Culzean Castle

Really enjoying my new-found freedom post-phd. First weekend, absolutely loving the no niggle at the back of my mind feeling. Watched the boys play footie on Sat morning, went to see the dons on Saturday afternoon, few drinks and some FIFA with Jamie Smith in the evening. Always thought I’d be on an enormous celebratory bender the weekend after I passed my Viva, but I’m still feeling totally exhausted by it all, so it was a nice, quiet one.

And a Sunday morning without a hangover to go adventure. Headed down the Ayrshire coast to go see Culzean Castle. The weather was brilliant, lovely and sunny and dry. Parked up a couple of miles north of the castle and walked to it along the beach. Seemingly it costs a load to get into the grounds but we did it all for free and got a great beach walk thrown in for good measure. Even got to play with a puppy. Excellent.

Jamie’s Journey

The man you see above is Dr Jamie Smith, and this is his story. Jamie joined us on our recent holiday in Brighton, flying down heroically after work on the Friday night, and back on Sunday evening. We hoped his journey would be trouble free, alas it was not to be.  The wonders of modern technology, and the futuristic addition of picture messaging to the iphone, allowed Jamie to update us in real time as to his progress. This is his story.

Holidays 2009!!

Are nearly upon me!  Cannot wait… One day of work tomorrow, then it’s up to Aviemore with CT and the Samuel for the weekend. Possible chat of some gorge walking on saturday which would be pretty funny I’m sure!

Back to work for Monday and Tuesday then it’s down to London to see the Gregster… Originally our plan was to do Croatia/Bosnia but unfortunately that fell through, so now it’s hanging out in the south of England. Thursday we’re going to go to Wimbledon, then we’re off to Brighton, gay capital of the UK, for a long weekend. Brilliant. UK summer holidays two years in a row, not bad eh?

Feein Market!

First up I’m sorry for being really lazy with the blog. Just not been up for getting stuff in, need to start forcing myself. My computer at home is soooo crap it’s really frustrating to even type on. Right now I’m having an absolute nightmare getting some photos up on Facebook, not sure if it’s FB or my computer but either way it’s sooo frustrating. Have a picture of a midget with saunders head photoshopped on top, a present, enjoy!

Anyway, another brilliant, brilliant weekend just gone by… Back up to Stoney for the Feein Market. A really good crowd of us up. Usual banter, pints on the square, putting at the bowling club then pints at the marine. Maybe 15 folks up to my hoose for a BBQ (cheers Jinks and Liz!!) and some funny drinking games then some crazy-mad-mental dancing at Diva’s. Ace.

Nice quiet Sunday, Fuzz and I feasted on sport on TV then we headed back to Glasgow via some filthy food in Perth. No BBQ ribs left at the restaurant tho, gutted!

Spam – the new donner meat

Over the last couple of weekends, Spam has somehow wormed its way into being my drunken 4am filthy food of choice.  Sam’s to blame. Last weekend in Edinburgh I made us all some Spam Fried Rice with leftover chinese and the contents of Sam’s fridge. And good it was. Good enough to persuade me to buy a tin of Spam at Tescos the next day. Last night Ruth, Claire and Fuzz were bad and nagged me into going to The Shed (to be fair, it wasn’t that difficult for them!). I was well hungry when I got back and made a Spam baguette. Filth. Posh organic baguette from Tapa filled with Spam and Cholula sauce. Amazing, and by the way, Cholula is BRILLIANT.

Easter Tournament 2009

Well, the football wasn’t exactly the most successful (one draw and one loss), but what a fantastic weekend nonetheless… That was my 4th trip over to play this tournament, and it’s always brilliant fun… There’s a special brand of football on display, the pitch we play on would be too small for a primary school team, and it inevitably turns into blood and thunder and not much else. Some cracking challenges going in all over the park. Bit mental but a lot of fun. Beautiful weather all weekend, lucky lucky, and it’s a gorgeous place to be. Playing a game of football with the Islay coast a couple of hundred metres away, can’t beat it. Lost our match on the Saturday lunchtime, but there’s always the compensation of heading straight to the pub and enjoying your saturday night without any worries of a final on the sunday. Favourite part of the weekend, as ever, is heading back up to watch the final group game on the saturday evening, and yelling abuse at the teams playing. Brilliant fun. Same goes for the final on sunday lunchtime with a wee, cheeky hair of the dog.

 

Managed to get a few cool pics as well. It’s a pretty place alright. Noticed for the first time this year these graves in the church graveyard. There are a load of gravestones for unknown sailors from the 2nd World War, and also, interestingly, for a load of Greek Merchant Navy sailors.

The end in sight?

About 6 months ago I finished my first draft. It’s really cool to look back at all the different posts on here about my thesis and see how it’s progressed, at snail’s pace! I’ve spent the last 6 months working away (and really enjoying it) with the thesis at the back of my mind. Every couple of weeks I’d ping my supervisor to see if he’d read it yet, and get a negative reply. Eventually he owned up to having read it once, then having lost the left the thesis, comments and all, in a hotel room in the US. Grrr. Anyway, chin up and moving onwards, he eventually got back to me with some good comments and a few ideas for how to improve it. No extra work for now, thankfully, just a few aesthetic things to sort out. So last weekend I worked on my thesis. This week I’ve been working normal hours during the day then hitting uni at night. This weekend I’m doing nothing but again, well, I might allow myself a curry and a beer tonight, but then it’s back in tomorrow morning. All good fun, but hope to have it done by the end of the weekend. Not sure what happens next, hope to get the viva done in the next wee while, then the corrections (hopefully minimal!) and then graduate in the summer.

