Shauna Reid

12/Jun/2013

We’re back to default grey and miserable today, so I’m not jinxing anything by mentioning out loud: the last two weeks were… sunny.

It started with the Edinburgh Marathon Festival weekend. I’d warned my visiting Up & Running pals to expect hypothermia, windburn and/or bad hair for the race, but the blue skies made a fool of me.

Victoria Street, Edinburgh

While I was on cheer squad duty, Gareth lounged in the back yard for six hours listening to the England v New Zealand cricket test. It was cool and windy, so he had a hoodie on his top half, but he’d unarchived his shorts and sandals for the bottom half. This was the result:

g-feet

“So I guess my theory that wind blows away UV rays is unfounded,” he said, “Besides, it’s your fault for leaving me at home unsupervised!”.

London

A sunny midweek followed, then I went to London to visit my sister and go to the Cybher blog conference. It’s in its second year and there were some great sessions, but the absolute highlight was randomly meeting three brilliant ladies: hilarious Caitlin from How To Play House, knitting maven Helen from Curious Handmade and photographer Kirsty Barton. I want to frame Kirsty’s business card… check out the eyes on the wee dog!

Business cards from Cybher

The next day I finally met the magnificent Sas in person for breakfast and yammering on. She is the bees’ knees and I grinned like a goof all day. #gingerpower

sas

(Photo nicked from Sas.)

Back to Scotland for another sunny mid-week, including an impromptu drive to Anstruther…

Anstruther fish and chips

… then on Friday night we spent an hour cleaning the BBQ (untouched since the “heatwave” of 2010), an hour waiting for it to heat up, then twenty minutes incinerating our dinner.

Summer BBQ

Finally on Saturday Gareth and I worked at the Farmers’ Market. He’s been helping out a local brewery lately, so we manned the stall while the brewer was on holiday.

Are you the farmer?

We made a pretty good team. He handled the beer chat and tastings while I handled the dosh and made sure the beer labels were perfectly aligned on the shelves. I recommended beers to unsuspecting locals as if I actually drank the stuff. We only had one moment of deranged, panicky flapping when we had a sudden run on gift packs and neither of us could work out how to fold up the boxes. We ended up selling all but four bottles! Score.

You may be scratching your head at this indulgent photo fest, but you must understand the rarity of two consecutive non-grey weeks. Now the clouds are back and I’ve got nowt but freckles and memories…

Date 12/Jun/2013
Category Living In Scotland Travel
Comments 13 Comments

Authors on authoring: Jen Larsen

07/Jun/2013

Do you remember about two and a half years ago I started Authors on Authoring, a “series” talking to authors talk about the minutiae of their writing lives? The rituals, the quirks; the paralysing self-doubt? Well, in timely fashion, I now bring you the second instalment!

Jen Larsen - Stranger Here cover Today’s kind volunteer is Jen Larsen from Ogden, Utah. Her new memoir Stranger Here (How weight-loss surgery transformed my body and messed with my head) is, “the brutally honest, surprisingly hilarious story of her journey from one extreme of the weight spectrum to the other, and of the unexpected emotional chaos it created”.

After stalking Jen’s brilliant prose around the internet for over a decade, it was a joy to hold her book in my mitts. It is a cracking, compelling read.

Now let’s delve into her brain…

1. As well as authoring you have a full time job. How does busy-ness affect your writing? Does the variation in your days keeps you inspired or do you fantasize about writing full time with a butler?

Even if I weren’t a writer I am pretty sure I would need a robot monkey butler just to have. Because robot monkey butler.

Lots of writers believe writing all day For the Man means you are selling out and also draining dry your secret underground creative lake in your imagination grotto. But I love the fact – and feel pretty lucky – that I am supporting myself with a day job as a copywriter. I think it actually helps me be a better fiction writer, because I’m not content to churn out crap content at work. I want to write stuff that’s as engaging as possible within the parameters I’m given, and so I have a lot of fun doing that. Of course and obviously if someone offered me a million dollars I’d immediately be living in a garret somewhere and writing only my own stuff.

But seriously. Robot monkey butler.

