Looniversal

Despite their best intentions, Samantha was up and awake long before any of our offspring were anywhere near serving her a birthday breakfast in bed. Having drawn the short sausage it was left to me to put together breakfast for everyone, which, due to the sheer numbers of reconstituted meat products grilling and chicken embryos frying, turned into more of a brunch. With birthday candles.

As we couldn't agree on an itinerary that suited everyone today, we split up into two groups and headed off into the still thick fog, one group heading to the attractions down Aberdeen's beach here and the others off to do old people type stuff around some of the nearby towns (only kidding Finn). We swarmed into the multiplex first off in the hope that when we returned to the daylight we'd be able to see further than the couple of hundreds of yards we'd been driving through. With all the freaky weather it seemed entirely appropriate that it was one of the Ice Age films we went to see.

After, it was still foggy.

Aberdeen was the place I had my first experience of a roller coaster. I remember being terrified. Looking at the same ride today, and seeing the 'was that it?' look as our worldly-wise teenagers disembarked was a pretty clear indication we weren't in Orlando anymore. What was surprising though was how long (hours) they spent shoving two penny pieces into machines in the hope they'd dislodge more two penny pieces and, more importantly, a fake plastic jobby and a sugary dummy tit.

For my part I managed to win a fluffy little teddy bear for Samantha from one of those mechanical grab machines. She did really want a little blue Smurf but the slippery wee Belgians weren't for dropping. Only cost me about £12 in coins.

Interesting drive back with a surreal conversation concerning travel sickness tablets, condoms and Viagra.

The fog's back, there's another movie on the go (Sherlock Holmes), we've all had too much food and triple chocolate birthday cake (with the side effect that there's now a full scale flatulence battle going on between Euan and his noxious nemesis).

And the fog's back in Brigadoon.

Happy birthday Mrs DWD. X