Olympics triumph

It's a grey Monday and the London Olympics are over. After a week of decent weather and 16 days of national fervour as the Olympics have brought out the best in Britain, it's hard not to feel a little bereft at the passing of a once in a lifetime (for me, at any rate) event. Will the boys ever get to experience a home Olympics again? They'll be old and grey if they do. Of the four, Sean has been the only one who has really got what the Olympics are about and he was miffed to be missing the second week, away with his brothers and Mam on the annual holiday to Ireland. Finn affected disinterest, as is his way, and Rowan just couldn't concentrate whenever we sat down to watch an event. Angus shouted along when it suited him but he will certainly be too young to remember the event first-hand, instead relying on memories related by others and a constant re-telling of the stories through the media.

The family is due back at teatime, but their sailing has been cancelled and it'll be later before they're all home. It's been a quiet week at home for me. Up for work, peaceful breakfast, some Olympics watching in Festival Square at lunchtimes and, in the case of Sir Chris Hoy's epic, golden record-breaking, Keiron swansong, after work, then home for a self-cooked dinner and, usually, more Olympics on TV till bedtime.

I say "work" but it's fair to report that productivity has been low this past fortnight, with the BBC Olympic live text stream a regular background feature, monitoring Team GB's progress in all manner of sports that I normally wouldn't give two hoots about. But it's the Olympics! Out in Festival Square, in front of the big screen, watching Helen Glover and Heather Stanning bring home GB's first gold of the Games in the women's pair; the Brownlee brothers winning gold and bronze in the triathlon; Trott and Hoy in the cycling; in the presence of steadily increasing and enthusiastic crowds, there was definitely a tear in my eye as individuals realised their potential in the greatest show on earth. Each medal may have cost several million in funding (the rowing has had £27m in funding over the last four years, to realise 4 golds, 2 silvers and 3 bronzes) but that's the inconvenient reality behind providing talented athletes with the opportunities to work and train relentlessly to achieve their goals and lift the spirits of a nation in these rather doom-laden economic times.

As a family, watching, the highlight was the half hour of madness on the middle Saturday when Jessica Ennis, Greig Rutherford and Mo Farrah won golds in front of 80,000 roaring spectators in the athletics stadium. On my own, watching Mo Farrah repeat the feat in the 5000m the following Saturday elicited quite a few shouts at the telly! The last of Team GB's golds, to Anthony Joshua in the super-heavyweight boxing, I followed on crackly Radio Five Live (which on several occasions had Sharon wound up to nerve-jangling fever pitch as she drove about) close to Flanders Moss as I drove back circuitously from Callendar.

The best moment for Sharon and I, naturally, was seeing Katherine Grainger finally achieve the gold she longed for in the women's double sculls. It was a long time coming, through the two "happy silvers", as she called them, of Sydney and Athens to the despair of losing to the Chinese in Beijing and finally the joy of pulling away from the field with partner Anna Watkins at Eton Dorney on Friday Aug 3rd 2012 and winning that cherished gold medal. For Sharon and I it was best that the race wasn't a nail-biter, and probably for the boys too, who weren't subjected to Sharon's usual vocal roarings from the couch. A few urgings were all that were required, with Angus throwing in a "Come on Katherine!" for good measure. Katherine looked delighted at the end and spoke so well in interviews. I hope she enjoys the fulfilment of her dream even more than we, and the many thousands who feel connected to her in some way, enjoyed seeing her cast off the pressure of expectation and deliver one of the triumphs of the London 2012 Olympics.

It's all over now and "normal" life goes on, albeit a little less vivid than the heightened experience of the London Olympics from July 27th to August 12th 2012.

Eight shots

The Ryder Cup is my favourite sporting event, and has been ever since Largs' finest, Sam Torrance, sunk the winning putt at the Belfry back in 1985 to wrest the trophy from the USA for the first time in 28 years. It has grown into one of the top three most-watched events worldwide, behind the Olympics and World Cup, and, for me, its appeal is in the unique nature of the contest: it is the only "proper" world sport that features Europe v USA. All that said, I've never been a great fan of watching golf live. The TV close-ups of the players, the putts, the lies and the layout generally far exceed the neck-craning, uncertainty, discomfort and the occasional close proximity to a well-known face that comes with attending a tournament. So, when my colleague, Ian Muir, extended the offer, on IBM's behalf, to attend the first day's play at Celtic Manor, I did briefly weigh up my options. I already had the day off booked, and a marathon stint on the couch beckoned.

However, it would be foolish to turn down the chance, so, on Thursday morning I rose early to fly down to Luton with Ian. A stomach-churning taxi-ride took the "scenic" route to Heythrop Park near Chipping Norton where we were taking up the invitation of an OpenLogic golf day. OpenLogic are IBM partners so we were meeting up with Craig Durham and Stephen Park Brown, Craig being our IBM host and Stephen another IBM client. My golf was predictably wayward, as I haven't played all year and I was using rented clubs. The course wouldn't have been particularly testing had I had some practice. It lacked some good driving holes and was rather quirkily laid out around the grounds of an old house but we had an enjoyable, if rather long, round.

