Some old tatt

The lower east side Manhattan is renowned for its bars, its art galleries, studios, its 'scene' and of course its tattoos. What? Hadn't heard about the tattoos? Well take it from me there's more square inches of tattooed flesh on display on the streets of the 'garment district' NYC than at a Polynesian arse slapping contest. But these tattoos aren't of your arrow through heart smudgy drunken lifelong error variety nor culturally significant sphincta backdrops these tatts are art, original, striking, sometimes shocking usually just cool.

All this body art brilliance is prone to turn a poor country boy's head, and as it turns out, mine too. It had been a long time since my last encounter with the needle gun and the heady mix of 90 degree heat, 90% humidity, bourbon on rocks and a pocket full of Greenbacks was making me just darn crazy enough to go back there.

But why in the name of the mothers who boure us into this world, all wrinkly and unblemished, would anyone get tattooed? There are many reasons: Fashion - to look 'cool' has to rate as the favourite. Nothing wrong with looking cool as long as you do. Beauty - different from fashion, more likely to be in the eye of the beholder, and more likely to result in an original design. Toughness - yeah there are those who tattoo at least partly to show that they are not afraid to be outside of the norm to shun social conventions and to be marked their whole lives - ooo so tough. Self-harm - the thrill believe it or not, of marking yourself irrevocably, of allowing someone, and indeed watching someone mark you irrevocably floats some boats - I hear.

So on the third week of my stay in New York City for a range of reasons not wholely unrelated to those you have just read I got another tattoo (sorry Mum).

The first one I had has always been a bit shit. I knew that when I first got it, but what can you do? I never hated it, it was just a bit, well rubbish. Poor rendering of a reasonable idea. A small tree sprouting from the barren landscape of my right upper arm (deltoid for you anatomy freaks)that always looked a bit lost. Now, 17 years later, the exposure to quality tattage confirmed a long held belief that I needed to cover it up, but to keep true to my original idea the cover up was going to be in the shape of another tree, a bigger tree, a much bigger tree.

A tattoo is not something to be stingy about. When your purchase is for life, think quality not value. With this in mind I chose the most expensive looking tattoo studio I could find and pressed the buzzer. 'Invisible' is an apointment only studio but there was a slot free that night and in no time I was back, vague design in mind $500 in my pocket.

Kiku my tattoo artist was a heavily tattooed (no surprise there) Japanese hipster of indeterminate age and an interest in Zombie movies. He too had an idea for a design and proceded to sketch it out on my arm. Here's the first factoid about fancy tattoo artists you no-body-art-weirdos should know, they care more about their art than your preferences. Kiku listened politely to my ideas about what should be INDELIBLY PUNCTURED INTO MY FLESH, then dismissed them. Only through a force of will rarely witnessed outside of a Shoalin temple did I manage to get him to agree to my broad design ideas. Finally we were ready to start, needle poised Kiku asked "shall we do this?", "Let's f**k this puppy" I replied, he didn't laugh.

Being tattooed has a well deserved reputation as being painful. Its not a huge pain, more a winching stingy sensation ranking somewhere between stubbing a toe and a light scalding on the ouchometer, or more acurately like being pricked thousands of times by a tiny needle for hours on end. The good news is you kinda get used to it.

It took three visits for my (our) tree to be completed, in total five and a half hours and nearly $1000. An aside - I was recently in a beer garden with my much younger half-brothers and sisters. Theo who is 15 asked my sister's friend to show him the tattoo on his right arm 'Oh, that's shit!' my brother announced. 'Theo,' I said, 'you can't tell someone their tattoo is shit, it's not like he can return it now can he?'. Putting aside the fact that Theo was right, I stand by my point so those of you who feel my new bit of me is rubbish - keep it to yourself okay? On the other hand if you think its the bees bollocks don't be shy let me know!. Am I happy with it? Well, I better get used it.

Sun rises and sun sets - did you notice?

There is a dome in that field. I'm sure I'm not mistaken there is definately a dome like structure in that corn field. British farming is not waiting for tomorrow but has adopted the future today. Or perhaps not, surely this is evidence of the replacement of the old primary industries with the new national economic engine of... celebrity oddity. The dome that has just glided past my train's window may in fact be Madona's latest kabbala centre, the new lifestyle fad of the known knowns.