Date 07/Jun/2013
Category Authors on Authoring Read and Write
Comments 5 Comments

Up & Running Summer winners

06/Jun/2013

Anyone else busting for a holiday after all those Up & Running giveaway comments? Here are the lucky winners are declared by the Random Number Generator:

Georgia‘s round-the-world romp would include Spain, Germany, Holland, France, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, Vanuatu, and New York.
Sarah‘s tour would start in Denmark so she and her similarly Lego obsessed child can get their fix.
Emmaline would do “an international (mostly European) tour de la famille”.
Nicole is going country downhill skiing with friends and family in British Columbia with and evenings in a cosy lodge with Jamie Oliver as her personal chef and cooking teacher.
Beth would head home to Australia and do all the wonderful Aussie things she’s never done – Uluru, Broome, Margaret River…

Thanks everyone who entered and congratulations to the winners – I’ve emailed you with the details. Please get in touch ASAP to claim your prize!

Missed out this time round? There’s still time to join in – the courses start next week! Come along and join the club, it’s a hoot, I promise! For both the running and Sara’s brilliant emoticons!

Win a spot on the June Up & Running 5k or 10k course

31/May/2013

Comrades! It’s that time again when I clumsily pimp my wares and see if I can tempt you to try out what one of our members has wonderfully dubbed, an “international running club”, better known as Up & Running.

Would you like to have a summer of run? Or a winter, if you’re on the lower half of the globe? Our awesome next 5K Course starts on Monday 10 June and the 10K Course starts on Thursday 13 June, and each run for eight weeks.

So… fancy joining us? Here’s what you get:

eight weeks of training plans
inspiring and motivating daily blog posts
unlimited support from Coach Julia Jones for all your running questions
access to our private community forum
a glorious feeling of wellbeing come August, when you cross the finish line at your 5K or 10K race!

I’m giving away five free places, with the winner choosing the course they’d like to do. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post and tell me, If money was no object, what would be your dream summer holiday?

Entries close 11PM GMT on Tuesday 5 June.
There will be five winners and they have their choice of 5K or 10K course
The winner can gift the prize to a friend, so you can enter if you choose not to run but want to surprise a friend.
Winners will be randomly selected.
Winners can be from anywhere in the world. Remember the Courses are for women only.
Winner will be announced on Wednesday 6 Jube. Woohoo!

Date 31/May/2013
Category Up & Running
Comments 64 Comments

The Adventures of Bird Crap Girl

30/May/2013

“Hey. HEY! I THINK A BIRD SHAT ON YOU!”

I received this news in the science lab, during the first term of my first year of high school. I’d come from a tiny country primary school with just five people in my grade. Now I was in the scary high school with all the kids from the big primary schools who already knew each other and had trendy sneakers and snogging experience.

I just wanted to blend in. To slink into class, hide up the back and never be noticed. But it was hard, with the ginger hair and the tubbiness and the wrong skirt. The Mothership was a busy working woman and had ran out of time to sew the prescribed knee-length straight navy skirt before term began, so I’d had to wear an old one of hers. It was the required navy, but it was A-line, mid-calf with an elastic waist. I looked sort of Amish.

And now to take the wrongness up a level, apparently a bird had crapped on me.

I thought I’d felt a sudden plop on my back as we waited outside lab for the teacher to arrive, but I’d figured it was a leaky ceiling, or a big gob of spit expelled from the balcony. But no, it was BIRD SHIT, as the girl sitting behind me kept saying in a really loud stage whisper.

“It’s right down the back of your shirt,” she went on gleefully, “It’s greeny brown and gross and HUGE!”

Well of course it bloody was; we were in Australia after all. No beast in our skies would have a delicate output.

Possible culprit

I ran though the response options:

a) Ask the teacher for a toilet pass so I could go wash the shirt under a tap.
But that meant walking past five rows of desks and letting everyone have a good gawk at me.

b) Nod and smile like I already knew about it and was totally cool with the adornment.
But it was an hour-long period. I pictured the stain drying and festering in the February heat.

What to do, what to do!? Just a month into high schoool and I was going to get branded Bird Crap Girl before I had a chance to win them over with personality. Life is so mortifying when you’re twelve. I prayed for someone to set someone else on fire with a Bunsen burner to create a diversion.

In the end I went with option c) Shrug helplessly as my face turned red, so red it blended seamlessly with my hair and eyebrows like a great red orb of shame!

