Date Archives: Thursday November 30th 2006

Before we left for the trip back home on Monday, we visited my mum in Rowatt’s – the furniture shop she works in. This is a regular thing, actually – we’ve picked up all sorts of odds and ends from the shop before we’ve headed back in the past, from bedside tables, to a mattress for the spare room.

On this occasion we each took a new pillow, with Fliss opting for a fancy memory foam one, and me taking an orthopaedic style to see if it would help me sleep and breathe at the same time.

Soon after we’d got home that night we introduced the new pillows to our bed and I was quite looking forward to mine bringing instant teleportation to the Land of Nod.

Instead it brought neck ache, and lots of it. I woke up feeling like I’d rolled over a couple of times and left my head behind. Figuring that this was due to me not being used to such a cutting edge pillow, I hoped that the following nights would bring some improvement.

So far that’s not the case. My neck still aches and I’m just not sleeping well at all. Part of that was due to Elisha screaming her head off in the middle of the night for no apparent reason last night, I’ll concede, but the new techno pillow isn’t exactly helping, either.

Maybe it’s all the years of sleeping in a non–ideal position that are now being undone by the techno pillow?

Or perhaps the new pillow is, in fact, crap, and I’ve thrown away the best part of thirty quid on a torture device, while Fliss is snoozing it up on her utopian memory foam pillow.

This is just like when we get take away food delivered, you know. I take time and care over ordering something I’ll like, and when it arrives the meal that Fliss ordered is always much better than mine.

Still, I’m going to give it another few days before I give up on it. Probably until I’m hallucinating with tiredness, but before I have a permanent crick in my neck.

Last week I drove up to Millport in some of the worst weather I’ve ever experienced as a driver. The Jazz isn’t the most planted of cars when it gets windy, so if you throw in lashing rain and gale force winds it can be downright scarey at motorway speeds.

By the time I arrived at Largs and waited for the ferry across to Millport I’d had just about enough of it. Fortunately the ferry trip was reasonably swift and uneventful, given the conditions, although the last leg round the coast of the island to Ted’s new flat had me feeling a bit exposed to the elements.

Speaking of Ted’s new joint; it’s very nice indeed – if I was him I’d stick it out in the cozy new flat until spring time, rather than making his annual trek to Malta for only marginally better weather.

The next day the stormy weather had blown itself out, leaving it clear and dry with a crisp chill in the air. Perfect weather for a fresh walk, actually, so we made our way along the esplanade before meeting up with Ted when he’d finished work, then walked back to the flat for lunch. The weather was beginning to turn again by the time we got indoors, and it was back to wind and rain by the time we were on the road to Aunty Mary’s place later on that afternoon.

The short stop in Uplawmoor was time well spent. Elisha had good fun climbing the stairs, and Auntie Mary hade made us some tasty merengue’s, before treating us to dinner in the Uplawmoor Hotel across the road. The food there was great – I had some bream, while Fliss and Aunty Mary had chicken and seafood salad respectively. Elisha had her first taste of prawns, courtesy of her great aunty Mary, and even enjoyed a slice of lemon that she gave her.

We had to head off after the meal, as it was getting on and we were staying with Ian, Hazel and baby Abigail for the weekend, so we didn’t want to be back too late.