I thought I'd wait until I'd left San Sebastian before posting a post script, I hadn't bargained on such rural incongruities to distract me but like my train I will trundle on.

It all began with a sunrise. That is the begining of the end began with the ending of spring and the beginning of summer. Keep up! The solstice, the longest day of the year the traditional first day of summer marked the start of my final week in San Sebastian and my final week of teaching.

Bob Summers is an unlikely Druid. Mind you what do I know about druids? Perhaps all the ancient druids had tatoos of suspender clad voluptuous beauties posing on their forearms. Perhaps they all raced motorcycles and shaved their legs. Perhaps, like the leader of the four sun worshipers who ventured out to meet the dawn this solstice, they always remembered to bring a flask of whiskey to warm their cockles on a brisk midsummer's dawn. Either way Bob said I should get up to watch the dawn so despite his lack of long white robe - I did.

Bob, Emma, Karl and Laura have been my best buddies during my time in San Sebastian so it was entirely appropriate that we should share this mystical moment. We congregated on the promenade after three or four hours sleep and wondered where was east. Would the sunrise be hidden behind the mountains? Would the magic be lost amid a parade of early morning drunks and delivery vans? A few slugs of whiskey eased my concern (those clever druids!)and finally the clouds on the horizon blushed a pink lining and a sunset in reverse spread just beyond the headland away to our right.

No pagan rituals were performed but a moment was shared - and, you know, it was just nice.

The final week left me little space for reflection full as it was with goodbyes (to students and colleagues) and hellos (to family visitors). My twin bro Dave arrived on the Wednesday quickly followed by my half sister Clem(pictured below with her boyfriend Owen). That was a family injection that deserves it's own post but on the last Saturday night (Laura's last night in town) a few of us went to the beach to watch the sunset and say goodbye.

Sunset was a Basque free experience, which was appropriate since the whole year had been about as Basque (ie local people) free as it could be which all of us recognised as a pity but a reality that's hard to avoid when work is so ex-pat focused and the locals are about as friendly as your average British person.

Nonetheless the sunset was marvelous and the night was warm and the memories good.

P.P.S. I can't close the San Sebastian chapter without mentioning football. On the final Sunday I played football with the usual set of athletes (as pictured) and hungover, hot, and well, old though most of us were it still put the F in my UN and performed mental health miracles you can't find in a blister pack.

So it's goodbye to San Sebastian and hello to UK, NYC, and Argentina... watch this space - or don't if you have something better to do.

Nothing Toulouse

Wouldn't it be clever if the title tied into the content of this post...

But I had plenty to lose. Amongst the top of the list were my life, my sanity, and my liver. If you have read last year's post about my last encounter with Richard and Friends you'd know that once again all three were in danger when I arrived in Toulouse for Richard's birthday celebrations on the 1st of May.

Toulouse is an historic city, warmed by the bold sun of the southern plains of France. It boasts beautiful churches, majestic squares and magical river walks - or so I'm told. I am more familiar with it's late night turkish delicacy purveyors and car surfing opera singers.

It all started so genteely.

I had taken the train which winds through the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast inland to Toulouse. A general strike had turned Friday into Sunday and kept a compartment free for me. I sat happily alone in this seating arrangement from a different age and watched the Basque towns give way to Catholic mecca of Lourdes. A suitably grim looking place that day, its phoney wonders contrasted starkly with the towering natural beauty of the surrounding mountains who frowned on the faithful. Finally, putting piety behind us we rolled without urgency into Toulouse station.

Ten minutes later Richard and I were enjoying a crisp French beer in the seedy cafe opposite the station. I love these places, always harbouring a collection of weary alcholics on the move, shady mustachioed coffee worriers, low rent hookers and highly medicated solo conversationalists. Richard did not share my romantic perspective 'This is shite! Lets go' he announced and so we went.

Now, Richard is a charmer, built slightly less powerfully than a rhino, his yorkshire accent is warm, confident and strangely compelling. Ok not so hard to be compelling when your picture might sit under the definition of 'robust' in the Oxford English Dictionary, but nevertheless a charmer he remains and I was in no mood to disagree.

We swung back by the station to pick up Paul who was coming in from Bordeaux. Whatever Paul may lack in hair he makes up for in tattoos. A 'hardcore' following lifeguard of North African decent who speaks English excellently Paul reluctantly joined us for another quick drink in the stale plastic surrounds of the Station bar. One beer later we were all faintly relieved to be going.