I can’t remember if it was the teacher or another student who came over and said, for all the class to hear, “Apparently it’s good luck if a bird craps on you!”.

The jig was up, so I got my pass and slunk off to the loos in my wrong skirt and shitty shirt.

Why am I telling you this? It popped into my head because Monday was the 13th birthday of this blog, and I was wondering if I’d ever showed up anywhere else for thirteen years in a row. School was the only other thing I could think of, and school is often a montage of shame and incompetence isn’t it?

I remember someone wrote a post in the early noughties about how blogging was like high school. Yes, I guess it can be cliquey and competitive. And when I write a post I still feel like the self-conscious, tubby ginger never wearing the right thing. But at least there’s no exams and no uniform to worry about it. And if there’s bird crap on my back, you guys would never know! In the game of School versus Blogging, it’s blogging FTW!

Thank you anyone out there reading this thing. You rawk!

Date 30/May/2013
Category Living In Australia
Comments 28 Comments

Tasty snippets from Italy

15/May/2013

When Julia picked me up at Bologna airport she asked, “Do you want to get straight to work, or would you like a surprise?”

Umm…

We hit the autostrade and she whisked us away for… an afternoon in Venice. Venice! I know it’s been ten years and I should be over the novelty of countries with famous places crammed close together, but when you grow up with endless boring roads of dirt dirt dirt sheep dirt dirt dirt small town kangaroo dirt dirt it’s endlessly exciting to just zap into an iconic place for a wander. Even if your damn TOES get sunburned to little pink stumps, despite being marinated in SPF 50!

After that unexpected adventure my nerves were gone and POW, I was fired up for the Up & Running retreat to begin.

Bologna is a brilliant wee city. I love the porticos and the tortellini and how it’s Italian as f*ck, but not stuffed with must-see sites. So you’re free to roam around, oggling the food and medieval buildings, without that nagging sense you should be doing something worthy.

Here’s just a few of my highlights from an unforgettable retreat weekend…

- Drooling over the beautiful fruit for sale.

Veggies for sale

- Tessa at the bootcamp, wearing her brilliant Trust Julia – She Promised I Wouldn’t Die t-shirt. She designed it during her Summer 5K Course in 2011. The Bootcamp was fantastic. I picked up some great tips from the Coach, even as a bumbling walker!

Tessa and her famous "Trust Julia - She Promised Me I Wouldn't Die" Tshirt.

- Just flopping around at the B&B with the retreaters, chatting or dozing or munching on delicious fresh strawberries. I think I cried half a dozen bloody times over the weekend, from conversations deep, intense, heartfelt and/or silly. There’s something so incredible about getting a group of women together like that… I can’t find big enough words to capture it. I feel totally homesick for that feeling of chilled-out connectedness.

- I especially loved listening to Julia talk the retreaters through a video analysis of their running. It was so inspiring to hear how much our veterans has progressed since last year.

Sara & Julia

- Watching the pink balloons drift over Piazza Maggiore just before the Running Festival race began.

Pink balloons at the start of the Running Festival

- Thunderstorms were predicted for the race, but didn’t arrive until an hour after it finished. Even thunder doesn’t want to mess with Julia! She fashioned herself this emergency cardboard-box-and-plastic umbrella for her dash from the race to the B&B. Resourceful woman!

Julia's improvised brolly

- After all the tearful goodbyes on Monday morning, we headed back to Casa Julia in Modena… with a pitstop for delicious tigelle. Oh man, I could seriously get addicted to these little fellas.

Tigelle

- Souvenir shopping for Gareth – tortellini, Italian craft beer, balsamic vinegar and honkin’ huge wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano. Hubba hubba!

- Finally we picked up Julia’s son from school and she asked us, “Do you want to go for ice cream?”. I totally out-cheered Evan on that one.

So, one last gelato (with a flop of whipped cream and a drizzle of warm Nutella on top, whoa) then back to Scotland, already dreaming about Bologna 2014.

Final gelato

Huge thanks to Minna Artimo for use of her fruit and Sara/Julia pics!

