Blue Chamber

This weekend, my next-youngest brother, Rory, 2 of 4 (I'm 1 of 4), joined the ranks of all who suffer the pain of having the number '3' as the first digit of our ages, a special occasion I’m sure you’ll agree. Naturally, an event of this magnitude needed a proper celebration so a rare gathering of Cruickshanks – a momentous meeting usually only reserved for ultra-special family Xmases – was arranged to help him see the difficult transition through with plenty of booze, mockery and a fresh airing of musty old family personality clashes.

With brother 4 of 4, Ranald, in Aberdeen with me already, we took a Megabus down to the capital together, economy-priced bus tickets winning out over the faster but ridiculously non-cheap train fares; no jokes about Aberdonians being tight-fisted, please, as a punch in the face usually offends...

It takes nearly four hours to bus from city to city, taking into account all the wee fiddly stops the Megabus makes on the way, so while Ranald chuckled to himself reading an old Discworld novel I let myself doze lightly, using my phone’s mp3 player to block out all annoyances and distractions. But just as we were crossing the mighty Forth Road Bridge Ranald received a text from Rory with the news that he in turn had received a text from our cousin, Lisa, who had – completely coincidentally – travelled up Edinburgh with a large group of girlies getting drunk for the weekend!

This was hugely exciting news to me – I hadn’t seen Lisa in roughly fifteen years! I’d heard a few things about her now and again but being male my capacity for retaining family trivia is not great (“Yeah, great, that’s nice. What’s for lunch?”), so you can understand I was delighted to have the opportunity to see her again! Childhood memories of the holidays Lisa and her sister Suzanne used to spend with our family came swimming back; we always had loads of fun when they visited, and it saddened me a little that so much time had passed without contact. Families, eh?

After a little blizzard of text messages – arrangements for us all to meet at the right pub – Ranald and I were finally stood outside the Abbotsford pub in Rose St, the long street of pubs and shops and assorted joy that runs parallel to the famous Princess St. I went in, had a look round, couldn’t see her. Ranald had a look, couldn’t see her either...apart from a group of girls stood directly at the bar in front of us which just *might* contain Lisa. If only Ranald or I had the sheer brass man-parts to gawk somewhat rudely at a group of attractive women...(Heh, if only either of us knew how to stop...!)

Suddenly, there she was! Cue lots of hugs, a squeal or two (one of which might have been me) and LOTS of greetings, questions, and introductions.


Lisa and I, together again after 18 years!!

Lisa, and her lovely friend Sarah, decided to let the rest of their group move on to the next pub while they stayed and had a drink with us Cruickshank boys (not forgetting one of Ranald’s best mates, Sam, and his pretty Swiss girlfriend, Rosa). It was marvellous seeing Lisa again – so different from how I remember her but also so very familiar, too. She’s 32, has a 10 year old boy called Nathan, and has grown into an especially beautiful and personable young woman.


Lisa and Alasdair (He's 3 of 4)

She currently lives near Newcastle (Did she tell me Morpeth or did I make that up...?) and her strong Lancastrian accent of old has softened to make way for a few lilting Northumbrian tones. We swapped news of family and lots of mobile phone pics via the magic of Bluetooth, and also pledged to befriend each other on Facebook. All too soon, however, she had to scurry away to rejoin her friends (), although we did promise to meet up later on that evening when both groups of people would be out properly.


Rory - 30th birthday boy - and Ranald. Ranald's the one vainly finger-stroking his Erol Flynn moustache...

The party moved to another pub along Rose St, a gothic rock pub frequented by many of Ranald’s old friends. And that was where we spent the rest of the evening, basically, chatting, drinking and chatting some more. By 11pm we were all in various states of drunkenness (I could still walk in a straight line) and tiredness so Rory and I returned to his flat, me grateful for the chance to finally dump my travel bag somewhere I didn’t have to worry about it. I was asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow.


There, that's a better pic of Ranald's facial horrors. Doesn't he look like a 1950's movie villain?

The next day I bullied Ranald into accompanying me into town for some lunch. Rory didn’t want to come, as he had a lot of chores to do before his birthday celebration later on that evening. We were both starving, so quickly found another little pub on Rose St (can’t remember what this one was called) and ordered Bubble and Squeak for myself and a full breakfast for Ranald. This took a while to get to us, which despite us having been told was “running late” we felt was taking it a bit far. We were especially upset when the couple that had come in and taken our seats - after we had shoved across to a better table - were served before us! I was all for storming up to the bar for a good moan but when we looked closely at what the other couple had ordered we noticed that, unluckily for us, they had ordered exactly the same two meals – they were eating OUR breakfasts! Ranald and I had ordered up at the bar, so the floor staff, not knowing who we were, simply brought food to that table and served the two people sitting there. I felt massively silly after that, it being entirely my fault that Ran and I had to wait so long, so when it arrived I ate my food quickly, quietly and without looking anybody in the eye.

At the station I realised I was an hour early for my Megabus home, having forgotten what time I’d booked it for. So I let Ranald escape back to Rory’s and amused myself with phone-calls to my girlfriend, an Aliens graphic novel anthology and a gaming magazine. I did try to jump onto an earlier bus but was told this was not allowed. I wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t be but didn’t feel like forcing the issue, not after nearly making a prat of myself over lunch.

I never did get to see Lisa again either: they must have been having too much fun. It certainly sounded like a full night judging by the fact they all slept in so long they very nearly missed their train home! But Lisa has since texted me, soothing the sting of disappointment with promises to meet up soon, and I can’t imagine we’ll lose touch this time, not now we’ve got each other’s phone numbers and Facebook profiles! [/ALIGN]