Well, that was one weekend that I'm VERY glad is over.

On Saturday I awoke faily early, expecting my parents to actually deliver on thier oft-used phrase "we'll have to leave by 9". This has never been the case in any other instances in which the phrase has been used and I've no idea why I actually chose to believe it this time. The truth is that my parents have a terminal allergy to doing ANYTHING within a set time frame, causing them to be completely late for absolutly everything in thier lives, regardless of its importance.

Once actually IN Aberdeen (at around 1 in the afternoon), we bagan the long, painful and psychologically scarring process of clothes shopping with my parents. I hate clothes, ergo I hate clothes shopping; therefore my parents seek to drag the whole affair out for as long as is humanly possible (we're talking several hours here) whilst continually grabbing things off racks that THEY would like me to wear, seemingly oblivios to the fact that: 1. I am an independant entity that is capable of making his own decisisons outwith the bracket of their continual stuggle for familial power; 2. The item of clothing they are holding in thier hands is just one of many laboured over by some poor sod in Kuala Lumpur who works 20 hours a day in some damp-ridden concrete box and recieves about 20 pence as reward whilst the CEO of the coropration owning the said Malaysian factory is lighting his fifth Havanan cigar with a $100 bill, and; 3. The item of clothing looks like a unholy marriage of dog's dirt and Colgate. Oh yes, I had such fun then...

There were some great musical acts playing outside Marks and Spencer that day, Including a peruvian band who were playing some excellent Andean music. I got thier CD. Pretty damned good, it is.

At about 4:00pm we arrived at the County Hotel in Stonehaven in preparation for our (shudder) family renunion. I had a very stuffy room upstairs, that mercifully was all mine. That was untill I had to pick up my brother Stuart from the train in Stonehaven. The format of the reunion went as such:

Move into function suite, where a few relative you recognise mingle with ones that you have never seen before.
Attempt to converse with said "never seen before" relatives only to be met with ambivilent silences
Avoid very young relatives as they career about the place like speed addled retards chasing after a dumptruckfull of mars bars
Gather round to rituallistically stare at the ceiledh band as they set up
Cringe as your inebriate father cocks up all your well planned jokes as he tries to recount the speech he stupidly accepted to make a week ago knowing full well that HE had no intention to write anything after he comes to you to write it for him.
Pretend to like your newfound relatives
Pretend to like your familiar relatives
Pretend to like yourself for even agreeing to this
Learn that the Orcadian Strip the Willow is specifically designed to inflict Grievous Bodily Harm upon all those who participate in it.
And that Isolation is much more prefierable to family, despite their assurance to the contrary.

On Sunday I arrived back (eventually) to attend what I was told was World Oceans Day at the aquarium. It then transpired that ther person who had told me this had made a mistake and that it was actuallty NEXT Sunday that was world oceans day. This is a trifle annoying when you come to work dressed as a pirate, as I was told to dress for the occasion. Th guilty party was made to buy me an ice cream.

THis week I will accquire a BCD and some weights for my belt. I will then have my full SCUBA kit. Hopefully spending a good few hours under the surface will hep me forget the existance of family. I hope..

And fainally, Yoko Kanno's sountrack to Stand Alone Complex may well be one of the best albums EVER MADE.

Adieu.