Family Matters

 

This wee man, grandchild number five aka Daniel, turns two years old today. Of the five horrors delightful children he is the only one now who gets slightly upset when I leave for home. The others used to but now merely grunt when I offer my farewells. 

Daniel is presently going through the 'terrible two' phase of his life and is driving his mother even more demented than she usually is. The day after Daniel was born I recall visiting him and his mother tossing her son, barely 24 hours old, to me with the words 'here - take grumpy pus'. He still gets grumpy now, as you may surmise from the photo above, but he does bring a shaft of light in a life full of darkness right now.

Daniel may only be two but has, on several occasions, grabbed hold of his sister's phone, pressed the WhatsApp icon, scrolled down the contacts, spotted my picture and pressed it meaning an instant phone call. While it's usually a delight to hear him babble away it can prove problematic, particularly when I'm working...

When I visited daughter Laura on Sunday the eldest of my grandchildren, Jack aka number one, arrived home from his football match. He scored in a 6-2 win for his youth club. He is a little over six months away from his 16th birthday so if any senior club wishes to offer him the chance to prove what he can do let me know.

He did engage in conversation about how he was doing at high school. He told me he passed his recent English exam with a 90% pass mark and offered the reason he 'only got 90%' was because he wasn't particularly impressed with his teacher. Jack then told me he got a 96% pass mark in mathematics - clearly a skill he hasn't inherited from his old Papa as I was booted out of my maths class at secondary school in Aberdeen in 1976 after recording 96%. Sorry, I stand corrected - it was 9.6%...

I have never understood mathematics - all that letters plus other letters and letters squared equals nonsense - but I'm pleased to say Jack takes to it like a duck to water.  He showed me his notes from school but they might as well have been in Chinese for all I could understand.

I did offer my services if he ever needed any help with his schoolwork but Jack merely smiled politely and offered 'thanks' in a tone that implied 'I hope I'm never that desperate'.

Children - toddlers and adolescents - are far too smart these days...

Away up in Gorgie...

 

Waiting patiently on Gorgie Road awaiting the arrival of grandson Jack off the bus from Dalkeith.

Heading along a thronging Gorgie Road, breathing in the air of expectancy, nodding glances to familiar faces of those bedecked in maroon.

Queuing to get into Tynecastle, squeezing past the yellow vested steward checking someone’s bag.

Offering your smart card season ticket to the turnstile operator who may – or may not – offer a cheery ‘enjoy the game’ Which may – or may not – invoke a retort of ‘You’re kidding aren’t you? It’s Herts we’re seeing. (Memories here of Rab C Nesbitt’s pal Jamsie Cotter’s remark at Italia ’90 World Cup finals – ‘we’re no’ here tae enjoy wursel – we’re here tae see Scotland!)

Climbing up the steel steps to the Wheatfield Stand – I’m sure these are getting steeper every week…

‘Dae ye want a pie, son?’ ‘Aye, okay, a mince one.’

Always needing to ‘pay a visit’ before taking your seat; I’ll not last until half-time and I’m not going then…(it’s an age thing)

Surveying the players warming up on the hallowed Tynecastle turf. Hearing the team news – where’s Naismith, is he injured again?

Seeing the referee and his assistants doing their warm up. Bloody hell, it’s no’ him is it? We’ve got no chance the day.

Hearing the distinctive tones of the maestro that is Scott Wilson over the speaker system.

The teams disappearing up the tunnel then remerging moments before kick-off. 

‘Whoever you’ve come to support, get right behind your team’ bellows the great man.

When Hearts score, hugging people nearby – even though you don’t know their name.

When Hearts win - admittedly, not often last season – applauding the players off the field at the game’s end and joining the queue to shuffle out the stadium to the sound of What a Beautiful Day by The Levellers.

See you next time, then? All is right with the world.

How I miss these days…

Behind the mask - the impact of COVD-19 on mental health

The impact of COVID-19 on the world is incalculable. Hundreds of thousands of deaths, families devastated, and lives changed forever. The pandemic has changed the world for most of us.

Behind the front line of people dying there is another huge concern for all of us. That of mental health.

As a hypnotherapist my profession is to help people change their unwanted habits. For nearly six months people in Scotland, as throughout the rest of the world, have had their habits changed but not through choice. The impact of this is now becoming apparent as lockdown in Scotland begins to ease albeit slowly.

Before lockdown, a trip to the shops was one of life’s mundane tasks but required little thought. If you go to the shops by public transport you are required to wear a face covering and ensure you’re socially distant from fellow passengers. At the shop you need to continue to wear a face covering, in some cases join a queue, and keep at least six feet away from others. You’re wary about touching goods on display. How many other people have touched that tin of corned beef? Have they washed their hands before doing so? You want to check the use-by date but realise you’ll need to handle the tin to do so.