Let's skip to the night. There - done.

Now I don't intend to bore you with a tedious recollection of large scale beer drinking, lets take that as read. This was after all the birthday party of an ex-professional rugby league player and his gentlemen friends of similar stature. The added element was of course that they were French.

Having their arse kicked in every military engagement since Napoleon forgot his earmuffs outside Moscow has had a queer effect on the French - to wit - they're mad. But bloody hell they're good at it! The last time I touched on this subject I described the debauchery of the Tiempo Latino festival in Vic Fesensac . There were no bikinis this time but a semi naked stage dive and some car surfing replaced ill-advised cross dressing as the entertainment.

The stage dive was notable not so much for the fact that Richard was not wearing anything above the waist nor that his plunge from a rickety table in the middle of the bar took place relatively early at about 9pm (whilst some patrons were still finishing their dinners) but rather the refreshingly laissez faire attitude of the bar staff.

The sight of a 100ish Kilo man stripping to the waist and climbing onto a table shouting 'stage dive!' is one of the things security staff in the Anglo Saxon world tend to take a dim view of. The French appear aloof of such prudish concern. A bar man collecting glasses sneeked a anxious peek as he passed but the leap was completed unmolested.

A small lake of beer later and I was in the street. Everyone else was in the street too - what could have happened? I don't know. What I do know is that Laurent had arrived. Laurent is called Lorenzo - again, I don't know why - and he likes to sing. A small man with rugby player's muscles he sings operatic compositions without the impediment of having to know any words and instead opts for word like sounds and volume to create the effect. An effect he apparently believes is mesmorising to young ladies - although there was scant evidence of this on this night.

When, excitingly, we found ourselves in another street Lorenzo turned his siren song away from the confusingly resistant women folk to passing cars. Only this one wasn't passing because Lorenzo was singing at it. The young men inside were clearly not music lovers and edged their standard issue drug-dealer BMW towards Lorenzo who responded by climbing on the bonnet. That's it I thought, these guys are going to get out and get angry, but no, instead the BMW sped off.

I'm not sure if Lorenzo kept singing but I like to imagine that he did - he certainly hung on to the windscreen wipers pretty well because he was still enjoying the ride when the car hit the first corner. Luckily for this story the BMW had to stop for the traffic allowing our friend to dismount injury free. I looked around at the faces of the rest of our group whose expressions clealy identified this phenomenon as 'normal'.

The rest of the night is a wee bit hazy. The rest of the weekend was far more wholesome. I pushed Annemae's pram though the Sunday market in Rabastans with Richard, Natalie and Paul, sat in the square and drank red wine, and relaxed in the spring sunshine.

On the train home my ipod ran out of juice, when the music stopped I could hear what sounded like opera, I just couldn't quite make out the words....

Back on the blogging horse - AUSTRALIA

Three months , that's 90 odd days, a quarter of a year, 1/280th of a lifetime (perhaps). So why no blogs?? Well, laziness, business, a sprained inspiration muscle... all possible. But lets not point the finger, or dwell on the past. Let us go forward into the bright sunlight of the now and enjoy the blog of today!

It's raining. It's Good Friday and its raining. (See view from my flat- left) Most people that I know have left for their Easter break and its raining. I am waiting to start my own adventure with a trip to Granada on Sunday, but in the meantime I am having a cup of tea and listening to the rain. It seems like a good time to fill you in on what's been happening.

One month ago I was in Australia. No really, I was. Thirteen days off work to travel to the other side of the planet, see my friends Brett and Liv get married and spend some lovely moments with the rest of my good friends back in the Lucky Country.

The first thing that strikes you (well me really) upon landing in Australia is the quality of the light. The sun splits the sky with such gusto you feel it surely must run out. Nature meets the onslaught with its own defiant display of colour and sharp edges that pains the eye of the novice viewer fresh from the softer landscapes of a European winter.

The next thing that strikes you is the size of the coffees.

The coffee culture of Australia is very highly evolved. The sophisticates of Southern Europe imagine Australia to be an inferior location for the gastronomic arts but the reality is quite different. Most Spanish cafes serve just two or three varieties of coffee (con leche, cortado, solo - with milk, with a dash of milk, black)whereas even the most humble cafe in suburban Sydney will offer a flat white, latte, machiatto, long black, short black or even a mocha soy latte(okay I don't know what that last one is..). All of these come in generous portions with enough active ingredient to disqualify a cycling team.

