Tagged “family”

This was a weird, mixed reading experience for me. It’s a short book and it’s good – it had me locked in really quickly and I was finished after a few nights. But it was an uneasy read.

On Tuesday 29th July 2025, my mother in law Jackie passed away. It was sudden and completely unexpected – she was healthy and taken far too young at only sixty-two years old.

Jackie was dearly loved by all her family and friends for her warmth, kindness and zest for life.

That day and the days thereafter have been have been tough, especially for Clair and her dad.

Jackie was an amazing person, I loved her, and it’s gonna leave a big gap in our lives. We now need to to stick together through the rough times ahead. We should keep in mind how lucky we were to have her, and honour her strong values and kindness.

That was a productive and fun weekend.

On Friday, Clair was meeting her mum and cousin in town so this was my quiet night in. I settled down to watch episode 4 of the The Penguin and ordered fish tikka from Kebabish – banging).

I started Saturday with a short Rudy-walk then it was off to Pete’s for some table-tennis practice. I’ve been playing crap recently and wanted to fix things. Pete was as generous as ever with his tips, and his advice on “the triangle” and "dialling up/down power" was really effective! By the end I was playing both forehand and backhand much better. After this I drove out to Kirky and collected my brother Martin to go for a chat over lunch at Nonna’s Kitchen. On the way home we popped into my niece Chloe’s new house and I enjoyed chasing wee Leo around his garden. At night Clair and I stayed in and watched Where the Crawdads Sing which was enjoyable enough.

On Sunday I had a really lovely autumnal walk around Pollokshields with Rudy and bumped into Mark M, then Dawn A, in the hood. In the evening I caught up with Mick M and, after a beer at Shilling and food at Rosa’s Thai we went to see Skinshape performing at Room Two. The music was great and the bassist was particularly impressive. I just think Will could do with belting the vocals out a tad louder. My favourite moment was hearing The Longest Shadow live.

I’ve reached the halfway point of short summer working weeks and long weekends, and they’ve been great so far. I began this long weekend with lunch at the Broadcroft Hotel in Kirkintilloch for my parents’ emerald anniversary. My Uncle Liam was there too and we all really enjoyed it.

I had panko breaded Stornoway black pudding with apricot & plum chutney to start, followed by fish pie, then a coffee to finish. In the words of Larry David it was all pretty, pretty good. It’s also pretty, pretty impressive that my folks have been married fifty-five years. My mum was delighted to find a specific Emerald Anniversary card to give Dad, which contained some amusing words about their steadfast love!

Saturday was even more of a food-fest. After a blissful long walk at Pollok Park with Rudy where we spotted a baby highland cow, I met Clair for breakfast at Outlier. The food was nice (I had scrambled eggs on toast with trout) although there was a reassuringly long wait for it. (To be fair, they were mobbed when I arrived). Have to also mention: their cakes are banging!

Later, I visited Martin and Izzie where Paul and Rita were visiting with their lovely twin baby boys Liam and Jack. The hosts treated us to some french delights – saucisson, cheese, brioche, lentils, lovely bread – and the assembled friends enjoyed a good natter about life, work and travels.

Kiro Tempura have returned to our area as a popup and later on Saturday night Clair and I paid a visit. We had a tempura set of hake, mackerel, prawn, sweet potato, pumpkin, greenbeans and sweetcorn and it was delicious. Hope it goes well for those guys – the food was ace and the service friendly.

Lovely time catching up with my niece Amy for lunch at The Old Mill in Killearn on Friday. We chatted about her trips abroad, her ongoing love affair with Taylor Swift and about family.

I squeezed in more family time on Sunday when Dad visited while Mum was meeting cousins at Bellahouston Park. We had a good laugh watching Rudy and our neighbour’s dog Coco (who was visiting) roll around, while got ready to head off for a work trip to Wimbledon.

Having a lovely Sunday morning stroll with Clair and Rudy through Crawick Multiverse, a land art installation. Here’s a bit about this interesting place:

Nestled within the rolling hills of Upper Nithsdale in Dumfries and Galloway, this major land restoration project has transformed a former open cast coal mine into a spectacular artland and public amenity.