Eschewing the food due to be on offer (it was late and Craig and Stephen likened the adjoining hotel to "Fawlty Towers", having stayed there the night before), we travelled on to the Bristol Hotel in Bristol in the back of Stephen's Jag, which was a much more comfortable ride. We enjoyed some fine IBM hospitality with a meal in the Bordeaux Quay but by now the rain was on and the terrible weather forecast looked likely to be spot on.

Wakening early, but not early enough to go for the first, 0615 bus, Ian and I joined the others on the 0745 bus from the hotel into Wales and on to Celtic Manor, near Newport. The journey took about an hour and the rain was lashing down. The Severn was barely visible in the murky morning. Parking was fine but there was a bit of logjam getting through the airport style security (no mobile phones or cameras allowed) before we could walk down the very steep path behind the clubhouse and the course beyond.

During the descent it became apparent that the new holes built to accommodate the Ryder Cup were in fact on the flood plain of a river which looped around the course, and the course itself was effectively in a gorge. In other words, the chances of Celtic Manor staying dry in the rain were on a par (ho!) with me featuring in the European team. The course was sodden.

I made my way across the 18th and down towards the opening holes where the crowds appeared to be huddling together for survival. Trying to negotiate the steeply banked and increasingly muddy rough and walkways was treacherous. I saw one person go down: there must have been a few over the course of the day. Finally I reached the fourth hole in time to see Graeme McDowall and Rory McIlroy ("Big Mac" and "Little Mac") take forever over their approaches, drying clubs and so on. Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar were similarly laboured in their preparations as the wind-driven rain battered into the players. McDowall played a great recovery from a near-plugged lie in the bunker by the green to secure a par and win the hole, to the soggy cheers of the partisan crowd. By then, Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker had driven but there was an inordinate delay while the cast of vice-captains, media and course stewards and everyone else who seemed to have a role that allowed them inside the ropes, conversed over walkie-talkies. A moustachioed senior media marshal near us informed his drenched team and us that they were suspending play.

I saw eight shots.

I was more fortunate than the other saturated spectators who then had little option but to crowd into the tented village, mill about in the rain or, inexplicably, sit in the stands for hours on end. At least I was able to climb back up to the Kidwelly Pavilion hospitality suite where, from the balcony outside IBM's box, I had a splendid view of the 16th green and fairway. I was able to watch, throughout the remainder of the day, as the fairway approximated to a river, a third of the green became flooded, and the bunker almost filled to the brim with water. After a splendid lunch, by which time I had dried to dampness, the rain really came on. It was a downpour of biblical proportions. Water was cascading off the roof of the pavilion, to add to the mass of mud on the steep bank below us which looked increasingly like a chocolate blancmange, one more heavy shower away from a landslide. Despite the odd distraction such as ex-Olympic runner Jamie Baulch being in our box, meeting Stephen Leonard, head of IBM UK, noting Sam Torrance in the box next door and excusing my way past Gareth Edwards, honorary captain of the sodden Twenty Ten course (I last bumped into Gareth at East Renfrewshire golf club in 1983, in the locker room, shortly before briefly trapping Telly Savalas, who was hosting a "Celebrity Show-Am" golf tournament, between the locker and gents' toilet doors), it was a dispiriting day. The valley would clear briefly, only for another bank of cloud and rain to roll down minutes later.

Ian and I had to return on a 1600 bus in order to get a taxi to Bristol Airport. It was particularly galling to see play resume at 1700, with the sun putting in a belated appearance too. We watched some of it on TV in the lounge at the Bristol Hotel, awaiting our taxi.

So, was this my one and only day at the Ryder Cup? Will eight shots be all I ever see live? Who knows. The 2014 edition is at Gleneagles, but I suspect I'll still have a preference for watching on the telly.

Go away for the day

The school summer holidays are almost over and, apart from my long weekend in Ireland to catch the tail end of the family holiday at the start of the hols, I didn't take any time off until last week. Not that the weather has been particularly enticing during July and the early part of August.

After a good start to the summer, my cricket schedule was rather impacted by a rainy July. It didn't stop us lifting the Parks Trophy for the fifth time though! We'll gloss over the Terry Newcombe Trophy Final defeat, but at least we got to the final in that one too. I'm the only SLCC player to have played in all five Parks' finals and, as a non-League cricketer, I'm justly proud of my contribution, even though I'm fast descending into veteran category. I was pleased with my 4 overs for 17 in the final. The pressure was off a little but I still had to deliver for us to close out the win.

Sharon is going to Bracknell for a couple of days so I'm taking the opportunity to have a mini holiday-from-home with the boys, along the lines of the holidays we had when I was a child. From '72 to '78 inclusive we never had a holiday of any duration. We just used to "go away for the day," which typically meant a bus down to Paisley Gilmour St. station and then a train to somewhere on the Clyde coast. Largs was our preferred destination and usually featured twice in my Dad's fortnight off work for Paisley fair, at that start of July. It would also be the destination for other bank holidays, notably the September weekend, when we might even experience the thrill of returning after dark!