You concentrate on keeping six feet away from others and you try to second guess others’ movements as they come into view with a trolley laden with items. Usually this works but there’s always at least one numpty who leaps out from nowhere blocking your path, or who doesn’t have the patience to wait while you’ve checked the ingredients of a tin of chicken korma and is up your backside with a cursory ‘excuse me’. In your mind you’re thinking ‘keep your distance you moron’ but the word ‘sorry’ comes out of your mouth – quite unnecessarily.

Today Mrs Smith and I were at the Fort Kinnaird shopping complex in Edinburgh. It was the middle of a Sunday morning, so it wasn’t overly busy and most people there were wearing face coverings. But anxiety hung around like an unwanted intruder. We went to a restaurant for brunch and, in fairness, the staff there were doing everything possible to follow the Scottish government’s guidance – only every second table was available for customers, a cleaner was scrupulously cleaning those tables and chairs not occupied and the toilets were plastered with detailed instructions (this cubicle is not in use; use the foot pedal to open this door, don’t push it; NOW WASH YOUR HANDS; and use the hand sanitiser on the way back to your table for extra protection) All very sensible and it’s reassuring to know these measures are in place.

But it doesn’t make for a particularly pleasurable experience. And, if you’ll excuse the pun, there’s the rub.

Mrs Smith loves going to the shops and can spend all day doing so. Not anymore. A visit to the shops and going for a bite to eat now has a layer of uncertainty, a feeling of not being entirely comfortable. It’s fair to say we couldn’t wait until we got back home. We didn’t feel unsafe – but we felt safer inside our house. That’s what nearly six months of lockdown has done to us.

While statistically it’s the elderly who are more at risk from COVID-19 the impact on youngsters is considerable too. Many teenagers are no longer carefree. My own teenage grandson just wasn’t himself when I saw him last weekend. He was quiet and reserved and preferred to sit in his bedroom rather than kicking a ball about in the garden with his admittedly overweight and unfit Papa. He is about to enter fourth year at secondary school, arguably the most important of all the years at school. His schoolwork was badly disrupted due to the pandemic with schools closed and, in Scotland, only due to reopen the week after next. He has missed his pals, the social interaction and even the teachers. No amount of Zoom sessions can replace that.

It’s the same for everyone, of course. But even if a vaccine is found and, a year from now, we’re heading back to the way things used to be, the impact COVID-19 has had on our mental health may be a legacy few of us want.

 

 

 

Boris Heads to Scotland

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Scotland today. I hope he is able to use Google Maps. The reason for his visit? Support for an independent Scotland is growing.

Johnson's buffoonery is in stark contrast to the leadership shown by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis.

The cartoon in today's edition of The Times speaks volumes...

The Eeriness of Rose Street

Edinburgh's Rose Street, just after 11.00am on Sunday. Usually this place would be bustling with shoppers, diners, tourists et al. I am reliably informed there are a couple of bookies there along with the odd pub or two...Instead, it looked an eerie place, symbolic of a lockdown that has now gone on for more than three months.

Tomorrow, in Scotland, roadside shops re-open, subject to appropriate social distancing measures being in place. Indeed, on adjacent Princes Street, many stores had staff working today preparing for re-opening tomorrow and several shops had two metre distancing signs marked on the pavement outside.

Tomorrow will mark another step towards something approaching normality in Scotland. Today, in central Edinburgh at least, it was the calm before the storm.

The Confession

quotoesgram.com 

In 1965, an elderly Italian man who lived on the outskirts of Rimini, Italy, went to the local church for confession. When the priest slid open the panel in the confessional, the man began:

"Father .. During World War II, a beautiful Jewish woman from our neighbourhood knocked urgently on my door and asked me to hide her from the Nazis. So I hid her in my attic."

The priest replied: "That was a wonderful thing you did, and you have no need to confess that."

"But there is more to tell, father... She started to repay me with sexual favours. This happened several times a week, and sometimes twice on Sundays.'

The priest said, "That was a long time ago and by doing what you did, you placed the two of you in great danger, but two people under those circumstances can easily succumb to the weakness of the flesh. However, if you are truly sorry for your actions, you are indeed forgiven."

"Thank you, father. That's a great load off my mind. I do have one more question."

"And what is that?" asked the priest.




















"Should I tell her the war is over......?"

Text Speak

No money was given to Hannah during the taking of this photograph. Well, perhaps just a small sum...

I saw something on t'internet today about an animation course open to children aged 13-18 in Scotland and thought this would be right up grand-daughter Hannah's street. She is fast approaching those dreaded teenage years. I sent her the link and, unusually for the elder two of my grandchildren, she replied within minutes.

'I saw this and thought of you' I said in my message, trying to be a dutiful Papa.

'That's what I'm doing in art rn' Hannah replied.

Art RN? I pondered for some time about what this was. Is this what they call art and design at school these days? Eventually the penny dropped, admittedly from a long height.

RN is text speak for 'right now'.

I have a horrible feeling that, before long, having communication with Jack and Hannah may need the help of an interpreter.