A renowned cultural theorist, land artist, architectural historian and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres, Charles Jencks was commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch in 2015 to design an inspiring landscape on the former open-cast coal mine near Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway.

We made our way through the Amphitheatre and between “landforms” with names such as Andromeda, Supercluster of Galaxies and Omphalos. And we stopped to enjoye a lovely wee picnic atop The Milky Way. Most definitely something different, and Rudy seemed to enjoy his first spacewalk too.

Well that was a fun weekend!

First up on Saturday was lunch with my niece Chloe at Gusto and Relish (we thought it might be nice for her to visit the southside). We had a good blether about her wee boy Leo, her future plans and more while enjoying some tasty sandwiches and coffee. After that Chloe visited our flat which provided a chance for her to chat with Clair and meet Rudy.

Later that night was an event Clair and I had planned for a while – our Traitors night with friends! We assembled at Church on the Hill where Clair took on the role of host Claudia while I, Marty and Jenny, Simon, Gillian, Tom and Nessa, Mark, Martin and Izzie, Dan and Sarah were the participants.

We all chucked a tenner into the pot as an incentive to spice it up, then Clair set about blindfolding us and tapping the shoulders of those she’d picked as traitors. I was a faithful but ended up being voted out first! Cracking one too many jokes in the WhatsApp beforehand was my downfall, I think. That aside it all went really well and we didn’t even get launched by the unsuspecting bar staff for our theatrics. The winners also donated the cash to charity which was a really nice touch.

Competition aside, it was just lovely to catch up with people. In particular I hadn’t seen Dan and Sarah for ages. I enjoyed hearing about their recent visit to Cork (I now fancy visiting too) and also Sarah’s positive ideas about how Glasgow city centre can rise again.

We knocked it on the head at a good hour and resisted the urge for a nightcap – a sign of the mature adults we have all become (or something like that).

My nephew Daniel and his girlfriend Helena moved into their new home toward the end of last year. I was overdue a visit and rectified that today.

It was great to see them both and get the tour of their lovely home including back garden! I had to chuckle at the fairly intense metal music on quietly in the background. I don’t think they do laidback sounds – fair play to them!

Now I think about it, their music taste might provide an insight into why they named their dog Satan. And it was great to meet the wee guy! He’s a Kingpin – a miniature Pinscher and King Charles spaniel mix – who’s very affectionate and I was instantly smitten. They’re currently doing some of the same training we’ve done with Rudy to keep him a bit calmer.

I also picked up the (casually dropped-in) news that they are engaged, which is lovely to hear. They’re such a great couple.

I was treated to a lovely bacon roll and cup of tea so needless to say, I’ll be back. But maybe I should invite them to our place next time.

Every time I watch nostalgic TV documentaries about Scottish films I see Just a Boys’ Game and Just Another Saturday – both written by Peter McDougall – come up. I just watched Just a Boys’ Game (available on Google Play) and loved it. Set in 1979 Glasgow, this is a gritty story with refreshingly good acting that really captures the finer points of the social and economic mood of the time.

Clair and I just watched The Farewell, a comedy-drama film written and directed by Lulu Wang starring Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen, and really enjoyed it. Interesting/difficult subject matter and really nicely done. If you need a break from grisly murder cases etc then I can heartily recommend it.

Today I and my brother Martin and two nieces Sophie and Mia, made a first visit to the Mackintosh Church in Maryhill, Glasgow.

We were there to visit Museum of the Moon, a new touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram. I’d first heard about this exhibition when watching the BBC documentary Wonders of the Moon.

The installation is a fusion of lunar imagery, moonlight and surround sound composition created by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award winning composer Dan Jones. Measuring seven metres in diameter, the sculpture features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface. At an approximate scale of 1:500,000, each centimetre represents 5km of the moon’s surface.

We all really enjoyed seeing this striking artwork in such a beautiful setting and learning a little more about the moon, too.