A True Story

As Mrs Wife will happily tell almost anyone, I frequently talk and wander about in my sleep.

Usually, or so I am told, these midnight disturbances are no more than a few muttered words before I turn over and fall back into a snore-filled slumber.

But occasionally, and usually when I am especially tired, I have been known to set off on mini expeditions, to engage Mrs Wife in lurid conversations or to imagine that I am in an unusual place or that there are unusual things in the bedroom.

For example, I once sat bolt upright in bed and informed Mrs Wife (then known as Miss Girlfriend) that there was a mouse in the room. Having delivered this unwelcome piece of news in a darkened room at 1am, I promptly lay back down and fell back into a deep sleep. From the report Mrs Wife gave me the next morning, it seems she was unable to do likewise for quite some time.

This animal fascination has reared its head again recently, as I now frequently wake in the middle of the night under the impression that Mrs Wife's rabbits, Dylan and Pepper, are scampering about in our bedroom.

At least this nocturnal intermission is based somewhat on facts - Dylan escaped from his cage a couple of weeks ago and feasted merrily on the tangle of wires and cables that lives behind our television. He was not a popular critter the morning that his handiwork was discovered.

But my finest hour in the exciting world of sleepwalking occurred while I was at university in 2002.

Myself and four others shared a five-bedroom flat on Edinburgh's Morningside Road, in a block in which the same person owned the two flats directly across the landing from each other. When we had been in our new home for several months, the owner announced that he would be refurbishing both, and that we would have to move across the hall for a few weeks while work took place in our flat.

For a week or so at the end of the renovations, we retained keys for both properties while we moved back into our own residence. And it is at this point that our story takes place.

After a night out in Edinburgh, I returned to the original flat and headed to bed.

Several hours later, I stirred, and found that I was feeling unusually cold. Opening my eyes, I discovered that I was in the bedroom in the other flat that I had lived in briefly during the renovations. I was lying on top of the brand new mattress on the brand new bed in that room, wrapped only in a plastic protective cover from the mattress and wearing only a pair of boxer shorts.

With my confusion rapidly accelerating, I investigated further. I found that I was, not surprisingly, in the flat on my own, but that more surprisingly, all of the lights were on.

And so, having switched all the lights off, I shut the door behind me and padded across the cold hallway to our own flat. Where I found that the door was locked.

Unfortunately, I had also shut the door behind me as I left flat number two, locking me out of both properties.

I was cold. I was tired. I was confused. I was drunk.

And so, I took the only action left open to me and started banging furiously on the door to the flat, knowing that my four flatmates were inside.

Thankfully, I managed to wake one of my sleeping flatmates before any of the neighbours could call the police.

Bleary-eyed and, like me, wearing only boxers, my friend opened the door and stared in wonder at this vision before him.

"Mate, what are you doing?" he asked.

"I have no idea," was all I could say in response, "I'm going to bed."

And I did.

The next morning, I awoke with a pounding headache. Turning over, I could hear the sound of conversation coming from the sitting room.

"WHAT?!"

"Aye, standing on the doorstep waering just a pair of boxers!"

Not wishing to disappoint my audience, I ventured into the sitting room, where I was greeted with applause, laughter and a barrage of questions.

None of which I have ever been able to answer.

No Capital Punishment

The sun was splitting the sky in Edinburgh this afternoon, and it was a good day to be on holiday in our nation's fair capital.

My journey was one of necessity, as I needed to collect my own and Mrs Wife's passports from the Chinese Consulate. An early start meant that I arrived as the mid morning sun was starting to warm up, and my business with the Chinese was concluded in only a few short minutes.

Which meant that the day was at my disposal. When left unattended in cities, I tend to migrate towards shops selling cheap CDs, DVDs, books and clothes. And so it proved today.

In a day of pounding the streets, I managed to pick up Anchorman (which I've never seen), Mallrats and Super Furry Animals' Phantom Power on DVD, as well as Radiohead's Com Lag and We Are Scientists' Crap Attack on CD.

The latter purchase was made less than 24 hours after seeing We Are Scientists perform a fantastic gig at Aberdeen Music Hall. Though their recently-released second album lacks the punch and catchy tunes of their debut, the WAS set was fantastic from beginning to end. Unfortunately, it was preceded by two chronically abysmal support bands and a cack-handed roadie struggling to tune the instruments, but all that was forgotten once WAS had hit their stride.

