Happy New Year to one and all, I hope that 2015 brings you love, health and happiness.
It’s been a roller coaster of a year, lots of highs, a few lows, but that’s life in the big city.
Fortunately, it’s ended on a high with friends old and new and the best family in the world surrounding me.
Times up 2014.
Bring it on 2015.
All my best when it comes. X
Ps – New Year can be an emotional time, my advice, put your energy into the people who love and appreciate you, forget the losers, they don’t deserve the effort.
Last night was the 25th anniversary of my extended family’s annual Christmas party.
I honestly can’t tell you how blessed I feel to be with, my dad, kids, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and all their families.
It was just magic .. Humbling .. Uplifting.
You don’t get to pretend with family, they know all your faults, all your history, all your triumphs and tribulations.
It was a pretty special night, loads of old photos from the original night 25 years ago, loads of pics from earlier family outings when my Granda would hire a coach and take all us kids down to the beach for the day.
“25 Pie suppers, 4 fish suppers and a bag of chips” .. And the fryers jaw dropped.
Family legend .. You can’t beat it.
Last night, I bathed in that healthy glow that only being with such close family can provide.
Today, I feel refreshed, invigorated, ready to face the world because no matter what life throws at me I know I’ve got the best back up that money can’t buy.
So come on 2015, bring it on.
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Oh yeah, a link to some of the best blogs of 2014 .. Some great reading in there.
Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
Sometimes I’d like to quit
Nothing ever seems to fit
Hangin’ around
Some kind of lonely clown
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.
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5am and been awake since 4, messing around on Spotify and Vevo.
Came across this oldie but goodie by the beautifully tragic Karen Carpenter.
It kind of fits, kind of doesn’t.
I’m sure many single people feel that way .. Being angst ridden like some lovelorn teenager at our stage in life isn’t how we planned it .. Is it?
Fortunately .. Although I’ve had those feelings and certainly can relate to them it’s not how I feel.
It’s not raining but it is freezing out there, the temperature has dropped overnight.
Normally I’d be getting up at 7ish and heading through to Edinburgh.
But not today.
Today I’m having a lazy day.
Not like me being self employed to be skipping days off work, especially after spending so much over Christmas.
But what the hell!!
You pass this way but once.
My choice .. Going to turn the heating up and sit in my pants and play piano ..
Tonight is the big family party 200 or so of us in my dads club. It gets bigger every year with new additions in the family. Then the kids growing up bringing their BFs/GFs/pals along to enjoy the fun.
This year it’s my cousins Christine’s and her sides turn to arrange the food and entertainment. My dad putting on the free bar as usual. Gets more expensive every year and needs a wee top up nowadays.
This is the 25th anniversary of the party, started by my grandfather to make sure that ties in the family remain strong.
Its one of the best nights of the year catching up with everyone, reminiscing and renewing old bonds.
Santa comes for the kids and we cross pollinate the presents, I give to my cousins kids and vice versa. It makes sure the younger generation know who the fogeys are and we see the kids grow into fine young people.
Then there’s my own favourite part of the evening .. Adult musical chairs .. Usually about 30 of us getting stupid, cheating and pulling away chairs .. Just like we did as kids at my Granda’s.
Good morning and Merry Christmas to you, whoever and wherever you are.
I hope you’re day goes well and you’re surrounded by the people you love who love you back.
At some point today, take a moment to appreciate what you have and count your blessings.
Me? It’s 7am here, I have 2 of my 3 kids in the house and I’m the only one up. Changed days from when they used to wake me at 4am to ask if Santa had been.
There will be no present opening until laura arrives from her boyfriends.
Speaking of which, I have a gift under the tree for Laura’s boyfriend. That’s a first!! I’ve met the lad a few times and he seems like a decent guy and they love and care about each other.
This time next year, I think they’ll be living together. That’s fine by me.
Took a trip into Glasgow City centre yesterday, got off the train at Argyll Street and walked up Queen Street towards George Square.
Both streets were closed to traffic and the square was cordoned off with barriers.
There was a slightly eerie silence in the city with no traffic in these normally busy streets.
There was flowers at each entrance point to the square and small crowds gathered paying their respects. People were laying flowers expressing their grief showing their solidarity.
I’m not ashamed to confess that I was choked and had a small tear at one point myself, I’m sure most people did as the reality of the incident hit home.
In the other shopping streets, people went about their business, friendly but there was a sense of humility in the air.
This hurts, this could have affected any one of us. There but for the grace of God.