Date 15/May/2013
Category Travel Up & Running
Comments 4 Comments

Walking in Bologna – 2013

13/May/2013

I’m just back from the Up & Running retreat in Bologna. Good times, great gelato! One of the highlights was the Julia Jones Running Festival 6K race on the last day…

I confess I’d been too obsessed with the chatting, the goodie bags and the pre-race banana supply for our runners to really think about the race part of our retreat weekend. This was great, as I had no nerves or expectations at when we arrived at Piazza Maggiore. I was just thinking about what flavour of gelato to choose afterwards!

Team Up & Running! Photo courtesy of Clare S.

It was very crowded at the start – heaps more walkers this year, including many stylish Italian dogs and grannies. We could only manage a saunter for the first couple of kilometres.

Love the bandana dog and the couple walking hand in hand!

Love the bandana dog and the matching couple hand in hand!

Initially I felt really stiff and clunky. I’d slackened off with my training in the second half of my Spring 5K course re-do. Also, I’d abandoned my ageing trainers in Sydney to save room in my suitcase but not got round to buying newies, so I was in my gardening shoes (Scottish mud still attached). I felt a bit panicky that I was holding back Clare and Honor, my excellent walking buddies.

Bologna is such a beautiful city. Incredible cheese and tortellini lurk down these streets!

But then around 2.5 km we smelled cigarette smoke. A streetside cafe? A bustling bar? No, it was the three ladies walking in front of us in their Running Festival t-shirts!

Puff puff puff

Is this where you want to be? I thought, Back with the grannies, dugs and chain smokers?

I pondered that awhile as we plodded on.

Around 3km Honor said, “I think we could overtake that lady with the big handbag… what do you think?”

So we overtook the bag lady. Then we overtook the Lady with Two Bum Bags. Then we quietly and methodically picked off a bunch more ladies we gave snarky nicknames to.

By then we had a really nice rhythm going. The killers within had awakened!

I could see on Runkeeper our pace was quite fast for a walk. I felt emotional that Clare and Honor were with me – they’ve long inspired me and I wanted to put in my best contribution to our wee team. It was time to set aside the angsty mind chatter and go for it.

As we neared Parco Montagnola our pace was on fire and I calculated if we really motored, we could sneak under an hour for the 6km. We really powered up the hill back into the park. I was gasping like a gaspy thing, eeking out every last bit of energy. I thought I was going to cark it. It made me realise how much I doddle along without pushing myself when I’m on my own!

Then I suggested we run the last wee bit to make sure we sneaked under 60 minutes. It was hilarious seeing Julia’s face at the finish line as we ran towards her. And we did it! 6.02km in 59:06! We made it under the hour, at an average pace of 09:46 min/km, which is faster than our 2012 pace. I was chuffed considering how slow the first couple of kays were.

Now all you proper runner types out there, please don’t laugh. This is progress for me! There’d been so many ups and downs since Bologna 2012 that it didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere, so it was such a brilliant surprise to see improvement twelve months on.

Onward…

Still dreaming of this post-race gelato

Date 13/May/2013
Category Travel Up & Running
Comments 10 Comments

Curse of the Phoenix

07/May/2013

Day 49

I’d really meant to write those words! But first…

… I had to catch the bus to Edinburgh. Rhiannon and I were the only ones on board without silver hair. But we’ve always thought like silver-haired people: get to town early and beat the crowds.

… then we needed breakfast. We went to our old neighbourhood from the backpacking days. The deli where we’d discovered Cream O Galloway ice cream had turned into a Sainsburys. The Wok 2000 takeaway was gone, which is a shame because instead of sounding outdated as it had in 2003, it’d be retrotastic now.

There were swanky new cafés. We chose one with muted colours, rustic tables, rich coffee and hip artwork. But the whole effect was wrecked by the menu board. It was grey and Vistaprinty with a rubbish sans-serif font. It did not belong with artisan coffee and sourdough toast. It would be better suited to a more mayonnaisey establishment. After all that effort with the decor, the menu board seemed vommed up at the last minute. Who let that happen?! It totally put me arf my eggs.

“You know,” my sister interrupted my thoughts, “That font is ruining the whole thing.”

“YES!”

United by font disappointment, we marched on.

The sky was clear but it was cold, with gale-force winds. I’d come out without a jacket in a moment of recklessness and had persuaded Rhi to do the same. After a couple of weeks in Australia, you forget that blue sky doesn’t necessarily mean pleasantness, but the whiplash from you scarf soon reminds you.

