howling bells and spiders!!

last nite saw another much-looked-forward-to gig as the Howling Bells appeared in glasgow! hurrah! i love it when bands u'r totally familiar with come and play live! as mentioned in previous blog, their new album came out last week so after immersing myself fully in it i was totally prepared! we had a nice wee group gathered incl. Rich, Scott and some of the luvlies from work, for a bite at the Arches (where the scary Alien chases are currently happening!!)! the band played at the Classic Grand, a kind of weird venue next to the Academy of Music and Sound where i started my guitar lessons (but the only sign advertising what's in the building is for the pole dancing club on the 2nd floor so i used to feel rather self conscious waiting for them to buzz me in!!!) anyway, it was a nice little venue but the stage is really low so if ur like me and a mere 5'3" then its tricky to see! which lets be honest, is one of the reasons u go- most important to suss out their look  and see if u can replicate the world's most glossy fringe (as featured on the luvly Juanita bell!)

the support band were fairly bland- their music was alright, i just wasn't feeling the vibe!! this may have been partly due to the very sticky wet top i was then wearing after some randomer knocked my drink all over me! sigh! 

however, when the Howling Bells came on the nite became lovely! they mostly played from their new album, of which i am particularly loving 'It Ain't You', 'How Long' and 'Cities Burning Down'! they played a handful of older stuff incl. Broken Bones which karen and i swayed to

 with a bit of attitude! there was a great energy from the stage and i loved how she performed and used her hands all the time! i almost missed the coolest moment of the whole gig when, during their performance of Golden Web (at which i get creeped out cos its about spiders!) Juanita meandered down into the crowd and was standing Right At Us!! major gold stars to Rich for elbowing me hard enough to point this out!! 

so we sang to each other for a moment or two, connecting thru our cool fringes! i believe the lines she gazed at me whilst singing were 'yeah u bit me, and u ran, away, just like a spider', and 'i'v been bitten by a spider, and now there's nowhere to run'!!!!! 

spiders and running are two of the things i loathe most in life, how ironic!! now i have a warm fuzzy feeling when i think of them! :)

so in conclusion, it was a top gig- they were great live and altho their encore song was a bit mince i think we can forgive them as they sounded so good the rest of the nite and had a guitarist who wore a fedora and looked like brad pitt!! smile! :)

i'm a superhero i am!

tonite i popped along to sainsburys garage for an innocent wee shop, only to turn a corner and be affronted by a man shoving a bottle of white wine down his jeans, and hiding it with his coat!!! shocked as i was, i picked up a jar of something useless and marched (subtly of course) to the security guard at the door to report this heinous crime! the 2 of us then crept round the store til i spotted him and could point him out!! 

as key witness i then hovered around the biscuits keeping my beady eye on this crook, only to once again be privy to him stuffing packets of sausages in his coat pocket!!! what is the world coming to!?! i caught the eye of a girl who had seen this too, we both had a shocked giggle and i updated the security guard who by this point had been joined by 2 colleagues, all rather fierce looking and practically blocking the exit!

what happened next u ask...

well, our shoplifting friend then attempts to leave and is stopped by the men in uniform! who challenge him very politely, at first! the stealer denies he has any store produce hidden on him, but this is quickly disproved as everyone can see the sausages sticking out his pocket!! disaster! upon being asked to open his (rather smart leather!) coat he gives up the pretense, pulls out the bottle of wine and a packet of sweets!! and then proceeds to ask for leniency as he is apparently homeless- question: where was he planning to cook the sausages!?!

the security guards let him off with a warning and a ban on returning to the store! What!?!? no punishment!? no being led away in handcuffs, or spending a nite in the cells!? the man staggered away and the security men thanked me for all my hard investigative work, before having a rather boisterous chuckle at " the world's worst shoplifter"!!!

weekly musings

feeling inspired by scott's 'white noise' weekly review/ preview, here is a brief summary of things happening/ have happened!:

My week in reverse:

• today did not have enough minutes in it to complete the outrageous amount of work i have on just now! 

• yesterday evening was spent clearing out everything i hid in my old bedroom cupboard when i moved out!! it was even more difficult than i expected- i am an epic hoarder of meaningless junk and still struggled to part with: my childhood badge and stamp collections (no wonder i was bullied at school!!); approx one million photographs; shoeboxes filled with letters, cards and notes from a rather broad range of people such as my irish penpal from when i was 8, my gran who lives in london, funny notes sent back and forth to friends in school; folders filled with handwritten, colour-coded notes from high school, including repeat notes of Higher biology which i sat twice and gained a D and C for!

• sunday i slept a lot

• fri and sat were spent in edinburgh at the Women Walking With God conference- it was luvly spending time with friends and whilst i slept thru some of the teaching, the seminars were great and Lou Fellingham and band led the music extremely well!