So not much fun for now, but hopefully that’s me on the home straight. Wanted to blog this afternoon because it’s the Grand National, and I can clearly remember being in here this time last year working away on the thesis on a Saturday afternoon. What an arse this PhD is…

Now to work…

Hattie The Spaniel

This is Hattie, who’s staying with my Maw and Paw for a couple of weeks while her owner’s on a cooking holiday in India (alright for some!)…  At first meeting, Hattie’s a bit crap really, she’s definitely not a dog who’s up for a fight or a chase. But get to know her, and in her own quiet way she’s really pretty cool.

Had a great weekend up with the parents there. My sis was back from Paris with Nico, so I headed up. Had tonsillitis all last week so it was great to get up and relax, I was needing it.  Cracking weather for walking on the beach, and loads of sport on TV, so happy days.

Snow snow snow!!

Been pretty quiet on this blog for a while, but then I’ve not really been up to much which has been super exciting. Unlike this last weekend, which was the best I’ve had in a long time. An unbelievable amount of snow has been falling around the UK this last week, but up here in Scotland there was a nagging feeling that I’d been missing out. No massive dumps of snow up here. Until late last week, when in the course of 2 days Aviemore had 2 feet of snow. Had to get up there.

Bit of a worrying drive up, news reports of hazardous driving conditions etc, texts flying in from worried parents. No bother tho, we just bought a sledge in Glasgow, filled the car with meat, and off we went. Road was no bother, apart from missing the Aviemore turn off cos we couldn’t see the road markings!  Beer and cider and Winter Games 2009 and FIFA till early morning. Snow falling heavily still. Another 6 inches overnight.

Up and at ‘em bright and early. Grabbed the black chariot and headed into the wilderness. Headed up into the hills to the west side of town, primed for sledge run spotting.  Found one really quickly.

 

That way adventure lies!

Jamie Smith spotted it. Problem was, and we hadn’t seen this one coming, that there was too much snow to sledge. Who knew, too much snow to sledge. Not to worry, we gave it a shot, and they were perfect conditions for a bit of snowboarding and skiing tomorrow.

Spent a good 4 hours farting around in the snow. So much fun. Built a big snow cock and then broke it down with a springy tree. Yeh. Hopefully Bobby J will get the video up. Ended up getting ever so slightly lost, and it was hellish hard work wading through snow that deep. Ended up in a building site and had to climb a fence to get out. Brilliant fun.

Complete with hairy balls.

 

Miss Helen arrived on Saturday night to join us for the skiing. Jeez we were so excited. Even Jamie Smith, who had a nice mixture of apprehension and excitement, seeing as he’d never snowboarded before. What a day he chose to start!  Just about the best conditions I’ve ever skied in, and this was in Scotland, couldn’t believe it! We got up bright and early out of the flat by 8, up the mountain by half past, and onto the first train up the hill at 9am. Sun not quite up by this stage but clear as clear as clear. The snow was fantastic, hardly any ice anywhere at all, lovely covering of powder, and some of the more remote bits with a decent foot or so of powder to ski in. Fantastic.

Helen and I totally made the most of it, but man my thighs were burning. A mix of  snow drift yomping on the saturday, and my first bash at skiing for 2 years. Sore sore. Fresh air exhaustion, one of the best feelings in the world. Maximum kudos to Bobby J and Jamie for getting fired right in. Helen and I left them at the baby slopes and headed off. We came back an hour later to find them and see how they were getting on only to find out they’d headed straight off down the mountain, brilliant. So Jamie Smith, in his first ever 3 hours of snowboarding, had made it from the very top to the very bottom of the Cairngorm slopes. Well done that man.

What a brilliant weekend, finished off with a chip shop dinner in Pitlochry on the way home, and a slow, slow drive through the snow from Stirling back to Glasgow.

Paris

 

Dave in the teeny lift

Finally I come to the end of my mammoth trip away feast, California, London and Paris three weekends in a row. Not long back from Paris, brilliant weekend. Started on Thurs night with a Sigur Ros concert (excellent stuff) and a trip to the garage with Jamie Smith. Might be about my last, man did we nae feel old. Anyhoo, bed by 3, up by half 7 for the flight to Paris. Great time. Staying at Romain’s flat, 8 of us squeezed into his teeny apartment, with the smallest lift in the world. Dave’s head almost filled it on it’s own. Friday night out with all the boys in Pigalle, great wee club called Le Divan du Monde, som cracking dancing and chat to be had. Home by half 6 and up at midday to go see Sis, who was full of beans. Out again on the sat night for a table of 20 in a curry restaurant, then dance time in the Elysée Montmartre, some kind of funny ball thing. Hilarious, tho Dave and I were flagging by now. Home by half 6 again, mental tired.

Sunday was a cool chillout. 7 of us fleein’ around Paris on the vélibs, which are such a good idea, and brilliant fun. Home pretty late, tired out, but had my fix of France for another wee while. Love it.