… then we had to buy some cheese. I was too intimidated to go inside the cheese shop when I found it ten years earlier, but now I was inspired by the shirtless young man. He was sitting out on the window ledge of his first floor flat, strumming a guitar and gazing soulfully up at the sky as though he was somewhere hip and gritty, like a New York summer. The effect wasn’t quite as cool as he was above a granny-filled tea shop, but he reminded me that you need to take risks, even if you might look like a bit of a knob.

“Do you know what you want?” the cheese man asked witheringly, as we froze before the various wheels and wedges.

Hey! I wanted to say, Don’t look at us like that. I wrote a crappy article for our work magazine about French cheese so I recognise at least two of these things. But I just said, “Nothing too stinky?”.

… then we had to go home and eat the cheese, while catching up on three episodes of Paul Hollywood’s Bread. He’s quite mesmerising with those big forearms and twinkly blue eyes and won’t-suffer-fools manner. And when he kneads that dough he really gets his back into it doesn’t he? Crikey.

… then we had to go for a walk.

… then we had to Skype chat with the Mothership.

“Hi!” she said. “But your generation doesn’t say hi, do they? It’s yo. I read it in the paper. So… yo!”

… then BBC Four had three random music documentaries back to back: Bananarama, The Smiths and REM. I can’t resist random music documentaries. Whatever the genre, you always come away with a new appreciation of the artist. Turns out there was a Bananarama Greatest Hits-shaped hole in my life.

… then suddenly it was 2AM. It was only as I headed up to bed I remembered that I’d forgotten to write the morning pages.

My 750words streak! I broke it again!

On Day 49, AGAIN!

That bloody Phoenix Badge is further away than ever.

Update: I’ve now got it back up to 14 days but I still feel like this inside:

Phoenix rage

Date 07/May/2013
Category Read and Write Sister Acts
Comments 12 Comments

If anyone has lost a duck

12/Apr/2013

Mothershipism of the Day: “I really need to read that book, Let’s Talk About Lionel.”

I’ve just returned from a brief trip to Australia and I’m nutty with jetlag, so this is your Warning: Excess Emotion Ahead!

Because of the time constraints this visit was about small country towns and family. I have a bad habit of “freezing” everyone in their 2003 state, but things have changed. There were just a few wrinkles when we left, but now with illnesses and all the things that come with getting older, there was an urgent need to get my butt over there.

It was strange being back without Gareth exclaiming over the wildlife and making terrible attempts at an Aussie accent. I couldn’t hide behind him as the rellies cooed over his Scottish tones. But I reckon this ended up being for the best. That physical and mental distance from your everyday life helps you appreciate it so vividly. I love a bit of long distance longing.

Random thoughts…

The Mothership still drives like a maniac. I’d forgotten about her rally driver U-turns and the comedy sound effects she makes when executing them.

The Big Merino with winter scarf, Goulburn. How can a sky be that blue!?

It’s startling to see the difference four years can make with your loved ones. One was saying how much they love the Queen Mum. Realising they thought she was still alive and kicking was quite a jolt.
The first few days I felt like a hapless foreigner. None of the money made sense; the slippery notes and hefty 50 cent pieces. A shopkeeper asked if I had change and I stared at the shapes in my wallet and said “no”. Took a day to to remember that chubby little fella is $2!

I hope the duck was claimed

The Australian sun is pure evil. I was coated in sunscreen but somehow my face got baked on a twenty minute car journey. My feet had sandal stripes. I’ve always burned easily but my skin has become a total and utter wussbag after a decade in Britain.
Aussie mozzies now leave giant red lumps on my skin, like the Scottish midges do. Double wussbag!

Counter lunch at the pub. The rissoles were ace!

Despite the climate wanting me dead, after 48 hours it felt like home again and I wondered why the hell I’d ever live anywhere else.
Especially now that I drink coffee. Oh lordy!

Australia! Your cake and coffee cannae be beaten!

Looking at the whopping Queensland Blues lounging in Mum’s sun-riddled garden, I realised I’m never ever going to grow a decent pumpkin in Scotland.

