Knickers

I forgot to mention the funniest thing at the palace was seeing this woman walking back from the toilets with her dress stuck in her knickers. Sadly Emma had the camera at that point so I couldn't capture it. Some old biddy ran up to her and pointed her problem out. 'Better me telling you than Prince Andrew' she said.

The Palace

Saturday afternoon was all a bit surreal, we spent it at the palace. Not the Palace club in Levenshulme where I was once caught by Daily Sport photographers doing Bar Bungee with one of their page 3 girls, but Hollyrood Palace in Edinburgh.

Me & Emma got an invite from HRH Prince Andrew to spend the afernoon with him at his garden party at Hollyrood Palace in Edinburgh. Why? No idea other than this was the start of the General Assembly, the Church of Scotland's big annual knees up. Apparantly they invite lay people who do stuff for churches so that the clergy can get to meet some real people. It was bad timing as it was the FA Cup Final at the same time, but given the result and the slow pace of the game I am glad I didn't bother staying in to watch it.

So we arrived at Hollyrood in our jeans as we had been out all morning. The army were doing the gate and tried to turn us away until we flashed our invite to them. Then we had to get changed in the car whilst all these posh knobs wandered around in their hats. After getting past the next security gate by showing our photo id, we entered the grounds and headed straight for the marquee where sandwiches, tea and cakes were on offer. No crusts on these butties! and at an event full of clergy the caterers must have been having a laugh by including cucumber sarnies. There was quite a collection of kilts, hats, military uniforms, dog collars and national dress. I opted for my trusty suit (weddings, funerals, job interviews, court, etc) whilst Emma dazzled them all with an expensive frock! (£6 from the charity shop in Haddington actually). We noticed some plain clothes security guards trying to blend in, and the the Hollyrood Constabulary (the palace's own police) were begining to get into line so something was about to happen.

I took position as close as I could get to them. There was no security barrier so I'd say I was about 2 feet away. Then the Duke appeared. Not sure how long he would be around I took the opportunity of him standing still during the national anthem to get my snaps. He then wandered right over to me and started chatting to the woman next to me so I kept snapping away. Emma decided to startt alking to the Hollyrood Cops...asking them what she would need to do to get beaten by them with the big sticks they were all carrying. Here we both were just inches away from the future king (well if Charles and his kids were all killed in a road accident in a Paris tunnel or something) and a bunch of blokes who looked like morris dancers were the only thing between us. Then I looked around and the plain clothes boys were right behind me...and were right behind me for much of the afternoon. So off we went for a wander around, snapping away getting shots of a building not normally open to the public. We ate a few more sandwiches and cakes, chit chatted to a few people and then headed off. It was as I was snapping some shots of the military band that the cops moved in. 'Excuse me sir, you are not allowed to take photographs in the palace grounds'. Oops,good job I was leaving then.

So the photos you see here are top secret and must not be leaked to any Royal contacts you have or I will end up in the tower!

Photos: 1. me looking really interested. 2. Emma and the lovely sandwiches! 3. One of the Trumpton morris dancers. 4. Me & Emma in Dr Who's royal TARDIS. 5. HRH Duke of York who apprantly has 10,000 men who he climbed a hill with.

Dunbar Methodist Church

I have been taking the primary school kids to visit Dunbar Methodist Church. It's the oldest Methodist Church in Scotland and Wesley himself preached there 21 times. It's a facinating building that keeps revealing its secrets. One of them is behind the organ. In the days of old the organ was hand pumped by a wee laddie stuck in a secret room...well box next to the organ. If you look into this dark space now you can see that the wee laddie obviously got bored in the services and had a turn at graffitti. You can see his name and various dates etched onto the wall if you shine a torch in there or take a digital photo as I did. The writing in the photo is in complete darkness. I hope that was of interest to any Methodist historians. Its well worth a vist and Betty and David are great hosts. See

The visit got me thinking back to my experiences of church organs. In the 1980's when we were being subjected to GrahamKendricks soul raising hits like 'Shine Jesus Shine' and 'Make Way Make Way', and the organ was seen by me as obsolete. The guitar and the pan pipes was the new kid on the block. To assist in my theory, me and Smithy decided it would be fun to switch all the pipes around at the back or the organ. It was an innocent act of vandalism but one that would have been amusing to hear. Basically the low keys now played high notes and vice versa. Because some of the organists were so bad it probably took a few months for them to realise what was wrong. After they brought in a specialist to fix it we got our knuckles well and truly rapped. it could have been worse....we had considered putting ping pong balls in the pipes so they would pop out when the organ played.

Tri Harder

Well that's my first triathlon out of the way. It was probably the most challenging physical thing I have ever done but I was pleased to come away with a prize. In 14th place I was the 2nd fastest local male in the North berwick triathlon. I have never won a prize for my attempts at athletics so it made it all worth while. E-bay let me down and my trisuit didn't arrive so I had to do it in my trunks. As you can see from the photos I look just like Daniel Craig in Bond. To be honest I was concentrating more on not dying than my modesty. On the bike I was determined not to fall off and the thought of buttock grazing kept me safe. The bike bit was my weakness. I thought I was doing ok but people kept waving at me as they flew by me. Still I caught the losers up on the run bit. I will probably do another one but it has to be said that triathlons are very middle class, they are expensive and there is more than the average population of tossers involved in it. Here's the resultsresults and some pictures of me.

Tri Hard

Isabelle did her first triathlon the other day. It was the Dunbar Junior Triathlon and although she was one of the slower racers, she came in first for Dunbar girls. All the rest were outsiders who need to get on the Playstation a bit more and do something less healthy. It was for 10-16 year olds, but one contender actually had a beard (see photo... a ginger beard at that...you'd think he would try and hide his hair colouring rather than wear it on his chin). Anyway she won some money so I decided to put in for my own race next week. Training has been hard and having thought about the idea of running in my Speedo's I decided to buy a triathlonsuit off E-bay. It's a bit of a gamble as I have no idea what size I should get, and I am not convinced I will look any less offensive than my ball bulgers and a pair of trainers. We will see? Watch out for the results here North Berwick Triathlon