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.

Comments

A blog a day #13 - office day

Monday morning and back to the office today. Half of me hates getting up so early on a Monday but the other half of me quite likes getting out the house and into the city. I also like seeing colleagues and there's usually a few in on a Monday so the chat is good. Got through some editing and posting, joined a couple of meetings, learned more about our soon-to-join Foundation Apprentice and picked up some more books on my lunch break! Drove to work also today. £8.50 for a peak time return on the train is just outrageous in my opinion. I can park for £6 all day in the city centre. That said, driving is fairly tedious and the standard of some folks on the road is appalling. Not sure if a lot of people have watched so much American TV, they now think we drive on the right hand side in this country. And just the lack of basic manners and behaviour is sad. After that, a basic night in front of the telly with some Still Game (again lol) and a good few pages of Stanley Tucci's book ...

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...

A new Scottish football league system (how I'd do it!)

With the current chat about how to reform the league setup in Scotland and the SPFL's desire to switch back to a 10-team league (terrible idea!) I've thought about how I'd do it. Unsurprisingly, I've went the other way and would expand the divisions. I don't agree with the belief this would create 'meaningless' games. Every game has some meaning to the teams involved and to the fans. For those teams trying to stay up, just securing top flight existence is a big enough deal for them, while others will chase the European places. I suggest two professional divisions of 18 teams with 34 games in a regular season. For the majority this means a cut of four games from the present 38. These four free slots can be used to offer additional break time in mid-December to mid-January. Give the players a break or let the teams book winter camps. Teams in Scotland already have three domestic competitions, which is baffling as well as the Challenge Cup and Europe for Range...

Ever Learning Dad

Search This Blog