Brisbane airport is no different and half way through my first flat white I began to twitch. I wresteled with the ethics of discarding half a cup of take away coffee in a rubbish bin. It was possible that I would be cursed by the cleaner who would retrive the soggy bin bag but finally my delayed last leg to Sydney was due to leave and I had to act (sorry rubbish collecter person!).

One of my favourite things to do in the whole wide world is to have a boozy lunch with good friends. So it is perhaps fitting that I travelled across that wide world to enjoy such a lunch. And it was worth it. If they thought that booking a lunch at a beautiful harbourside restaurant on a glorious summer's day would steel my resolve to return to Australia then ha ha! - they were very right. I'll let the photos speak for themselves!

One of my other favourite things to do (okay 'in the whole wide world' too), is play football with my football team 'The Hurlers'. A more exquisite bunch of gentlemen you couldn't possible hope to meet (well, you could probably do better picking names randomnly from the phone book) and a more skilled set of footballers have rarely graced the lumpy pitches of suburban Sydney (again not really 100% true...). Nevertheless, they are my footballing brothers and it was just downright ace to squeeze in a game before I returned to Spain. I missed a penalty, we lost 1-0 but we all loved it (maybe they didn't all love the part where I missed the penalty hmmm).

The wedding itself was a wonderful success, the sun shone, the booze flowed, the food was delicious and the speeches touching. The ceremony was on Shark Island (across the bay from the restaurant we ate at a few days earlier) and the harbour put on a show. Sunlight winked at us as the breeze ruffled the water filling the sails of the hundreds of yachts chasing glory in their weekend races. As our ferry took the guests back to town I was awed anew at the beauty of the Sydney skyline as it deferentially provided the backdrop for the huge white sails of the Opera House - itself straining to launch onto the harbour and try its luck in the Saturday regatta.

The rest of the week was a social whirl of catching up and hanging out. It was lovely to see Rach all the way from Adelaide, and great to stay with KB and Jen and Jodie and Andrew. All in all just wonderful to be on holiday but at home - you should try it one day.

I flew back to Europe express. I did not pass go nor collect $200. Less than 12 hours after landing I was back at work. But hey not working too hard so please do not ever be tempted to feel sorry for me.

Back in Spain and life rolls on. My Spanish improves at what feels like a glacial pace but improve it does. I try and keep out of trouble and almost succeed. Next week I'm on holiday again (oh the pain!) heading south to the Spain of the postcards, Andalucia. You be good y'hear!

Bikie Gang

When I sit on the bus thinking about it all I invariably find myself yearning for the next opportunity to be 'out there', in the uneven world, the rough places with no handrails and steep drops, heart pumping lungs bursting and eyes straining to grasp the beauty of it all. Then there's the lycra....


Never owned a sleeping bag let alone a mountain bike / I lied about being the outdoor type.*

Actually I didn't. I am and always will be the outdoor type. I didn't become an outdoor type to get the girls (as in the song) mostly because when I was a lad (a period of time increasingly quaint in its prehistoric qualities) outdoorsy types were more home knitted bobble hats and Kendal Mint Cake than Xtreme Lycra and re-hydration formulas. But I did and still do find a bit of extra-urban activity a great way to improve your social life even if it does mean falling over a bit.

It all started when I bought myself a mountain bike. This event was the culmination of a lengthy process of due diligence, throughout which the highest standards of fiscal rectitude, and consumer prudence were adhered to - a) Pub conversation, b) Internet search c) 'Ooh! That looks pretty!' d) CLICK.

One week later the large brown cardboard box arrived carrying my passport to a new life of vertiginous tongue swallowing adventure and all I needed was an Allen Key. Bugger.

Early tool related frustrations were soon forgotten when the following weekend I joined three colleagues on my first Basque biking expedition. We left the train after only 15 minutes and yet the town was far behind us as the first of the mountains which crowd around San Sebastian shouldered past us – we were surrounded. The only thing to do was climb! - actually a lovely latte and biscuity thing would be nice first.... BUT then we climbed!


