Oh' I should have looked after my teeth"

Reeking Lum-inaries

The Reeking Lum has made it through its first week, hurrah. Surely an achievement to mark with some bunting and a day off, oh...wait a minute, I have every day off.

I love Sundays, no rushing about, nowhere I have to be but, I miss my Mum when I eat French Toast. My Mum passed away about 9 months ago, and of course you miss them all the time, but its away, in a box at the back of the garage of your mind somewhere. But some things bring it right to your front door , where it chaps furiously to get in. The thing for me is French Toast. If making French Toast had been a scientific discipline, then my Mum would have received a Nobel Prize for it.

I used to think life was like a jigsaw puzzle. You gather pieces with the experiences you have, the people you meet and know and eventually it becomes a picture, and that is you. Then you start losing pieces, but even though the bit of the picture is gone, it leaves the space where it once was, the impression is still there, and you never lose that, well, its a comfort for me anyway.

My green eco-credentials received another little boost today with the arrival at the Reeking Lum compound of a compost bin. Of course every action has a reaction, and I expect the arguments to begin about what actually is compost-able. I thought at this rate they will be naming jungles after me in a year so it might be a good opportunity to off-set some of my new greenness against a new car. When it comes to purchases like this, I like to eliminate the most unlikely (desirable) options as soon as possible, so off we troop around some car dealerships. With my new eco-credibility smugly in my pocket, I of course immediately pitched up outside the Range-Rover showroom.

I'm not sure when exactly in the engagement my credibility came crashing down as a potential Range Rover purchaser. I'm too old to be believable as a footballer, and not nearly hard enough looking to pass myself off as the drug king-pin for North Glasgow, so I can only imagine it was when he casually mentioned the £54'000 price tag, and I gave a little nervous chuckle that I hoped came over as "Ha, is that all, I'll have one in cerise, and one in zebra stripes please". We left soon after promising to ring up to arrange a test drive, I don't think he expects to see us again.

You will recall that the inside of my house is encrusted with Artex in a variety of finishes. So much so in fact, that if the National Trust knew about it, the house would be listed as of historical Artexural importance and an exclusion zone established around the bedroooms and stairs. Now, on Sunday morning, that exclusion zone would have been a good thing, because my balding pate did collide, at a kind of oblique, skidding angle with the ceiling at the top of the stairs, which of course has the Artex design I call Jaggy. I think its an interpretation in plaster of broken glass or something. The result was a torrent of first, expletives, then blood out of my, Susan insists on calling it a graze, but its definitely a gash in my head. It looks like I have been unseated from a Ducatti at a 100mph and skidded along on my head across an old blaize football pitch without a helmet on. Never mind the National Trust, if the Health and Safety Executive hear about this the place will be flattened.

To cheer me up we all trooped out for dinner, i wore a hat to hide my horrendous injuries, and while I was waiting to be seated picked up a whats on guide for Glasgow. Just in time too, because next week at the Pavillion Theatre, then the following night at The Kings Theatre, we have some real heavy hitters in town. Showaddywaddy, followed by Pam Ayers, its all you really need of a weekend isn't it.

Lang may yer lum reek