At the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Hospital, my mate Jim was there giving blood, he regularly donates both blood and platelets.
Apparently, the donation centre was so busy and they had collected so much blood that they were turning people away.
People Make Glasgow is a current motto of the city promoted by the recent Commonwealth Wealth Games.
Good times or bad, the people of this city aren’t slow to step up to the mark and play their part.
I’m very proud of my city.
Someone sent me the following poem by a Glasgow Cabbie. Good for him, couldn’t say it better.
Merry Christmas to you whoever and wherever you are, may your festive season be filled with love and joy and all my best wishes for 2015.
Words are not enough to express my feelings on yesterday’s tragic accident in Glasgow.
My heart goes out to all those families who have lost a loved one.
People going about their business, last minute shopping or enjoying the funfair at George Square then taken without warning.
It’s so sad.
So tragic at anytime but more so at this time of year. Christmas will never be the same.
George Square is the heart of the city,, facing the City Chambers. It’s where people have gathered over the years to celebrate or protest.
On Saturday my daughter was at that funfair and I took a few pics standing right there on Saturday night and posted them in a previous blog.
You can see how busy the square is. It would have been just as busy yesterday. It’s hard to imagine a lorry going off road and ploughing through all those people. The only blessing is that there aren’t more casualties.
Yesterday when news of the incident started appearing in Twitter. The first thing I did was check my 3 kids weren’t involved. Thankfully they were elsewhere.
I personally don’t know anyone involved but Glasgow is a big connected village. Everyone knows someone involved either directly or indirectly and the ripples came through last night making the tragedy all the more real.
My heart goes out to them, feel for their loss, can’t imagine the pain they are going through and I thank the heavens that it wasn’t any of mine.
A little bird once said to me
You gotta live a little till your happy
If you take a lot you will be left with none
I had to learn a bit, live a bit
let it all sink in a bit
To have a plan and keep with it
make a path and stick to it
Open up ur box of secrets
Take one out for me
That’s the problem with partying late on a Saturday …
You sleep most of Sunday!
The last Saturday before Christmas and Glasgow was jumping.
Curry with my mate and loved the gig, crashed a corporate Christmas party at The Radisson, danced til 2, drinking til 4, then hours waiting on a taxi.
Waking up at my usual time was a mistake, not that you’re capable of doing much .. apart from the obvious ..
What? .. I still had a pulse!
Christmas shopping fell by the wayside .. Just as well I had picked up a few armfuls on Saturday .. Including somewhat selfishly a couple of nice wee things for yours truly!
Well if you can’t be good to yourself …
Been sleeping on and off the rest of the day, watched my team getting grubbed by Dundee United .. Time up Ronnie.
Chided myself for taking pleasure in the tragi-comedy act on the other side of the city as the “best young manager in Scotland” gets his marching orders. To be fair some of the comments on Twitter are hilarious but a bit personal too. Laughing at someone else’s misfortune doesn’t sit well with me, although I’m sure Super Salary won’t be too upset collecting his 750k salary for a years gardening leave.
It’s The Rangers AGM tomorrow, sure to bring more hilarity and I wonder what secrets will come out?
4am, can’t sleep, watched the football and American Hustle .. Both were entertaining nonsense .. But one was shit and Amy Adams was hot in the other.
Now messing around on my new Spotify account, came across this tune on the Electric Swing playlist .. Makes me want to dance!
Just came across this article on the impact of online dating on the disposability of modern relationships.
Its a subject that I often write about, so thought I’d share as I completely agree with this viewpoint.
Online dating is smorgasbord of choices, a hotel buffet table full of tasty bites and if you want you can have a nibble here, a bite there, enjoy the taste, but drop it and pick up the next tasty delicacy.
If you’re greedy, you overfill your plate with things you kinda fancy but don’t really have the appetite for after you’ve sated your hunger on the things you do.
Even when we do have someone we like and enjoy being with, until we hit that tipping point, we still look for the next best thing.
Once you’ve past that point and have some level of commitment, to keep looking is duplicitous and shameful, playing with the hopes, dreams and emotions of the person you’re seeing and the other people that you’re pretending you’re available to.
Speaking from experience, you get caught up in the game and it takes time and probably a few mistakes before you realise that to keep playing makes no sense, when you already have everything you want.
I’m glad I’m not playing the game anymore.
No dating profiles. Not even sneaky wee ones with no pics just to keep a foot on the pitch.
DancingBhoy 