• wed, thurs and fri were jam-packed with work and visiting my grandpa in hospital. he has been in now for 4 weeks and is thankfully starting to show signs of improvement after having a number of strokes and then catching the C Diff infection.

tomoro i am sooo looking forward to the Howling Bells gig!! their new album 'Radio Wars' is great,a bit perkier than 

their previous one, altho there is a song about a spider 

(Golden Web) which i just cant listen to!! it makes me paranoid that there might be one on me, i mean, really, there is no need to remind people that such creepy things exist and sneak around!!

Russell Brand- Scandalous!

last sunday nite we ventured thru to Edinburgh to see Russell Brand's live show at the Playhouse! The place was full, the warm-up act distinctly average and then RB (as i will now refer to him for ease of typing!) walked out on stage and instantly his persona captured the attention of everyone in the theatre!! there really is quite a magical presence about him that draws you to him and holds you there! his show was hilariously, stomach-achingly funny- entitled 'Scandalous' a fair proportion of it was based on his recent escapades featured on the news and in various papers and magazines!! a self-confessed egotist he showed us all clips of himself on the news, delighted that he now had his 'brand new own show' at such prime time viewing!! admittedly i used to really dislike him, but after reading his Booky Wook and watching him some more on tv i have become rather fond of this crazy-haired, tight-jeaned, extremely intellectual comedian!! his use of the english language is quite something, he's clearly very intelligent and uses this to enhance his chat!!

the highlight of the evening (for me anyway!!) was right at the end of the nite when he came down to meet his fans in the foyer!! we hovered around with about a million others, nowhere near the door which he was due to exit! i managed to sneak into the inner foyer at the opposite corner of the room, and i could just see his hair above the crowd! however... he then made his way diagonally across the room, straight toward me, and then jumped up onto a counter-top directly in front of me!!! woooooohooooo!!! i was like, one person away from Russell Brand!!! he then started reaching down and shook my hand!! a girl then handed him a pen and asked him to sign her book, so i grabbed my ticket, yelled ' could u sign this please?!'. To which he looked down at me, said 'sure love', took my ticket and signed it!!!! score!!! so i am now the proud owner of a signed Russell Brand ticket, after having one of the funniest nights of my life!!! :)

snow snow snow!

today there is crazy snow again in glasgow!! i was travelling back thru from st andrews today and as we approached glasgow it was getting thicker and thicker! 

so tonite it was too snowy to resist and we went a wander at around half 10 to the park, which was totally jumping! there were literally hundreds of people, probably all students, out sledging, ski-ing and even snowboarding in kelvingrove park!! it was so pretty and we built a wee snowman with proper twig arms and a face!! he was very cute, i felt bad leaving him alone!! this is a picture of our car park at about 8pm tonite!

2009 hopes and plans!

boo, i have a virus! having not felt great for a couple of days i put it down to too much partying, and whilst this may be a factor i am now officially suffering from the sniffles, a temp, feeling sick and aching all over:( boo, rubbish! 

however, as it is now january and we are far away enough from new year to make actual goals and plans for this year! i always find making new years resolutions are a bit trivial and i always come up with a massive list of things which i a) never stick to, b) feel guilt and disappointment over when i cant keep to them! so, my actual hopes and plans for this year are:

• to complete the women's 10k race in may
  
• to stick in with learning guitar 
  
• to do some more travelling- some plans are already in place, but more on that later!
  
• to see Britney Spears live in concert!
  
• to then attend some way cooler gigs to redeem my reputation!!
• to visit some more of my friends in their new locations (Grenoble would be just lovely!)
• to become an aunt again (yes, this one is already on the cards!! congratulations brother and sis-in-law!!)
• to actually finish reading a christian book (i just cant ever seem to get to the end without getting distracted!!)
• to write, record and play some new songs! it's been way too long!
• to audition for the X Factor and meet Simon and Cheryl!!

so, those are my plans for now! they may change, they may be achieved, they may be abandoned but i am happy with them, today, at this moment!

love love love (with a sprinkling of humiliation!!)

i am currently still in my pyjama's recovering from another week of work, and another super fun weekend of celebrations! admittedly i have had an alarming number of embarrassing moments over the past 7 days, including: 

• realising on the train that i was wearing odd shoes to work
  
• having my dress caught up in my tights whilst meandering thru paisley (cringe!)
  