In August we'd also go to Ayr, Troon, Prestwick, Gourock and sometimes across to Dunoon on the ferry, which was quite an exciting trip. Curiously we never went to Millport, or Rothesay, though I would avidly study ferry times for these exotic destinations in the hope that some day we would be able to afford to strike out to island shores (I believe my only trip to date to the Isle of Bute was at the age of four months. I have no memory of it.) Similarly, Stevenston, Saltcoats, Ardrossan and West Kilbride were only ever experienced through the smeared panes of the hourly trains which transported us to and from the coast. Lesley and I used to compete to be the first to see the sea just after Stevenston. The "Nae Tick" graffito which adorned the faceless clock at the run-down Fairlie station used to elicit a chuckle from my parents but was lost on me. By then I was anticipating the climax of the train journey: a lumbering, clanking, shrieking passage through the tunnel which culminated with a re-emergence into daylight and a brief view of the Pencil and Great Cumbrae beyond as we made our final approach to Largs station.

In 1978 we had the luxury of Aunt May's car on loan which enabled us to visit multiple destinations in one day (gasp!), take alternative, non-rail, routes to the seaside (thrill!), discover places north of the River Clyde (shock!). We drove to Luss and Arrochar. I had never seen a mountain that close up before. We also broke the mould in 1976, going through to Edinburgh for the day, which was such an event I had to dress up in my Bushes Primary School blazer. We finally did get to Millport in 1979 and exceeded my wildest expectations by looking at a couple of places and booking a holiday for the August fortnight at a place called Tivvendale off Ferry Road. Having never spent a night outside my own house since we stayed in a house in Nelson St in Largs in 1971 (Sharon finds this nigh on impossible to believe, given her experience of staying with relatives and going on holidays), it was a very big event to be packing a case and sending my bike over to Millport by carrier for what felt like my first ever holiday.

Sean, Finn, Rowan and Angus: you don't know how lucky you are!

The tree is up

The shops are busy and there's a growing sense of pressure (for me at any rate) as I trudge around the usual outlets looking for festive inspiration. We bought the tree at the weekend, a very pleasantly proportioned spruce from the Klondyke Garden Centre where the boys had a chat with Santa. They've to leave out milk, biscuits and a carrot for the reindeer. Purchasing the tree at Klnodyke and having a good look round their decorations is fast becoming a Christmas tradition in the Wallace household.

We're keen to establish some traditions of our own as the family starts to grow. The trip to buy the tree, the emergence of the boxes of Christmas decorations from the attic and the subsequent decoration of the tree and house is a cornerstone of Christmas. It's good to see Sean and Finn recognise Big Santa, the snowman doing the splits and other decorations as they are rediscovered from their 11-month hibernation. Or should that be "eternation" or some other word that is the opposite of going to sleep for the winter? Needless to say the boys are ramping up their excitement levels as the big day approaches with Sharon and I having to make sure Santa's elves are kept well informed of any misdemeanours.

Sean was at the Churchill Theatre on Friday night with the Beavers to see Ali Baba. That's him been to another place that I've not been to. It may seem odd, but it struck me the other day that the boys are growing up in the south side of Edinburgh. This is their locale, their current world, and the place they will always think back to as their roots. They know the streets, the houses, the lines on the pavements, the local shops (or supermarkets more like), the library and dentist and church halls, just as Sharon remembers Athlone and I remember Paisley.

The origins of golf

Sometimes my memories are very specific and trigger a number of related memories in my head. As someone who works in IT it does make you wonder how the data in your brain is organised, what the keys to that data are and how the data is cross-referenced.

Rowan has been wandering around the house of late with a plastic golf club - "I play golf" - with which he is able to connect with various objects, sometimes the spherical one he is attempting to hit. In this regard he shows more early hand-eye co-ordination promise than his sport-shy (and optically challenged) brothers. It brought to mind the "golf course" that I used to lay out in our house in Raasay Drive.

We had a grey-blue carpet in the hall, stairs and landing that had whorls in it that could be used as target areas for putting towards but my preferred "hole" was a plastic beaker. (Here's where the specific memories kick in.) There were a couple of beakers I used that were inflexible plastic beakers that we got free on the tops of Robinson's diluting juice. One was a beige colour, the other a shade of purple. We may have had more. Latterly they were used in the bathroom for rinsing hair. Not for holding toothbrushes; that was the job of the retired spotty tumblers, but that's another chain of memories.

The plastic beakers had a thin rim, making them ideal for putting into once they were placed on their sides. The union of plastic ball and beaker was announced with a satisfying click-clunk as a successful putt rolled home. This compared favourably with the disappointing clunk of an off-target roll striking the rim and spinning the cup round. My house golf was played with red plastic golf balls, at least one of which had a small black stone inside and rattled accordingly. Their provenance is less certain, probably from a toy golf set, as they pre-dated my first golf clubs, an 8-iron and a putter, bought in a sports shop in Causeyside St in Paisley near the old Canal St. station when I was about 8 years old. I remember trying them and buying them in the basement of the shop with Dad. The debate was whether to get an 8-iron or a 7-iron, the latter being the mid-iron typically loaned out at the local pitch and putt in Brodie Park. Now I was able to use my own clubs!

