Monday 10 September 2007

Birthdays and Unclehood

Having erroneously declared on this site that I had experienced 25 years this side of my mother’s womb, it was useful that a birthday came by recently to make it true. I’d like to say "thank you" to all those who sent birthday wishes. To those that didn’t – "don’t worry about it" (I’m sure you weren’t). Except, that is, my mother. With her I am slightly displeased.


Having made the trip from Edinburgh to the metropolis of Stewarton for lunch last week on the day before my birthday I had assumed there was some correlation between the lunch and my birthday. This, however, was not the case. Upon presenting my mother with her birthday card two days early (for those of you keeping up my mum’s birthday is the day after mine), I had expected something similar in return…. It was not to be.

Now, I’m aware that some readers may be thinking, "Colin, that’s a bit much to ask for". But we have a long-standing tradition in our family that when celebrating the anniversary of a family member’s birth we present that person with cards that say things like "Happy Birthday". Occasionally, even gifts are presented.
Sadly, I was informed by my mother that she hadn’t got round to getting me a card.
"Quite alright", thought I, "a present will do". In truth I’ve never been that bothered by cards – I’m more of a present sort of a guy.
"I haven’t got you a present either"
"Oh… that’s ok" I lied.

The reason for my mother’s recent decent into senility may be due to the birth of her first grandchild! Reasons for her other bouts of senility are still unclear*.
Thankfully, Mrs Eye and I were not the cause of this crisis but rather the blame lies with my sister and her husband (see blog links).

Other than having been superseded as the youngest in the family (and therefore the recipient of the greatest amount of affection) I’m really very excited about this new addition to the clan. This is the first time my brother and I have had the pleasure of being uncles and so far we’re quite enjoying it. In fact, it has been noted that we seem rather pleased with ourselves. My brother sent me a text on the day of young Ryan’s birth saying "I’m an uncle, therefore you must be one too. Well done us!" There is even photographic evidence:




















This attitude was further reinforced when several days later we were heard complementing each other on the phone for being an uncle. Our sister tried to take some of the glory but we have ignored her and continued to revel in our uncledom.

So my birthday came and went and still there nothing from my mother. Not even a text or phone call on the day. It was, by this time, my mum’s birthday and so I sent a birthday text saying "hope you had a lovely day" etc. I thought this would at least provoke some sort of similar, reciprocated message.
Several minutes later (my mum, being a mother of grown ups, obviously can’t text at a rate faster than a word a minute) a reply came through: "Thanks". That was it. It’s nice to feel loved.

*Please note that actually I do love and respect my Mother.

Thursday 30 August 2007

Times they are a-changin’.

I’m starting a new job soon. For the last two and a half years the second largest banking corporation in the world have been paying me to turn up and sit at my desk for 7 hours a day. Well, they’ve maybe been paying me to do a bit more than that but recently it had become so dull I felt I was just sitting there staring at my screen all day long.

A change was needed.

I could have switched allegiance and joined the largest banking corporation in the world - who pays more. But that’s not the change I was looking for. Instead I’ve decided on a complete career change and joining an organisation of approximately 8 people.

Whilst becoming increasingly disillusioned with my daily activities I was asking myself "what exactly do I want from a job?" It struck me that the ideal situation would be to have a job doing something you love doing and just happen to get paid for it. We all know people out there who love their job, don’t mind doing overtime and actually want to talk about what they do when they’re away from work. I’m not one of those people. In fact, I wonder if I ever will be. This is because of all the things that I love doing I’m not good enough at any of them to turn it into a career. A couple of examples:

I love playing guitar. I play in church quite often and get by ok. It’s one of my favourite daydreams to make a living by being in a rock band. I don’t wish to be hugely famous, just a bit. How great it would be to be performing in front of hundreds (It’s a modest dream) of people and wowing them with my musical abilities! I wouldn’t sell out either and write a commercial album, no, no, I’d be true to the music.

Cooking is another passion of mine. I find it very therapeutic. I’m also of the opinion that most of the time food tastes better if you’ve cooked it yourself. This is certainly the case in my house anyway. This predilection to enjoy my own cooking used to particularly annoy a university flatmate of mine. When I’d cooked a meal for us all I would always be the first to declare how tasty it was. Apparently this had a slight whiff of arrogance about it. Anyway, I’d like to be a Chef. I think it would be extremely satisfying to have people praising the gastronomic delights that I have created. All the more so because I would agree with them.

These things are fun to dream about, but these days I find myself becoming too practical – even in my daydreams! With the rock-star dream, for example, I realise I would have to travel a lot, which on one level would be fun but I’m sure it would get tiring and old very quickly. With both of the above careers I would have to work evenings, this would mean I wouldn’t get to see much of my wife and my sleeping pattern would be disturbed. How annoying that these thoughts are sneaking into my daydreams!! This is the difference between being a teenager and a person in his mid-twenties - Practical daydreaming!

I wonder at what point this starts to happen. When is it that most of us acknowledge we’re not going to be the best in the world at anything? Is it the moment you graduate from University? Is it when you get married? Is it when you get a job and realise that life will always have an element of monotony about it? I suspect it’s different for different people. And even then it comes and goes. Although at times I am resigned to life as it is there are many other times when I dream. I dream small and I dream of great things. I dream of some things never changing and dream of the changes that need to take place. As a Christian I believe that God can work in people’s lives in incredible ways. We can dream all we want, the more the better because God says in his word that He can and will achieve things greater than we can ever imagine.

Monday 20 August 2007

The first post.

Welcome one and all!!

Having just created this blog, it's now quite late so this is going to be a very short first post. Please come back though and read a proper post sometime. Hopefully that shall be later this week.

Thanks for popping by though.