• being approached by a sweet old lady to tell me that my dress was caught up, again, on the same day!!! (this time in my jacket- what is wrong with me!?!!)
• participating on the dance floor last nite in a burlesque performance with all the hens, only to realise that as i strutted and wiggled forward in a showgirl-style walk, no-one else was with me!!!! *mortified*

despite my shortcomings and humiliation we had a fabulous day yesterday at ruth and colin's wedding!! they are the cutest couple ever and everything was perfect, from the ceremony (where they each read out their own vows!!) to the meal to the evening reception!! so much fun! i met loads of lovely and amazing people and ruth looked absolutely gorgeous! unfortunately my preparation did not go quite so well as i had a complete wardrobe malfunction- the new dress i bought caused me great distress when the zip broke and 20 mins was spent trying to fix it, without success! so a last-minute outfit change was required leaving me rather flustered and enraged!! however, the rest of the day was wonderful, at the House for an Art Lover in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park.

the hen weekend last week was also outstanding!! the day began with a champagne breakfast

 before the 17 of us got the train to edinburgh where we had a lot of fun at a burlesque class!!

 i was slightly nervous about it but it was such a laugh- we learned a variety of moves and finally a dance routine where we totally outshone the pussycat dolls!! dinner and drinks the

n followed, with lots of amazin hen activities, pink fluffy feather boa's and hilarious photos!!

Travelocity!

Another new year, another new office, another experience as the new girl! my first day's commute did not come without a little trauma- being splashed by a lorry; dropping all 3 of my bags whilst rummaging for my purse, and for my finale, colliding with a girl who was rushing onto the train as i was getting off, only for her to throw her frothy coffee all down her front and scream profanities at me!!! luvly! welcome to paisley! admittedly, a daily hour long commute each way is not my ideal- perhaps i'v been spoiled by being able to walk everywhere in my previous job, but the joy at being able to leave lengthy public transport journeys behind after graduating uni did seem too good to be true!

so today i'm off to purchase a travel zonecard! i kinda like the idea of just flashing my card to gain access to various modes of transport! sadly the photo booth i went to for my ID pic just did not do me justice, ahem, and after ensuring i adhered to all the guidelines for passport photos had 3 rather unfortunate pictures to choose from! £3.50 not best spent! only to get home and have husband point out that i wasn't getting them taken for a passport and could have smiled normally without worrying about the guidelines!! ah!

climbing out of the box

today i had to attend a reflective practice workshop all morning with some of my work colleagues and we have been challenged to create a critical incident reflective piece which we have a month to work on, and then feed back to the group in January! we can do this however we like- journalling, peer discussion, poetry, drawing, singing, drama, etc, which is a refreshing change from the usual 'discuss in small groups and feedback on a flip chart'!

i found it hard to focus due to being officially on christmas hols as of 1pm- the excitement was almost too much- but i did find it fairly challenging. i do seem to have to spend a lot of time reflecting on my work as for the past 12 months i've been working toward completing my monthly training plan and various assignments for the VQ. perhaps i just wasn't focused enough today, but it did strike me that in the run up to Christmas this year i feel like i've not really paused to reflect much on the whole Christian side of it all, which is really the whole point.

(pause for thought)

actually, i think i have been reflecting on everything but not in what i would consider the conventional way of taking time out to ponder life, etc! i've been asking lots of questions. of life. of faith. of the Bible. of the difference between truth and fact. of relationships. of the meaning. of the plan. if there is a plan. and have been searching and reflecting thru music, and in the pub-which i seem to be frequenting rather more regularly these days- and thru reading, and basically thru being in relationships with a broad range of people, and absolutely loving it.

i guess i am getting out of a box i hadn't quite realised i was in.

festive cheer! but retail uncertainty!!

december has got to be the best month of the whole year!! we have just decorated the cutest christmas tree in the world, my amy grant christmas album is back in the player and i have just licked about 50 envelopes and have a weird taste in my mouth!! everything is just so jolly! i am also the most organised i have ever been and once i sort out one more christmas present i have officially finished my shopping!! buying presents for people is so fun, altho a fair challenge at times, especially when trying to think of what an 82 year old grandpa would appreciate that isn't really boring or sock-shaped!!

the social whirl has also now officially begun, with a variety of parties, lunches, cocktail evenings and dinner parties now the order of the day!! this brings with it the need for party outfits, so the search is now on for a cute, affordable, sparkly outfit!! however, having done some research into ethical shopping this year i am now left a bit unsure as to where is good to shop with regards to workers being paid a decent wage, etc!  the Lift the Label website has some useful information but really, i'd love to find, or even create, a comprehensive list of decent shops in Scotland which trade fairly and still sell cute stuff!! Shops including Primark were all over the news again last week as their worker's are paid as little as 7p per day, work 80 hour weeks and include children in the workforce, so despite their very non-descript ethical disclaimer which now adorns their stores, it is still no surprise that clothes that cost about £3 to buy are not made in  an ethical way!! however, they do claim that they are still providing employment and a wage for people who would otherwise be unemployed and not earning a living, which may be true. I just think that surely there must be a better way!