October Schmoctober

This week, I was awfully excited to receive an email from a nice lady who worked for a company I had never heard of, telling me I had won a competition via The Making Spot.  Problem was, she didn't tell me what I'd won and I had no idea.  S'not really a problem though, is it?  It's just a pleasant surprise when it arrives......and arrive it did, in a great big box! 

Patience is not a known virtue in this house.  Neither is the skill of being able to see through cardboard but it didn't stop her trying for twenty minutes.  I could've opened it a lot sooner but watching her trying to get various sunglasses to work as X-ray specs was just too good a spectacle *snort* to miss.

Back to the prize, ta-dah!

I'd won a Big Shot Sissix with two dies, a puppy and a tree!  How exciting! We'd used one of these during out Make Do and Mend sessions in the library and I loved the clean lines I got on wee footery shapes.  Also remarkably small child friendly; she loves turning the handle, there's no obvious sharp edges and, as long as I keep an eye on her juuuuuust to make sure she doesn't Tom n Jerry her fingers through the roller, she'd happily cut out puppies and trees from newspaper/coloured paper/important car-related documents all day.  Cue a living room that looked a little like a Moonie Dog training class.

I am yet to think what I'm actually going to do with it but it'll come in handy one day, I'm sure.  I can see it being very useful if you were a quilter because you can buy a die that cuts perfect squares.  I can't cut a straight line to save myself so if I was interesting in quilting, which I'm not, it would be a godsend.

Other things I have being doing include.....

-Painting my nails, like, totally all the time.  Obsessed.

-Making lentil soup.  This recipe in particular.  It's a great recipe- chuck in spinach for added goodness.

-Went ice skating and I sucked at it, which surprised me, given my roller skating skillz :-P

-Started making Christmas cakes

Cannae beat a Delia Smith Christmas cake. Made one last year and it was pronounced Flora's favourite cake ever.  Granted, she has tried a LOT of cakes since but she's pretty excited about these ones too.  Except she no longer likes raisins.....or currants.....or sultanas.  Now brandy, that's a different story.

And I went to give blood.  There had been an urgent call for donations and I was in town and fancied a biscuit.  Took myself off to the Blood Donation Centre in Glasgow and joined a very ad-hoc queuing system, chock-full of other right-minded individuals. So, when it was maybe my turn, a cheerless/harassed receptionist took my name, couldn't spell it (forgiveable) and then told me I didn't exist.  Turns out you can't give blood if you don't exist.  Receptionist had to phone 'someone' who could fix my non-existence and I would need to "sit over there."

     "There's no seat."

"Well, just sit over there and I'll bring you one."

  

     "?????"

Already this has taken ten minutes longer than everyone else before me and the giganta-queue is getting restless.  And nosey. 

Blood donor nurse comes over, "Claire?  Can you come with me?  If you could just come over to this cubicle.  We need to talk to you about something.  It's not a donation, it's about something on your form.  Follow me" 

I followed her.  And so did forty pairs of eyes.  Beamer.

"Sorry about that.  People get a bit narked when they think you are skipping the queue."

   "Really?  You do realise that they all think I've got some terrible disease or I've had SEX WITH HUNDREDS OF GAY MEN IN AFRICA?!" 

Imagine an unexpected and odd silence.  Imagine it happening just as I, in frazzled-talk-too-loud mode, say the last part of my sentence.  Imagine forty heads swivelling, the sound of clipboards dropping, loud coughing fits and choking, flocks of birds taking to the skies, music coming to a scratchy and abrupt end etc etc .  My interviewing nurse nearly died laughing.  I nearly died of embarrassment.

Once she unfolded me from my foetal position, she took three attempts- two pin pricks, one blood sample- to determine that I had enough iron in my blood to give blood and gleefully announced, "I knew we'd get you in the end!", then I was allowed to donate.  I existed, I was full of iron and an absolute wreck.

It wasn't all bad.  Got one of these out of it.

Blanket update.......blanket update.......blanket..oh, for goodness' sake, I've done nothing.  Will rectify next week.  Maybe.

Night

Luv Egg on a Stick x

Sunday

Small children require an annoying amount of entertaining and supervision.  Today was another day when she  wasn't content staying in with pins, scissors and perilous loft ladders whilst I watched the Olympics- très inconsiderate, non?  Given the option, Flora always plumps for the spectacular New Museum but, as it's in Edinburgh and the Fringe has just started and the Capital is complete mayhem, we headed to her second choice, the Car Museum or, as maybe a handful of people actually call it, the Riverside Museum.

Designed by Zaha Hadid, it's an impressive building.  It is built on industrial wasteland, on the banks of the Clyde and there's very little immediately round about it.  Snaking along the side of the river with this enormous glass front, looking like a huge heartbeat, it replaces long-lost shipyards and warehouses.  Can you tell we were there early?

There are a couple of reasons Flora loves this museum.  Firstly, there are interactive screens dotted all over the place.  She is part of the incredible touch screen generation; easily confused by screens that don't immediately respond to her sticky swiping but utterly entranced by ones that do.  She can conduct her way through great swathes of information without actually reading any of it but don't try to keep up; her need to move things along swiftly outweighs your need to learn more of the electric tram system of Glasgow in the 1950s.

Secondly, although everything is quite squished together, it's really accessible for small people.  And Dads.  And isn't that a winning combination?