It's wet in the Basque Country ( I think I've covered that before ) and with wetness comes mud, and mud makes cycling up hill as ...well lets just say it's hard. If you doubt that, get one hamster, put it in its wheel pour two parts runny clay one part cow pat over the rungs and watch it struggle on, paying close attention to its poor little hamster expression...not too happy I think we can all agree.

The hill went on, and on. Then in a turn of events that shocked no one it went on some more. I was fast running out of credible reasons to stop (sticky gears, call of nature, stone in shoe) and was in danger of regurgitating my lovely biscuity thing all over my new shorts. Breathing raggedly I stuck to the wheel of Bob 'King of the Mountains' Bob (who was clearly doing his best to refrain from whistling a happy tune as he glided upward) and hoped to avoid disgrace. Thankfully just as I could go on no further, we went on no further.

Going up seems so unpleasant – until you start to go down.

James our leader for the day “I am rubbish at directions – no honestly. Follow me!” gave myself and fellow greenhorn Karl some pertinent advice before the descent. “Just be careful of your brakes. The last bloke I brought up here broke his arm. Follow meeeee!” ...and he was off. There was nothing for it but to be off too.

This must be the steep bit I thought, before getting to the steep bit. I felt that the gradient, uneven terrain and my lack of an exoskeleton warranted at least a cursory investigation of the breaking options, despite what James has said. I pulled on a lever and found that rolling head long down a mountain was not quite as scary as SKIDDING headlong down one so I released the brake and held on tight.

If I told you that I had not several times during that first descent wished that I was elsewhere doing that cool safe and completely non-life-threatening elsewhere stuff I would be telling a half truth. I actually tried to wish this repeatedly but only got as far as “I wi..” before all brain power was again diverted to avoided bone crunching disaster. Then I fell.



Nothing heroic, no airtime, no cartwheeling just mud and pain. I slipped in a particularly aggressive swathe of muddiness lost the front end and gave my already twisted ankle a nasty bang. I didn't cry but it did make my leg jiggle uncontrollably which could have been mistaken by the casual observer as fear I knew better of course it was pain – oh, and fear.

It was at this point that I started to enjoy myself. The gradient eased the mud retreated and I swept down the mountain with increasing confidence. The relief high was beautiful, mixed with the sense of achievement it made for an addictive cocktail. All too soon we were back on tarmac and moments later plonked our mud splattered bodies in the local plaza for a well earned beer. I was already thinking of the next trip.

Since that first outing I have been up and down four more local hilly spots and in the sterling company of Bob, James, Karl and Paul** I look forward to nearly dieing in the great outdoors as often as I can manage.




* The Lemon Heads - For those who have never heard it listen here.

** All from Northern England. Coincidence? I don't think so..

Chalky

That's right I finally have a proper job, a trade if you will, I'm a chalky.

Sadly, chalk is a thing of the past so past we should be called whiteboard marker-'ies' but for obvious reasons we aren't.

Yep, I'm a teacher. Ok, I don't work in a proper school and the kids don't call me sir but I still teach, kids still sulk, I give reports, take registers, do marking, and moan about 'the youth', so for all intents and purposes I am a bloody teacher.

The idea of teaching teenage children has previously ranked alongside no. 892 Removing my own spleen with needle-nose pliers in my all time list of 'must dos', but so far the experience has been almost fun. It's true that 12yr old Javier, whilst failing to master the future simple tense, has trained his facial features to spell out 'you are the most uncool boring twat in the world I wish you would die so I could go home and be all cool 'n' stuff'', and its also true that I have been belittled by 13 yr old girls whose boots are more expensive than my wardrobe in a language I will never understand, but what has surprised me is how little effect these slights have had, and that I still like it when they get the answers right!

Luckily its not all hormone war-zones. When not empowering the youth of Donostia to better understand 50cent lyrics I am one of four new members of staff at Real Sociedad. La Real (as they are known locally) whilst having slipped temporarily into the second division of Spanish football are still a famous club who command a big following. Their training ground (where I teach) is a big stadium as it is. The trophy cabinet (which I pass on the way to my classroom) is brimming with odd shaped silverware and as I sit at my desk an almost life size photo of Xavi Alonso (ex-la Real now at Liverpool) watches over me.

Since my English school got the contract La Real have not lost a game. I can't help wondering whether the new found ability of the centre back Mikel Gonzalez to use the past continuous to describe the scene in a story or the relative ease with which striker Immanol uses the past simple to identify completed events or individual actions has got any thing to do with this success – it surely must.