In the house I use to lay out par 3's, 4's and 5's, placing the beakers accordingly and then retreating to "tees" in other parts of the room, adjoining rooms or even upstairs. Dog legs had to be negotiated by angling doors so that ricochets could be attempted, shortcuts under chairs and chests of drawers were occasionally frustrated by rebounds off legs or unforeseen storage and my rug (a threadbare, dusty pink coloured quilt that was with me from my cot into adulthood - not an obvious comforter, unlike Sean with Misky, but as something I used to wrap around me when reading in bed in my cold room and going to sleep) was sometimes pressed into service as a bunker. It may have been more like crazy golf, especially when the beaker was positioned on a stair tread and a "downhill putt" had to be paced just right which was almost impossible, but to me it was as real an interpretation of the game as I could achieve when bounded by the season or the weather or someone to take me to Brodie Park.

Watching the boys playing their imaginative games in the house I wonder which ones will stick in their minds as they grow up?

Is yer Motherwell?

It's been an icy few days but not too disruptive on the travel front. I took the lads out to Beecraigs Country Park on Sunday where we didn't stray far from the car but still had a lot of fun playing by the stream and building a dam; writing names and drawing pictures in the covering of snow still dusting the ground; going for a tramp through the snowbound trees. It was good to get some fresh air. Mind you, I got plenty of that on Saturday watching a desperately poor 1-1 draw between Motherwell and St. Mirren in the Scottish Cup fourth round. We scored early on, they equalised in the second half, but the pitch was sandy, muddy and bumpy and the quality of football on show was dire.

The last time I was at Fir Park for a Cup game was on 26th Feb 1977 with Alex Ferguson in charge of the Buddies, a rampant 4-1 defeat of Dundee Utd in the third round under our belts and thousands flocking from Paisley to cheer our onward march to glory. I was with Graeme Nixon and his Dad, infrequent football supporters, and can remember the traffic tailing back past Strathclyde Park. The kick-off was delayed to accommodate the 28,000 crowd. Imagine that for a Saints v Motherwell game now! Saturday's was a fifth that size and Fir Park only holds 13,500 these days. Motherwell took the lead but St. Mirren equalised. Alas, it was not to be, as Motherwell's mustachioed super-striker of the late seventies, Willie Pettigrew, a man who looked like an ugly Billy Connolly, sealed a 2-1 win for the Steelmen. We were mixed in with the Motherwell fans (I'm not sure there was even segregation in these pre-1980 Criminal Justice Act days) and it was a real disappointment as we had felt the Buddies were invincible under Ferguson. We had to be content with the First Division title instead.

Sean managed his first recorded goal at any sport last week after a year and a half of going to ball sports after school on a Thursday. Weeks can go by without him getting a touch at the ball, regardless of the sport being played, but last week he scored a goal at hockey. It sounds like it was the turn around point for his team: from being 2-0 down Sean made it 2-1 and they secured a 2-2 draw. We won't go touting for sponsors just yet but it was worthy of note!

All four Wallace boys had long overdue haircuts last week. Sharon took Rowan one day, Sean and Finn another and I took myself! As the barber said after heaving his way through Rowan's locks and surveying the pile on the floor, "There's some come in here that don't even have that much to start with!" Rowan suddenly looks about 2 years older.

While on the subject of sport, I still can't believe England's abject collapse for 51 in the first Test in Jamaica. I was watching it on fast forward: I didn't have to! We were going round to the St. John's for dinner. Unfortunately Brian (of West Indian origin) hadn't seen it but was incredulous when I told him the score. We enjoyed our night out and dinner nonetheless!

Doors close on Love St

St. Mirren bid farewell to Love St. in Paisley after 115 years today. Here's a slide show of some photos of the old ground. I first attended a football match here in August 1972 and can remember sitting on the grass at the top of the old Caledonia Street end, not my dad's and my usual position of later years (Cairter's Corner or the Love St. end itself) but one which afforded a splendid view of the whole of the oval ground and large pitch below. St. Mirren beat Brechin City 5-1 that day. Oh that such results would be repeated regularly in the following years!

Most of my memories of the ground run into one another like so many inept defenders of recent decades. I can vividly remember Fergie's Furies defeating Dundee Utd in a wonderful giant-killing 4-1 Cup victory and being soaked and disappointed as Celtic claimed a 3-3 draw when we were 3-1 ahead the following season (that was the only point they got off us that season though: 3 wins out of 4 for the Buddies!). The crowds dwindled as the stadium was reconstructed and seating wwas introduced in the eighties. The biggest crowd I remember was a crushing 29,000 for a League Cup replay against Celtic in the 80s when the capacity was supposed to have been reduced to only 25,000. Dad and I nearly turned away from the crush at the turnstiles and could barely see the game from the dozens deep crowd at the top of the Love St end. I could plunder more memories if I thought more deeply (hard-won and rare victories over the Old Firm mostly but early ones too like a 0-5 defeat by Queen of the South and a 6-3 win over Cowdenbeath) but even Sharon had a rare first visit when we defeated Clydebank 8-0 on our way to being Millenium champions of the first division. That remains the biggest win I've ever seen!

Footnote: Saints drew 0-0 with Motherwell, unable to extend their 4-match winning run (best in the Premier League since 1990) in front of a capacity 10,189 crowd. The highlights suggest it wasn't the greatest game but at least they didn't lose!

