Heineken Football Festival

Of Hiccups, Monster Bobs and Visas

The dust is finally settling on a fairly hectic weekend and I'm almost able to keep my eyes open long enough to post, so I'll try to collect my thoughts.

Friday's working day culminated in a leaving night for a fellow employee, and the drink was flowing freely at the start of the evening. My recollections of events are hazy, but I'm told that my Elvis impersonation kept my colleagues amused.

Thankfully, I had the sense to bail out before things got too messy, and instead subjected the passengers on the Aberdeen to Montrose train to a spectacular bout of hiccups that lasted for the duration of the journey. These hiccups were more like sonic booms, and were so loud that I could hear them above Definitely Maybe cranked up full blast on the Magic Tune Box.

Having arrived in Montrose, I decided that food was required, and treated myself to a pizza. The first bite removed removed several layers off the interior lining of my mouth, and in shock I managed to spill molten cheese on both my hands. All in all, a fairly eventful post-pub meal.

After staggering from the pizza shop to Dungroanin', I managed to scare Pepper, Mrs Wife's rabbit, half to death, then retreated to bed.

Unfortunately, Saturday dawned for me at the early hour of 7.30am. Unable to get back to sleep, I settled on the couch, wrapped in a fake fur throw, and allowed my hangover to build up a head of steam.

What I found out later in the day was that a combination of hail, snow, horizontal rain and howling winds, mixed with the standard of football offered up in an end-of-season Angus derby, is enough to shift even the most stubborn of hangovers.

Though the match wasn't dire, the standard of refereeing, in a league renowned for atrocious officials, was honking, and the man in black's performance was enough in itself to deny Montrose a confirmed play-off spot. For a week at least.

And so Saturday night started with me shivering, attempting to restore my core body temperature to something above freezing and preparing for a second consecutive night on the lash.

I believe a good time was had by all, with most of the assembled crowd enjoying their first visit to Roo's Leap. This vast amount of food was washed down with a few civilised drinks....

....Which doesn't really explain how I ended up finally going to bed at 6am, having woken the whole house with an impromptu didgeridoo solo.

My body clock must still be on British Winter Time, because I awoke at 8.30am, unable to do anything but doze fitfully until my lift to Dundee arrived. Why Dundee? To take in the Dundee United v Rangers SPL match, one of the more entertaining games I've been to this season, albeit one in which the final result left a lot to be desired. But no team can expect to go behind three times and still win a match.

A long day at work on Monday was followed by a trip north to Ellon, where Mrs Wife acquired her second rabbit, a bouncing boy now known as Dylan (in tribute to Robert Zimmerman, not The Magic Roundabout).

Introducing Dylan and Pepper has been a high-tension affair. Pepper is no longer in possession of her womanly organs, but Dylan still has a full set of boy bits, and he's eager to use them. So far, as Pepper has investigated this newcomer, she's smacked him around the nose a few times and attempted to give him a warning nibble on the nose. But Dylan seems to take this as foreplay, so there may be testing times ahead.

Yesterday, the 28th anniversary of my arrival on this planet, saw Mrs Wife and I venture south to Edinburgh, with the intention of collecting our Chinese visas. Unfortunately, the Chinese Consulate is an awkward beast, and no amount of discussion or offers of cash would tempt them to process the application in a single day. Which means that I'll have to make a return journey next week.

So, a busy weekend means I'm pretty shattered and looking forward to a few evenings of realxing on the sofa to recuperate.

I must be getting old.

Herge's Adventures of Groanin' Jock

Happy New Year to you all. Mrs Wife and I are now back on Scottish soil following our jaunt to Brussels for Hogmanay.

The weather held up for most of the trip, only turning to freezing rain on our final day in Belgium, although we did encounter some snow at Waterloo.

What have we discovered from our time on the continent?

1) When chocolate is found in any state other than completely solid, I am a serious risk to myself and others around me. This applies to drinking chocolate, chocolate fountains, the fillings found inside individual chocolates and the cocoa dusting applied to truffels. In short, if you want to avoid chocolate/clothes-based mishaps, minimise my involvement.

2) Belgium, located almost slap-bang in the middle of western Europe, has acquired facets of its national characteristics from its neighbours. These include the humility and good manners of the French, the the stunning good looks of the Germans and the Italians' attitude to queuing. As Misssy warned me, the Belgians ain't too good-looking. Mrs Wife disagrees, and reckons that the men aren't too bad. But most of the women are horrors. Nonetheless, their cooking is pretty good and their beer is unsurpassed.

3) I don't know how I've lasted almost 28 years on this planet without experiencing cherry beer, which now joins pear cider amongst my favourite drinks. "Un grand Mort Subite, S'il vous plait" is the one French phrase I truly mastered whilst in Brussels.

And now we have a weekend of recovery before returning to the wonderful world of work. Thankfully, most of the snow seems to have gone, so I've been spared the nightmare Montrose to Aberdeen drive in the dark during a blizzard. Hurrah!