Finally a note on the weather. If there is a wetter place on earth than San Sebastian its mayor has gills and the post is laminated. I was told yesterday that it has rained here everyday since October 19th, and I'm not talking drizzle, it's wet rain, the kind that seeks out your underwear soggying your smalls just to show off. Luckily the local luminaries have thoughtfully tiled ninety per cent of the city's pavements with polished white bathroom tiles to ensure minimum traction for all bipeds – genius!

Still you can see snow on top of the mountains so its not all bad eh?

I've been to London to see the Queen! Only part of that sentence is true.

I don't own a Underground Logo T-Shirt, plastic policeman's helmet or double decker bus snow-globe but I have come back from London a better man than when I left.

Regular readers (are there any other kind?) will remember that in my last post / thinly-disguised-therapy-session i was a bit 'down in the dumps' so what better to put the zest back in one's citrus fruit of choice than a visit to the mother country?

In an act of wanton environmental vandalism I hopped a plane from Biarritz to London. In fact the door to door journey was only a couple of hours more than if I'd taken the train but about $8.4 billion less expensive (compounding my sin of climatic GBH with honest to goodness greed) so I succumbed.

Not seconds after descending into the drizzle of Hertfordshire I felt my spirits lift On emerging into the sleet from Archway tube I felt a warm glow as the damp crowds bustled past, pinched faces peering from glistening coat hoods. I was home.

Well not really home. I have never been to Archway before. Usually when in London I can be found in Kentish Town availing myself of the not insignificant hospitality of my longtime friend and associate (ok, just friend but sounded grand didn't it? ) Mr Dan Leon. This time however I pitched my swag (one for the Aussie readers) with my new friend and none-associate Mairi Mclachlan. That regular reader will remember Mairi as the third intrepid explorer (along with Andrew Portors and I) who documented the pioneering of the Umbrella as a hiking accessory and provided tents for the expedition. well not content with such an impressive demonstration of Scottish hospitality she also put me up for the last few days, made porridge and the nicest fruit salad I have ever tasted.




In London almost everyone speaks English, an attraction that had hitherto eluded me, and not only that they understand me when I speak it! Oh the simple joys of uncomplicated communication! If it were only this relaxing bath in the English language that I gained it would still have been worth it. Luckily though there were other treats in store.

Last week Kerry and Dan had a baby (I haven't seen the video but I think Kerry took care of the 'having' bit). So i was lucky enough to be there to see her (Daisy Hazel Leon) on her first couple of days at home, give her a cuddle and marvel at the mesmerising effect a cute wickle baybee has on all around.

The day before I was in Rochester the national capital of useless porcelain figurines. I had come to the home of the ceramically challenged to catch up with Pete Sayonas, one time bar man at the University of Liverpool, and all time friend. I hadn't seen Pete in four years and It was great. Having examined the town's ornamental fetish we sipped a few pints complemented one another heartily and laughed about the world from the safety of a beer garden. So content was i on departing that I promptly fell asleep on the train back, awaking to the station announcer at London Victoria, worrying about dribble.


The highlight though was the Sunday. One thing the Spanish are unapologetically pathetic at is breakfasts. Having presumably joined the rest of the western world in accepting the scientific truth of the health benefits of a good morning meal the Spanish seem to have collectively shrugged lit a cigarette and ordered another coffee, breakfast!

Last Sunday I was able to enjoy the joys of toast, tea, porridge, The Observer, BBC radio, lovely company and a life changing fruit salad. Not only that but Liverpool beat Chelsea, and not only that but lunch (Served in an impossible snug pub in Highgate) was the kind that comes with Yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce. On the relax-ometer its right up there with smoking half an ounce of opium in a flotation tank listening to Whales discuss cuddles.

All this followed a Saturday night 'early birthday drink' with old friends and new in my old stomping ground of groovy Hoxton. My hope of becoming cooler through geographic osmosis is yet to show any results but fun was had nonetheless despite having to deal with a barman who considered serving drinks to be beneath him – too much concentration required being cool.

Now i am returned and enjoying my first day at work... but more on that later.

Thanks to all who made my London stay such fun, especially Mairi who has now overtaken Kenny Dalgleish as my favourite Scot!

Oh, and its my birthday today which makes me happy too (happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...)