Meet the neighbours

I embarked on a rare burst of DIY last weekend, with minimal planning. Sharon has been fed up with the old nursery wardrobes serving as storage space in her office so I headed down to IKEA on the Friday night (9pm, best time to go) and bought some new freestanding shelves. On the Saturday I heaved the old wardrobes out to the garage, where they are now reconstructed for storage of some of the things we'd rather not have mouse droppings on! The new Ivar shelves were fairly easy to put together, despite one falling on my finger, and Sharon is now happier having clear sight of her spare stock and paperwork.

This weekend the housework was more festive: we bought the tree, placed it in the living room and then Sean and I decorated it. Finn was given the role of "admirer" by Sean. He had to sit on the couch and tell us if the tree was looking good. In typically contrary Finn fashion, he kept saying it didn't. Rowan had a great time running around the Klondyke Garden Centre when we were selecting the tree but he drove Sharon daft earlier in the day, running off round the supermarket. Finn and I took the bus into town to pick up Sharon's car and then have a wander round some shops. He was very impressed by the towering Christmas tree in Jenners and the toys in the basement but we left just as the afternoon crowds were starting to build up.

Talking of crowds, I popped into Woolworths on Thursday as it announced an "everything must go" sale as it heads for closure. The scavengers were out! To be honest, there are better pickings in the charity shops of Stockbridge than in the Raeburn Place Woollies. This has been its problem for the last decade or more: people of my age and older probably still think of it as a family department store when the reality is that its stock in recent years has been more comparable to the Poundstretcher end of the market. I always have fond memory of Woollies in Paisley and Largs. They were places we always headed for when shopping on Saturday shopping or at Largs on a day trip. I bought a good few Three Investigators books there, and Lego sets, and always loved the big fudge cubes in the Pik'n'Mix. It was one of those shops you always loved going to at Christmas time. Now it looks as though its doors may be closed before this Christmas, never mind next.

After seven years living in our street, yesterday we finally met a whole host of neighbours other than our directly adjacent ones. We were invited to the Powers' house for festive drinks and spent a very pleasant afternoon in the company of them, their children, and some of the neighbours from further up the road. Fiona and Neil's children are similar in age to Finn and Rowan and we often see Fiona down at the school. Aside from that we had a lazy Sunday, with Sharon really shattered from her long-running cough and us bother recovering from late nights over the weekend: me out on Friday at a charity karaoke (I didn't take the mic) at the Grange Club with a crowd from HR and Sharon out on Saturday at Howie's with the P2 mums.

Memory Lane

Finn was at the zoo with pre-school on Tuesday. He said he liked the chimpanzees in the monkey house the best, saw the penguins eating their fish but didn't see the zebras. Fortunately the worst of the two-day cold snap had passed and the snow and ice had melted away. Our road and the school playground were rather treacherous. It seems a long time since we had a year-long zoo membership and I was taking Sean and the infant Finn on occasional trips. We never made the best use of it, to be honest.

Talking to Finn about his trip reminded me of going to Edinburgh Zoo when I was in P1, one of my earliest (and few) school memories. I'm sure it was Edinburgh Zoo rather than Calderpark Zoo on the east side of Glasgow, although Edinburgh seems like a very long way from Paisley for a day trip for small children, especially on the road network circa 1972. Anyway, my memory is confined to Miss McGeoch, the rather austere, bespectacled assistant head teacher, being with us and me riding on the back of a donkey. (Why would there be a donkey ride at the zoo? Again, it seems a bit odd.) I have this impression of a viewpoint from the back of a beast, looking over great broad hairy shoulders, rocking from side to side as the donkey was led across a field.

As a further aside and trip down memory lane, that leads to an even earlier snippet of memory, of going to the Kelvin Hall Carnival with the nursery class (play-school, we called it, was where we went in the year before primary school, to the Glenburn Community Centre). This memory is almost formless save for an impression of a vast space, machines, Christmas lights and noise. And a packet of Golden Wonder crisps. That must be from Christmas 1970. I think you maintain these memories because they aren't overwritten with repeated experience. It would be 25 years before I was next at Edinburgh Zoo and I never again did go to the Kelvin Hall Carnival. I can also remember the fleet of red scooters that we had at play-school; all similar apart from a wonky-wheeled one that a mouse-like boy always had to have and one with newer solid red wheels and white tyres that ran the smoothest.

Compared to me, Finn and his brothers seem to have had so many experiences and opportunities to date, but Finn is only four and you wonder what will stick in his mind, and why, as he grows up.

Shattered in Shunyi

So it's 3 Olympics and 3 silvers for Katherine Grainger. While in Sydney the quad came late to grab an unexpected silver by the narrowest of margins, then in Athens the pair overhauled the Belorussians to finish behind the Romanians, on Sunday in Beijing the women's quad led at the halfway stage but were reeled in by an impressive Chinese crew who passed them in the last hundred metres or so to win by a few feet. (Watch the video on BBC here).

