigley did an almost alphabet and Neil Bickerton's Prison game. but other were academic and talking about the idea of identity and anonymity - or the film Point Break as a political message.