But I digress. In Edinburgh today, I also managed to pick up The Broons and Oor Wullie 1946-1956: The Golden Years and Hearts - The Diary of An Incredible Season. I'm especially looking forward to reading the latter title, as it was written by Mike Smith, a recent visitor to this far-flung outpost of the worldwide interweb and himself a fellow denizen of the blogosphere.

The drive home took place in glorious sunshine, and even the slow-moving traffic between Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge, and in Dundee, wasn't enough to dampen the spirits.

Roll on work and a chance to mock some Aberdeen fans tomorrow.

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.

Eight Things About Me

As seen over at Blog d'Elisson and at Blissful Bedlam - Eight Random Facts About Me.

The useless knowledge is listed below, but first we'd better keep things proper by explaining the rools:

Write a post enumerating eight facts/habits about yourself. Include the rules at the beginning of the post.

Tag eight people, posting their names and links to their sites. (I'm not going to do that - if anyone wants to play, feel free. If you don't, don't.)

Leave comments at the sites you’ve tagged, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

So here we go - eight things you didn't need (or want) to know about me:

1. I've never had an operation under general anaesthetic. In fact, I can count my hospital visits on the fingers of one hand: the first was to get a piece of grit removed from my eye as a teenager, the second was to see how badly I'd damaged my ankle playing football (it turned out to be a strained ligament), the third was to see whether I'd broken my nose playing football (notice a theme here? I hadn't, just burst it open quite spectacularly), the fourth was to see if I'd broken my ribs playing football (I hadn't, they were just bruised) and the fifth was when I had my toenail removed by a doctor who gave me a single local anaesthetic injection. Please note that I was touching wood and crossing my fingers whilst I wrote that answer.

2. The longest I've lived in one house is seven years, when my parents and I (and for three of those years Baby Brother) lived in a small cottage in the countryside near Montrose. I took a drive down there on the way home from work a couple of weeks ago and it hasn't changed at all in the intervening 20 years.

3. The most keepie-uppies I have ever done with a football without it bouncing on the ground is 120. At the end of the session, my legs were exhausted and I'd moved about 10 metres in the time it took, which was probably about five minutes. So I can't begin to fathom how Martinho Eduardo Orige managed to keep a ball in the air for 19-and-a-half hours.

4. I've visited seven of the eight Australian States and Territories, including the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. Mrs Wife (then known as Miss Girlfriend) and I didn't make it to the Northern Territory because of an unfortunate incident with an exploding car engine that cost us $2,500 to fix.

5. I can lick my nose and wiggle my ears. But not at the same time.

6. Whilst at university I worked as a security guard, a kitchen porter and as a journalist for a Premier League football team.

7. My favourite alcoholic drink is Cointreau, lime and lemonade. Which is probably the least masculine drink that one can order at any bar in Scotland.

8. I'm allergic to cats and have a phobia of birds. Apart from that, I like animals.

Scotia's Joy and Pride

Today is a Bank Holiday in Aberdeen, so I have been spared the hour-long commute to the Granite City.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that I am spared a day of work. Mrs Wife and I spent Saturday in Edinburgh shopping for new furniture that is due to be delivered today. All of this furniture, consisting of a new bed, two bedside cabinets, two chests of drawers and a desk, is flat-packed and designed to be built at home.

So this afternoon will be consumed in a flurry of allen keys, odd-shaped pieces of wood and a mismatching number of nuts and bolts.

Although a certain percentage of the weekend was spent trailing the soul-sapping aisles of Ikea, it was not a complete write-off. I made it to a comfortable Edinburgh hostelry to watch Rangers dominate the final Old Firm match of the season, providing more than a glimmer of hope for the next campaign.

I bolstered my CD collection by a further three albums, and spent a lazy afternoon lying in Princes Street Gardens enjoying the sun.

On a sunny day, Princes Street Gardens is one of my favourite places on the planet. Like Central Park in New York, there is something satisfying about sitting in the peace and quiet in the sunshine, knowing that the city goes about its business just yards away. And even NYC can't boast a view of Edinburgh Castle.