Sharon was distraught as she saw her friend's dream of a gold medal slip away, although her disappointment was nothing to that of the crew who were utterly dejected that they had not managed to win the gold they had targeted from the outset of this campaign. On a weekend where GB had near-unprecedented success, clinching several golds in cycling, sailing and rowing, it was especially hard that Katherine and the rest of the quad did not join the ranks of gold-medal winners.

Aside from that disappointment, the run of Jamaican giant Usain Bolt in the 100m was nothing short of astonishing as he danced over the line in 9.69s at least two metres ahead of his closest rival. The last time I was amazed by a 100m run was Ben Johnson's 9.79s demolition of the field in Seoul twenty years ago, but his subsequent positive test for nandrolone cast a shadow over the sport from which it has struggled to emerge. Time will tell but Bolt seems a different character who will do the sport a lot of good. In the pool, the utter domination of Michael Phelps as he won his 8 gold medals, each in a new world record, was also fascinating to watch. It was in the first Olympics that I remember, Munich 1972, that Mark Spitz won seven golds, a record that Phelps, now the most decorated Olympian ever, has just eclipsed. There is a degree of envy that a swimmer like Phelps, talented as he undoubtedly is, has the opportunity to go for so many golds whereas someone like Katherine, who will train every bit as hard, has only one chance at one event.

Whether Sean will remember these Olympics is debatable. He and Finn have been insisting on watching the evening highlights but that is more of a stalling tactic to avoid going to bed than genuine interest, although Sean does have his moments. What I remember most about the 1972 Olympics of course, is coming home from school (P2) and wondering why the Olympics weren't on; the coverage instead being that of the Israeli team being held hostage. Events like that put sport into perspective but it is no less heart-breaking to see someone like Katherine who has put so much into her sport and achieved so much (she is the first British woman to have medalled at three Olympics) be denied the Olympic gold she had set her heart on.

Go west young man

I was through at Ardrossan on Friday for a team away day. Steve in our team has a rather nice 39-foot yacht so rather than do the usual day's Krypton factor activities at some country house, we took to the Firth of Clyde instead. I can't say I was disappointed that there wasn't much of a wind blowing, but it would have been nicer to experience something other than the flat calm conditions that we encountered at several points in the day's sailing, the water like a black millpond in places. There was enough of a breeze here and there for us to have a race between two buoys and to understand that you go quicker into a wind than with the wind behind (the wind doesn't blow the sail: it's all about the flow of air over the sail creating a pocket of low pressure ahead of the sail into which the sail, and hence the yacht, is sucked. So there you are.) We had a very pleasant lunch moored off Millport which looked splendid in the May sunshine. We were far enough away not to be able to see the peeling paint. The motor and auto-pilot were fired up for the return journey as sail power wouldn't have got us home till well after dark!

With the forecast set fair yesterday and Sharon manning a stand at Gardening Scotland, I decided to take the boys through to Largs. It was a long drive through via Greenock (about 1:40) but was well worth it as the sun blazed down all day and the boys had a great time. We picnicked on the grass at the Broomfields then walked out to the Pencil, with Sean and Finn playing on the rocks now and then. The tide was out so requests for a paddle were refused as, despite all its good qualities, Largs just doesn't have a good beach for paddling. It's too pebbly. North Berwick wins there. Possibly NB's rocks are an easier option for clambering over too, as Rowan couldn't really manage the ridges and conglomerate rocks that mark the Largs shoreline.

We returned to the Ices kiosk by what used to be the paddling pool at the Mackerston putting green. No pool now: it's a large playground. The queue for ice-creams and the promenade and playpark were mobbed. It was good to see the resort busy in the bright sunshine, rather than recall some of my memories of a wind- and rain-lashed front peopled by a couple of old biddies in raincoats and rain-mates battling through the elements to seeking the solace of a broken-down shelter. I was telling the boys about once losing a small ball to the boat pond, having been rolling it up the hill as we walked along and fielding it as it came back down again. It's sad that the pond has gone but it was something of an anachronism. The boys got more enjoyment out of the playpark!

We drove into town and picked up some more food for a back-street picnic before heading down to the beach by the pier for some stone-throwing, Rowan delighted when I used his arm to "throw" stones into the sea with a splash. Finn and Sean were great walkers all day with very little complaining and Finn didn't even flinch when dogs passed him, which was a refreshing change. They were all very tired and slept most of the drive home (it's definitely quicker via Kilbirnie) which meant a rather late bed-time for them once they were bathed and had a late supper. It was approaching 2230 before Finn and Sean finally settled, Sean nursing some rather sore feet where his fake Crocs had been rubbing at his flesh.

No love lost

We've covered a lot of miles this week. Sharon did a double-header yesterday with a coffee morning show up in Stirlingshire and an evening one down in the south-west, beyond Castle Douglas. She was fairly pooped on her return after midnight but obviously felt she had to keep her numbers up before our week in France.

I had my annual football match outing on Tuesday, heading through to Paisley for the Cup quarter-final replay between St. Mirren and St. Johnstone. The traffic through Glasgow was dead slow and stop and I got to the game 14 minutes late. Just in time to see the Perth Saints volley in an opener, in fact. Ten minutes later they were 3-0 up. They even missed a penalty before the Buddies pulled one back from the penalty spot. Little consolation for what should be the last cup-tie played at Love Street. The ground has been sold and Saints' new stadium is under construction at Greenhill Road in the town.

