Threatening Rain

I'm an old Punk Rocker at heart and I like to kid on the reason I'm folically challenged is a result of the multitude of hair colours I used to have. In fact to this day I'm still a dab hand with a bottle of hair dye, which comes in handy when there are three females in the house.

However despite my core musical taste being established in the late 70's I do have an eclectic taste in music along with some "guilty pleasures".

One of those guilty pleasures is Deacon Blue and if you were to ask me why I own everything they've ever done it's down to Ricky Ross's ability to craft lyrics that I could only ever dream of.

As much as I like Deacon Blue, Ricky's solo stuff is even better and I would certainly recommend listening to the "This is the Life" and "Pale Rider" albums, which are almost flawless in my opinion.

If you've got this far you're probably wondering "what has this to do with the very special young lady pictured above" and the answer is really simple.

As the wind howled and rain lashed against the window panes I don't think there was anything I wanted to do less that go on my last Kiltwalk training walk, but I knew if I didn't do it, I would regret it.

So I pulled on my boots, zipped up the rain jacket and headed off out into the darkness with my trusty Ipod to get a bit of exercise before coming back to do some 'Kiltwalk stuff' one of which was to write this Blipfoto Journal.

The picture for today's story was easy as I've wanted to use this picture for a while, but just didn't know what the story was going to be and that's where Ricky Ross came to the rescue.

I was battling up Stewarton Road cursing the rain and the forecast for Sunday, which is more of the same, and I thought "26 miles in the rain, who wants to do that?" and then one of my favourite Ricky Ross songs "Threatening Rain" came on where one of the verses is

"They say the sea is high
And the clouds are darkening the sky
I've been out today
All I found was threatening rain"

And I thought that's it "All I found was threatening rain. Rain what is that, it's only rain which is a small sacrifice to pay for the reward of walking 26 miles and raising money for Scotland's Kids".

And it's true to say that in 2013 so many people have 'sacrificed' their time and money. There has been time to train, time to organise fund raising events and time to spread The Kiltwalk word.

Then there's money. People have sacrificed significant amounts to become "Oor Wullies Pal" while others have sacrificed more than they can probably afford.

Then there is the McManus children Caitlyn, Ciaran and Cari . . . obviously the baby name book only had the 'C' page in it :-)

Caitlyn sacrificed her Easter Holidays to continue training for the Kiltwalk. Ciaran lost one of his teeth and donated the Tooth Fairy money to the Kiltwalk and as for little Cari above, well she asked that rather than Easter Eggs, could she get money as she wanted to donate it all to the Kiltwalk!!

I mean as Wilma Duff will tell you, giving up chocolate for the Kiltwalk, well that is sacrifice.

So the forecast for Sunday is "Threatening Rain" but you know what, bring it on as we've got money to go and raise.