Tasty Queensland Blue

Mum’s husband Ray (a.k.a. Jeffery Garten) is the bee’s knees. I heard him refer to himself as our stepfather while chatting to my grandmother. I grinned like a dope realising, So he is! I’m so chuffed that Mum has someone who loves her for who she really is.
He also arranges the goods very neatly when he BBQs, which I greatly admire.

Ray’s tidy BBQ. So nice to sit outside to eat!

My grandmother gave me her engagement ring. She ordered me to, “enjoy it while [she's] still alive”. I really wanted to say, Dude, you are 77 and far too young for that kind of talk. But instead we had a very teary hug and I told her how cool it was to have this little object to forever remind me of her and Poppy and how much they loved each other.

We found this pic of my grandfather. What a dude.

I don’t ever want to wait so long to visit Oz again. The trip was far too short and I desperately want to get back soon with extra time for friends. Australia is like a big sun-drenched magnet, deliciously dragging me towards it. A big sun-drenched magnet that’s determined to prematurely age the complexion, but I love it all the same.

Date 12/Apr/2013
Category Living In Australia The Mothership Travel
Comments 36 Comments

Spuggies, skelfs and skives: 10 years in Scotland

28/Mar/2013

Ten years ago today my sister and and I arrived in Edinburgh. My first week was spent whinging about the £1 = $2.60 exchange rate*, drooling over men in kilts on Princes Street (sadly not a regular occurrence; just rugby fans), grumbling about the snoring dude in the youth hostel, searching for work and accommodation, swooning at the sun setting over the Castle, and generally believing I could control the shape of my two-year stay through meticulous planning and to do lists.

I’d hoped to write some profound reflections on this unexpectedly long Scotland stay but looking back through my 2003 mega Book of Lists I found the long-running one below, where I noted new-to-me words. There are so many things I love about this country, but the juicy words it’s added to my vocab may be the most golden prize of all.

Try them on your friends today

Disclaimer for the pedantic: These words may not all be of Scottish origin, I just first heard them whilst living here.

All the definitions in quotes are courtesy of the Scottish Vernacular Dictionary.

numpty – “a useless individual”
bawbag - “a useless individual”.. Or a scrotum, obviously. Or an affectionate greeting in our household, “Awright bawbag!”
dug – a dog
dobber – “A tube, a bampot” which are also terms meaning ”a useless individual”… are you sensing a theme?
pish – it’s a verb and noun for urine/ation but it’s most useful as a descriptive term for something that is rubbish, boggin’, pants, terrible. I dunno how I survived so long without being able to say, “You are talking pure PISH”.
fanny – lady parts but mostly usually “A stupid or clumsy person”.
coupon – pronounced “coo’pn”. It’s your face. I most frequently hear it as, “You’ve got a bit of tomato ketchup on your coupon”.
shoogle – to shake. Gareth says this when cooking dinner, “I’m just going to give the oven chips a shoogle”.
skelf – a splinter. One of my favourites! I was confused the first time I heard Gareth say, “I’ve got a wee skelf and it’s driving me daft!”.
jobby – a turd! I actually loathe this word. It is almost onomatopoeic and makes me want to run from the room. See also the loathsome phrase, “turtle’s heid”.
baffies – slippers. It just sounds comfortable!
skive – to slack off from work; or bludge as the Australian goes. “I skived off school today”.
clarty – dirty, unkempt. Correct spelling “clatty” according to the dictionary. Gareth often says this to me, “What’ve you spilled on your shirt now, you clarty bastard!”
stooky – correct spelling: “stookie”. Plaster cast for a broken limb. Isn’t that a brilliant word? Sign mah stookie!
belter – “Something that is very good – ‘that’s a pure fuckin belter by the way’”
pan – verb – to break
windaes – windows. There was a local band that had a song called “Yer Windaes Are Panned” which is just bloody brilliant.
boak – to vomit. “The thought of breakfast with this hangover is giving me the boak”. Endlessly useful word.
spuggie – a sparrow! another all-time favourite. Such an energetic wee word for an energetic wee bird.

I wish I’d kept this list going over the years, there’d be SO many more since then!

* today the exchange rate is £1 = $1.45 AUD. Reverse pain.

Date 28/Mar/2013
Category Globetrotting Living In Scotland
Comments 36 Comments

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