Anything with a tunnel wins points with this child.  There's a tiny exhibition of tea sets in the tunnel that only small people can access.  Cute.

And I love it too.  Whilst there is a fair amount of general transport and travel history, the emphasis is how Scottish people, particularly Glaswegians, invent, live and interact with their infrastructure.  It's a great place for eavesdropping as there are always people pointing and saying, 'You're great-grandad drove one of them' or 'Do you remember when Annie left her knickers on the No 37?'  This time, I overheard a grandad telling his teenage grandson about his participation in the Clydeside ship yard work-in in 1971, saw a group of senior ladies reliving their youth in the recreated Italian Cafe (Annie wasn't there but her knickers were the source of much pant-wetting hilarity) and a disbelieving wee girl being proudly told that her granny did indeed wear skirts that short and go on bikes that fast.....at the same time!  Proper living history.  

One of the exhibitions I hadn't seen before was a talking-head from cyclist, Graham Obree.  A troubled character, he broke a world record but it wasn't the one he wanted to break so he set about it breaking it again....the next day!  Knowing he couldn't afford to let his muscles seize up and aware that an alarm clock would be too much of a shock to his system, he relied on a more natural way to wake up to stretch- he drank an enormous amount of water, woke up to pee, did his stretches, drank even more water, went to sleep, woke up to pee and so on.  He did this every two hours, went to the track the next day and broke the record he wanted to break.  He did it on a bike he made himself, from parts of an old washing machine! Amazing.

Yep, that's a train sticking out.  An actual engine.  I believe it was lifted in mid-way through building and the construction completed round about it.  There's lots of exhibits that are worth a mention: the Humane Society boat, the pretend Subway train, the oldest bike in the world (maybe!), a beautiful display of model boats....too much to really cover in this wee blog, especially when photographs were curtailed by the entrance of ominous skies, thunder and lightning and mad dashing for the car.  Oh, and this....

Would make a good Superhero name that, The Dainty Muff Warmer.  I imagine him to be rather dashing and dapper, with brisk hands and a nice manner.  Wherever there are muffs feeling chilly....

So, if you're in Glasgow, pay the Riverside Museum (and its sister museum, Kelvingrove aka the Animal museum)  a visit.  There's loads to see and the parking is cheap.  But take your own food. The restaurant is pants (but the tea is only £1.10- bargain!).

Luv Egg on a Stick x

Actual Mortification

I shall share here, on t'internet, where nobody goes, my most embarrassing moment of this week/month/year/life.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see  Carol Ann Duffy , Gillian Clarke and Liz Lochhead at the Aye Write Book Festival at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow tonight.  Turned out to be a truly excellent evening.  These are three incredibly inspirational women- the Poet Laureate, National Poet for Wales and Scots Makar- and mistresses of their craft. There was a leaning towards poems about mothers, including Carol Ann Duffy's Resurrection, a poem about her dead mother, made even more poignant as her father was in the audience.  Thankfully, my snuffles were well hidden by the enthusiastic applause.  I hadn't read too much by Ms Duffy but I will now.  There is an intelligence and dry sense of humour (veering towards bitterness) that was very appealing.  So, when the readings finished, this new-found enthusiasm for poetry saw me dash to the signing table.......

.....where I stood in a long queue caused by someone paying by credit card, where the Waterstone's bookseller couldn't take credit cards, where the menopausal ladies behind me were complaining loudly about the Waterstone's bookseller who couldn't take credit cards, where I had to pay by credit card until eventually, harassed and confused (and £40 lighter- starving poets, my arse), and with a copy of each poet's book clutched by my stubby digits, I was shoved towards the first poet, Liz Lochhead:

LL- Who would you like the dedication to?

Me- Oh, no, that's ok.

LL- Sorry dear, whose name would you like?

Me- Yours please.

LL- *eyebrows raised* and your name?

Me- Oh, no thank you.  I didn't write it.

LL- I know dear, I did.

I hastily moved on to poet #2, Gillian Clarke.

GC- Any particular name?

Me- Oh good God, not this again!

GC- Sorry?

Me- What? [cue Liz Lochhead sniggering to her left]

GC- I beg your pardon?

Me- Just your name please.  Not that I'm not a fan or anything, it's just I don't really like people writing in books.  

GC- Hmmmm?

Me- *sweating profusely*

GC- I'm so glad you chose this [At the Source, 2008] book.  It's my absolute favourite.  Did you know that when it came out, no-one reviewed it?  No-one!

Me- I'll review it if you like, I can write about any old rubbish......

GC- ????????????

I look around for help, any help and find it in the form of Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

CAD- *laughing hysterically* You're quite right, it is rubbish. Who's this to be dedicated to?

Me- PleasecouldyousignthisformydaughterFlorasoIcangetoutofherebeforesomeonearrestsmeforbeingsuchadick? 

I can honestly say that's my most embarrassing literary fuck-up since I stood on Terry Pratchett's hat.  It's right up there with unspeakable youthful indiscretions and referring to amoeba as a single-celled orgasm in a very public lecture at university.  Truly dreadful.

Let this tale not detract from these amazing women.  I urge you to read some of their poems and to ignore the fact that I was a doofus.  In public.  Again.

Laters

Luv Egg on a Stick x