So that was probably my last visit to Love Street, and typically unsatisfactory. In the last couple of decades, St. Mirren's most memorable performances have probably been away from home. The travelling support are usually more fun too, determined to enjoy the day whatever the outcome. My first outing to a football match was on a sunny day in August 1972, the first day of a new season. St. Mirren, relegated the season before, trounced Brechin City 5-1. I can remember sitting with my Dad on the grass at the top of the Caledonia St. end, surveying the match being played out on the pitch below. My Dad always said I didn't run about and play like most of the other wee boys that had probably been lifted over the turnstiles by fathers and uncles: I was always was interested in the game.

St. Mirren Park gradually lost its oval shape and reduced its capacity over the years. The crowds my Dad used to talk about for matches in the fifties seemed enormous in my day (the Love St. record was about 47,000 and I think there was 108,000 at Hampden for either the 1959 Cup final or semi-final). I can remember us being crushed at the turnstiles for a League Cup quarter-final replay against Celtic in the early 80s when there was 27,000 in the ground, 2,000 more than capacity. These days, with so much televised football, the cost of admission and other diversions for one-time diehards and their offspring, even a match against the Old Firm barely draws 8,000 through the gates.

The one time I set foot on the pitch was thirty years ago when the Glennifer Cubs team visited on a miserable winter's night. The rain was teeming down as the players trained and we were allowed the luxury of trying to kick balls through the puddles and mud at the Love St. end of the oval. I can remember small, net-less metal-framed goals, the reflection of the floodlights on the puddles and getting absolutely soaked. It wasn't particularly inspiring, although I did score 27 goals that season and was player of the year!

I mused on this as the game was played out to its conclusion on Tuesday night. It was more fun than watching the football on show!

Scotland, England, Ireland (not Wales)

It's strange where your allegiances lie and will be interesting to see how our boys' attitudes develop, given the mix of their parents' nationalities.

Rugby: I was delighted to watch Scotland beat England 15-9 in the wind and rain (and sun) at Murrayfield on Saturday, only their third win over the Auld Enemy since the glorious Grand Slam of 1990. Sean and Finn were shouting "Scawt-lind! Scawt-lind!" in time-honoured schoolboy chant fashion, for the few minutes that they paused from jumping all over me and the sofas. According to the English-centric ITV news, Scotland "snatched victory" from the English. Interesting turn of phrase given that Scotland were never behind in the game. The sort of phrase that does bring out the rabid "wha's like us?" mentality.

Cricket: I was then appalled at England's demise in 53 overs on the final day of the first test match versus New Zealand, collapsing to 110 all out and a 189-run defeat on a docile pitch. I didn't always support England at cricket. As a child I just liked the most exciting teams and players which usually meant anyone playing against England, especially the West Indies. Gradually though I came to support England as the "local" team, however disappointing that can be. Mainly now I just want to see Australia beaten!

Football: Supporting Scotland has been an arduous task over the years but, like following St. Mirren, I don't have much choice in that one.

Golf: It's a Ryder Cup year and since 1985 this has been the sporting contest that has meant the most to me, despite being only a moderately interested golf fan. Possibly because it is the European underdogs against the cocky Yanks at the only recognisable world sport that both play in a team context and possibly because Europe has had such success over the last twenty years, it has been thrilling to watch and given me the greatest boosts and a few horrible let-downs in that time.

As with most of my sporting support, I seem doomed to follow mediocre teams who disappoint far more than they elevate. Does my nature crave confirmation of low expectations? I'd argue not. As an individual I like to compete and come out on top. But I've got lazier over the years and it's easier to stick in my comfort zone and think that none of us are very good. That's not a view that I want the boys to endorse, of course, especially if they grow to be able young men. Hard work is worth it, most of the time, and if you can't depend on who you support to uplift you, you have to do it yourself.

Sean is starting to take a little interest in watching football when the highlights are on, but neither him nor Finn are showing any great sporting prowess to date, preferring their running-around and imaginative play. Sean's weekly Ball Sports class frequently passes without him getting a touch of the Ball, regardless of the Sport being played! It's early days yet!

The eyes have it

Sean has been referred to an optician following an eye test at school. It would appear, in my layman's opinion, that he may have an astigmatism in his right eye as he says he can see the letters when he turns his head but not when looking straight at them.

Sounds familiar to me: I got glasses "for reading and close work" at the age of 5 after a similar school test although it was always touch and go whether I really needed them. I can remember doing some binocular test at the Eye Pavilion in Paisley where there was a flowerpot visible through one eye-piece and a flower visible through the other. I was asked whether or not I could see the flower in the flowerpot. I can remember wondering what the right answer was and I said yes, but I'm not convinced that I could. It seemed to be the deciding factor and I was prescribed a lovely pair of NHS spectacles. I remember wishing that I had said no, and then maybe things would have been different.

