A blog a day #4 - a touch of wind

A bit of a late morning getting ourselves up and out. Partly my fault I guess and annoyed as I wanted to do a wee trip to the Kelvingrove Art Galleries but if I don’t get us out before midday I can’t face driving in to the city.

So we went to Whitelee Windfarm instead, which provided both a strong breath of fresh air, some exercise and a chance to get the kids off their screens for more than 10 minutes. It was blustery, the kids refused my instructions to wrap up and subsequently looked frozen but my attitude is to let them learn the hard way if they don’t want to take advice. The attitude infuriates me and I have to bite my tongue. I do wonder what the balance is between just being a parent who dictates and being a parent who encourages learning. I’m sure there is a balance and I’m just not getting it.

I had a few great non alcoholic beers into the evening. The quality of AF beers has come so far in the past couple of years. I had the Joker and Caesar Augustus AF beers by Williams Bros and the latter was probably the best I’ve had so far. Also had a couple of Guinness’ as well. All the pleasure of a nice cold beer without the dull head in the morning. No better for my belly mind you so I can’t just use the AF part to justify a bad habit.

As a family I was quite happy that we managed to get the kids to sit and watch the first part of the 2024 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture. It was all about how the body deals with food intake. The lecture struck the right balance of speaking to children while also being scientific and engaging for adults. It really feels like a format of learning kids should be getting in school. I don’t have much faith in Scotland’s ‘curriculum for excellence’ to be honest.

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Over Time

A new song (which I'm still kinda polishing) but I recorded it on video during some free time today. I'll hopefully get it tracked out soon with drums and everything else soon. Continuing the theme I had going with my other one, I think this is about those times when you feel like there's no point, you're maybe suffocating a bit, and annoyingly self-aware that it's probably your own fault! Again however, I like to have a wee melancholic upside in there and that is the fact that time, reflection and crucially your loved ones are there to pull you out the hole even if you don't see it for a little while.

The haunted hub and a confused nation

Sunshine over East Kilbride! Hurrah for summer! So what if it's still barely double-digits in temperature. The lack of sideways rain, sleet or howling wind goes down as a win in my book. I'm sure it won't last. 👀 So it was a very pleasant walk to the library on my lunch break to return some books (I came back with the latest Alex Cross novel from James Patterson and a book on how to start running - hah!). I was however, a bit sad to see the state of East Kilbride's supposed 'The Hub'. With Costa Coffee having packed up, it leaves the place feeling a tad desolate what with the other empty units giving some serious ghost town vibes. Not even the cheekiest of Nando's, which is still running off some lingering hype, could inject some life into the place. Not so much a 'hub' as a 'haunt'. 🥁 Confused priorities On the news, two stories caught my eye at either end of my working day. The first, from Florida, on how a head teacher at a school was p...

SHAME

What a terrible past couple of days for the Scottish justice system. Judge Lord Lake decided to spare a 21 year old rapist a jail sentence because he got a bit weepy in the dock. And apparently given he was 17 at the time, it should be more about 'rehabilitating the offender' rather than showing them proper punishment. This boy, Sean Hogg, physically restrained a 13 year old girl and subjected her to the worst sexual assault and rape, and HE's the one getting weepy! So, in Scotland you can get married, join the army, drive a car and vote on the future of the nation but you can't do time for raping a young girl. Un-f'n-believable. I honestly don't care whether it's an SNP thing, a whole parliament thing, an independent body thing or a combination of all of those. All I know is a girl is scarred for life and has been completely failed by justice. I genuinely don't know how that judge will be able to sleep at night. But I'm sure he will quite happily, ...

Ever Learning Dad

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