What can I say, other than the journey to and fro’, we have this whole trip back to Scotland thing down to a tee.
We arrived on Thursday night in enough time for me to get a Mr Kebab speciality… which was fantastic. Man, if I ever win the lottery I’m going to have Mr Kebab food couriered from Helensburgh to where ever I’m living it up in the world. Skating in San Diego? No problemo, have the Mr Kebab chef’s flown over and they can cook me up a tasty donner during the flight!
Seriously, though – the food was ace… and not just because I was starving after a four hour drive, either. Even Fliss got a burger from them, so that’s a seal of approval right there.
Friday we got down to the point of the weekend with Andrew’s birthday. He got a few odds and ends to accompany his Silver PlayStation 2 that I managed to snap up for him during the previous afternoon. This went down very well, in fact the rest of the weekend revolved around the awesome TimeSplitters 2, Burnout 2, and Rumble Racing (which is a bit dated now, but still plays well and Andrew enjoys it.) For lunch, Crazy Uncle John took us to the Indian restraunt on the sea front for what must have been the most average chicken tikka masala I’ve ever had. Mental note – never go back there, they aren’t even qualified to tie up the aprons of the Mr Kebab chef dudes.
Saturday we took Fliss‘ dad to a hardware store to get stuff for doing up the house. Sadly, when we got to the house I managed to royally screw up the tiling of the kitchen floor. I only had a couple of hours before I had to call it quits for Andrew’s birthday night out thing, and didn’t really think it through properly. I feel kind of bad about the result… I mean, when you tell folk “oh, I just started in the corner…” it’s like everyone’s a fucking tiling expert who comes out of the woodwork after the event. If I hear one more time that I should have started in the middle, I’ll be shoving a tile where the Sun doesn’t shine.
In my defence, it is kind of a small kitchen and is the most bizarre galley shape, too, so finding the middle would have had Stephen Hawking sweating as well as drooling profusely, so along with it being my first tiling job I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad.
Anyhow, the rest of Saturday night was ace – we went bowling and I bowled a 158. Next best was my mum with 130 something… sheesh, I never knew she was that good at it! Afterwards we went to this great chineese buffet place and the food was tremendous. We all darted back to my folks house after that and myself, Derrick, Ian and Andrew played Burnout until the early hours. Kronenberg can go down pretty nicely in good company – thanks Derrick! ;o)
Sunday I got up full of excitement because it was dry, and that meant I could go up and use the skate ramps that Argyll and Bute council have bestowed upon Helensburgh’s Hermitage Park. The ramps were pretty wet, though, and I ended up having a bit of a slam for my efforts. Still, it’s kind of cool for the council to have provided that kind of thing for the young skaters and bladers of the down. There was nothing like that when I was skating in my teens and, who knows, I might not be as crap as I am today if there had been an outlet for my hobby.
The skating ended on a frantic note as this kid had stolen our frisbee while I was skating and Andrew was watching. We hunted them down like dogs with some Miami Vice style high octane action in the car. The kids mother squealed when we caught up with them and we got the frisbee back. Andrew was pretty impressed by this, because when we realised the kid had lifted it there didn’t look like any chance we would get it back. I was so pissed I was determined to find the kid, though – so I’d have ended up really pissed if we hadn’t tracked him down.
Sunday wound up with more PlayStation than I’ve played in a long while – Andrew and I must have raged, all guns blazing, through every variation of TimeSplitters 2 arcade mode there is. I’m actually impressed with how quick he’s learned to play an FPS with the joypad – I found it pretty tricky myself only a year or so ago.
Monday brought the journey home, which was pretty arduous due to the wet weather and fog we encountered, and it was a relief to get back without being involved in any of the near misses or the accident that happened about 40 minutes from home.
Doesn’t look like we’ll be going back up until Easter or something, but if we can cram as much in next time it’s as good a long weekend as you can spend without breaking the bank too much.