After ten years the opticians decided the glasses weren't making any difference and I was able to consign them and their vicious finger-trapping case to a drawer. My eyesight still isn't great. I have astigmatisms at different angles in each eye so I can compensate by turning my head slightly. I think I would have been a better cricketer if I had better visual acuity (and stronger arms and more cricket ability...). Lesley said I always used to turn my head when watching television and frown a little when reading. I've certainly noticed Sean frowning a bit too when he's reading.

So, looks like Sean may have my eyes and Finn has eyes like Lesley. It is two years since he began wearing glasses and it is second nature to him. Hopefully Rowan has his mother's hawk-like eyesight. He certainly looks very like her about the eyes, apart from his muddy coloured irises.

A trip to Paisley

I picked Lesley up on a filthy afternoon last Thursday to drive through snow showers and gales and rain to Paisley for Frank's funeral. Before heading to the Woodside crematorium, Lesley and I did the obligatory tour of the old landmarks. We got stuck in Paisley town centre's new road layout that has more or less killed off what little commerce was able to survive before the advent of the massive shopping complex at Braehead.

Glenburn too was quite an eye-opener. Approaching from the "Grants" end of Fairway Avenue I was perplexed by a large swathe of green and an unbroken view of the line of the Braes. The view south from the Fairway Avenue bus terminus is now uninterrupted as the tenements of Fairway, Skye Cres, Bute Cres, Iona Drive and Lismore Drive are all gone, save for a line across from the shops at the corner of Colonsay Rd. On my last trip up to Glenburn one of the tenements in Fairway Ave was ablaze, a not uncommon occurrence as the demolition men fought a losing battle to keep the vandals out.

The area bounded by Glenburn Rd, Fairway Ave, Skye Cres shops and the "Park" running alongside Colonsay Rd was once my life, save for daily forays to Bushes Primary school. How small it seems now! About 400 metres square; the walk to primary school was about half a mile. The gaps left by the demolition work diminish the scale of the scheme. You can see from one boundary to the next with the merest head turn. The terraced houses that remain seem to hug the gently sloping terrain for fear that they too will be uprooted and ground into rubble. The bleak weather didn't help.

Sometimes it is instructive to get down to the boys' height and see their perspective on the world. The house stairs look huge when you see them from Rowan's viewpoint. Maybe that's how it is with the places of your childhood: the scale was different then compared to now. It's the same with time. Finn's fourth year will represent 25% of his existence; my last year was only 2.5% of mine. No wonder we have different views on life!

Frank's funeral was as enjoyable as these things can be. It was a humanist service featuring some Scottish Country Dance music, aptly "The Horticulturist", and an excellent reading from Grigor who had been instructed by Frank that there was to be "NO GRIEVING". There were certainly some smiles as Grigor told stories of Frank's time in the police and his prviate celebrations, such as his birthday "triathlons": 50 lengths in the pool, a 20 mile cycle and then a good walk in the afternoon.

We left in a gale to meet up at the Watermill Hotel. It was good to see the cousins again but we're so spread out these days that it's only at times like this we're likely to get together. As a case in point, Grigor was dashing off, at Dorothy's insistence, to catch a flight to New York where he'll be celebrating his 50th birthday with a cruise on the Queen Mary. Dorothy, not surprisingly, was tearful and tired looking but her independence borne from life as a policeman's wife should hold her in good stead as she faces up to life without her husband of close on 56 years.

Rest in peace, Frank.

Frank Grant 1927-2008

My Uncle Frank died suddenly yesterday at the age of 80. It was quite a shock as he was always fit and healthy, having retired with my Aunt Dorothy to a top-floor flat some years ago and still a regular on his bike and at the swimming. He went out for the milk and rolls yesterday morning and didn't return. He was such a creature of habit, Dorothy sensed something was wrong and phoned the hospital. The police later turned up at her door with the sad news.

When I was young, Frank was always quite a fearsome character. He hailed from Elgin and was a "big Heilan' polis", working for Strathclyde police until his retiral. He was strict and fastidious, the epitome of a policeman. He was very handy at painting and decorating and a gardener of some renown, tending his prize-winning stepped garden which bordered the "zig-zag" path up towards Braehead from Glenburn Crescent. And he also kept bees for a while. I remember being quite proud when Tullochs, the local butcher at Skye Crescent shops, was selling jars of honey with F.Grant printed on the labels.

Frank was always active and still looked fit when I last saw him at Billy's funeral last April. He and Dorothy used to help out at Comrie House, where my Gran Barr lived out the last few years of her life before she passed away in 1992, but it got to the stage where they were almost older than some of the residents. Frank was a homebird and liked his routines. Not for him the foreign jaunts that Dorothy likes to embark upon.

When you are the youngest of the litter, as I am, and you effectively move away from your home town at the end of your schooling, and your own parents die when you are relatively young, it's at times like this you realise how little you do know about some of your family members and how much you have let contact with them dwindle. Sharon has a similar problem in a way, being the eldest of all her cousins and almost stranded between her parents' siblings and her own generation. But the sense of family and community she carries with her is much stronger than in me and something she misses greatly living here in Scotland. She is far better than me at keeping in touch with the important people in your life, your family.

You always think you'll see people again, but sometimes you leave it too late.

For now, my thoughts are with Dorothy and the terrible shock of suddenly losing Frank, and with Wendy and Grigor.