All Work And No Play And All That Jazz

colingalbraith — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:48:34 +0000

Image: Spice London

Yesterday was a blast. I spent some of the morning up in town doing some shopping for my parent’s visit later in the day, which naturally included a stop off in the coffee shop and a read of the paper. When I got home I sat in the sunny paradise of my back garden for the rest of the morning and read a book. It was bliss.

My parent’s arrived around lunchtime and we spent most of our time sitting it in the garden soaking up the sun, alcohol and some wide ranging chit chat. I’d spent the whole of Saturday getting the house cleaned up and tidy for their arrival only to spend most of the time sitting in the garden—go figure, eh?

Later, we enjoyed a wholesome roast beef dinner (cooked on my Dad’s request—kind of) and followed that up with fresh coffee and a choice of lime cheesecake or trifle. Lovely jubbly. I was totally stuffed and am still struggling to walk if the truth be told.

We got really lucky with the weather over the weekend. It was great being able to enjoy the garden for the day but it made the house cleaning on Saturday a bit of a droll affair. There was much panting and sweating as I worked the rooms. The house needed it, though, and having it look so clean is quite satisfying now it’s all done.

Yesterday was Father’s Day here in the UK. My daughter gave me a crime novel by a new writer she’s found for me along with a massive block of Galaxy chocolate. I’ll enjoy that over a film some night. To my own dad I gave a vocal card of a cheeky monkey, and I had planned to take him out to the aquarium centre in Tranent so he could select my new stock of tropical fish, but after he’d had a couple of beers he was too tired to go. Another time.

Despite using Factor 30 lotion all day yesterday, I’ve still managed to get burnt. Not my head this time, it was protected by a cap, but I have a large V shape on my neck and chest where my shirt was lying open. Against my blue work shirt it makes for quite a patriotic display of British colours.

I hardly spent any time on the internet over the whole weekend until last night. It felt good to be away from it for a few hours and not feel bothered about email checking or anything like that. There’s a certain freedom to be gained from gong into my workspace and closing the door, but equally, after a while, there’s a certain amount of freedom also to be gained from closing the door and not entering.

And so another new week is here. Yesterday was good for me because I got to spend time with my folks as well as my own family. I think Gail badly needed the rest, too, and soaking up the sun and wine in the garden on a sunny is the perfect tonic for recharging the batteries. All work and no play and all that jazz.

I am having a good month with my workload—my GDRs are turning over nicely—and I intend to have met another two, maybe three monthly goals by the end of the week. GDRs, for those of you who have been reading this blog unaware of the acronym, stands for Goals, Dreams and Resolutions. It’s an expanded form of the traditional New Year’s resolution list with the aim of providing consistent targets and desires within your working life, in my case writing, which can also be used as motivation and for looking to see how far you’ve come. It was designed by Devon Ellington and I recommend it to loads of people. I recommend it to you.

There’s a special offer running on my books at the moment. If you head over to my website (or the BOOKS page on this blog) and purchase any of them, when you are directed to Lulu simply enter the code FREEGROUND305 to get free ground shipping up to the value of £25. Offer ends 30th June.

STELLA is also available now to purchase from Kindle. Click here to buy a copy priced $5.29.

Gail Galbraith Photography is offering portrait shoots for £25 (knocked down from £40) if you book before 31st August 2010 and you use the word “Leith” in your query. For that you get a 1 hour session in her new studio in Leith, 1 free 8×6 print, an online gallery to show off to friends and family and where images can be purchase direct from, and all images from the shoot on a free low-resolution CD. (Subject to max of 4 people per session; each additional person is £5 each). You can contact Gail at gail@gailgalbraith.co.uk and view her website at: www.gailgalbraith.co.uk

That’s all for me just now. Peace out!

Hampden In The Sun

Colin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:11:02 +0000

Image: glasgowguide.co.uk

Well the Buddies got beat; another semi-final disappointment, this time at the hands of the Forces of Darkness. As far as footie matches go it wasn’t one of the best, but St Mirren, I felt, could have taken better advantage over one of the weakest Rangers sides I’ve ever seen. With a team full of old men and missing key players, it really was ours for the taking, but perhaps the occasion of being on the big stage was too much for a young Paisley squad.

I was even more pissed off by the discovery that all my Tweets and TwitPics from the day went un-posted. Something went wrong within the system and only late on Saturday night did I discover nothing had gotten through. I’ll rectify that for Wednesday’s day out for The Specials coming to town, mark my words, and I’ll post the pictures from Hampden as soon as I’ve uploaded them.

I had gone through to Glasgow on Friday after work and spent the night with my sister in Mount Florida, a handy stone’s throw from Hampden stadium, and we spent the evening in with a Chinese meal and a couple of DVDs.

The weather at the weekend was awesome, particularly for the match on Saturday. It was sunny and warm over Glasgow for the match, but although we spent most of the game in the shade of the South Stand I still managed to burn my head somewhat with all the walking around we did.

After the game we met up with the Group Captain and his son, who had managed to get lost coming out of the stadium and found themselves a mile or two the wrong way along Clarkston Road. They had been in the opposing end of the ground to us, which only serves to prove the lower levels of intelligence that still exists among Rangers fans these days.

A few pints later and they left for home, and my Binny and I went back to hers while she prepared for a 30th birthday bash in the city centre. We picked some of her (well hot!) pals up in a taxi and dropped them off in the town, then I jumped aboard a train back through to Edinburgh.

Yesterday was a pretty empty affair. I did a lot of reading, some clearing up, some PC maintenance, and some project work. Nothing, I can assure you, to write home to the blog about.

The week ahead promises to be excellent. On Wednesday I will be going to see The Specials, a band that means so, so, so much to me since way back in 1979. There will be drinking, skanking, sweating, and maybe even tears. Then on Thursday I will be attending the Beltane Festival of Fire on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

There should be some interesting blogs and Tweets to come out of it all.

Cheap and free e-books: