A Roller Coaster Few Days

It has been a roller coaster last few days.

Election
Starting with the election special night held at the Cookie restaurant. It was good to meet up with some old comrades and make some new friends too. Off course the wine was flowing freely as we chatted with Gerry Hassan about the election, participated in the quiz and watched as the results came in, indicating that Labour in Scotland had done well, reclaiming the two seats which they had lost at by-elections and increasing their majority at almost all of the others. However the situation south of the Border was somewhat different as the Tory ranks increased but not enough to give them a majority. The Nats and the Lib Dems didn’t make the breakthrough that they had predicted either, the BNP and UKIP were sent packing and the Greens won their first seat. Days of negotiations will take place before a Government of some form is put in place, perhaps the last one under the ‘first past the post’ system. Whilst this has been going on, Greece has been pulling itself apart, as the masses have been saddled with the debt burden which clearly was not of their making.



parkrun

On Saturday, I decided to jog round the Glasgow parkrun and see how the ankle reacted. I started very slowly and with no major pain, decided to increase my pace a little as I made my way around the hilly, two lap 5k course. I was pleasantly surprised to finish under 24 minutes (23:56).


Free Tickets
The afternoon saw me head down to the Theatre of Pies – Rugby Park to watch my first live Kilmarnock game in years. Someone gave me a complimentary ticket but it was for a child, so I passed it on to a guy in the queue with his son. It was good to see a few old friends and a few familiar faces. It was also good to watch the young supporters so emotionally charged, of course I’ve been there but that was a long, long time ago. It was great to see the vast majority of the 10,662 crowd singing Paper Roses, so many years after I had introduced it at Killie game. The atmosphere was superb, the weather was great but unfortunately the game illustrated why both teams found themselves in a relegation dog fight. When the referee finally blew his whistle, after an additional five minutes of play, the score was 0-0 which meant that Falkirk would be relegated and Killie would stay up for the 18th year in a row.  Killie fans expressed their emotions by running onto the pitch to celebrate! I’ve never been on the hallowed turf but I did participate in an on pitch celebration when Kilmarnock beat Dumbarton many years ago to clinch promotion. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass and I ignored the steward as I leapt the fence onto the pitch and joined the celebrations. When I finally got back to my car, I noticed that I had been given another free ticket, this one by the Strathclyde Constabulary for parking!


Alabama 3
In the evening I met up with mi amigo Mike from Edinburgh and some others to take in the Alabama 3 gig. Unfortunately he was both inebriated and incoherent and I left early and went to Sammy Dow’s instead, so the night was far from wasted.

Women's 10k

On Sunday I jumped on the bike and cycled along to the edge of Pollok Park where I could support and photograph , sadly with my old camera, many of the almost 13,000 women around the 4k and 8k markers along the route of the Ignis Asset Management Women's 10k Road Race. A great event which encourages so many women of various ages and shapes and sizes to run or walk 6.2 miles through Glasgow's southside.

I couldn't resist running myself and headed out for my first training run in months, a short, tentative two miles, before having an alcohol free evening watching the conclusion of the English and Scottish Premier Leagues unfolding.