To be honest, I'd kinda forgotten what the outside world looked like. Having recently passed the Mother-In-Law of all deadlines, I was finally able to venture out of the house this week: hurrah! Or it would have been 'hurrah', if not for the bloody snow. I am fed up of snow and would now like it to bugger off wherever snow goes when it dies.
In previous years I would've taken some time to build a vaguely obscene snowman (or woman) in the back garden, but this year I've been confined to the house with the aforementioned deadlineitis - staring out through the window like a grubby, measlly child, only without all the unflattering spots. Which kinda takes the fun out of snow. If you can't make rude snowmen out of it, write your name in it, or throw it at people, what good is it?
But no longer - now I can go out and do other stuff. Stuff that doesn't involve making up lies about people who don't exist. Well, you know, other than research and planning Book Number The Seventh**. So I tried getting out of the house yesterday, and my nipples still hate me for it.
Bad nipples. Naughty.
It was probably my own fault for not taping over them*** when I was getting ready in the morning. For the sake of couple of Elastoplast I could have maintained nipple-integrity, instead of having what looks like a pair of chewed strawberry Jellytots glued to my manly chest.
Day didn't exactly get off to a roaring start either. She Who Must Give Her Husband A Lift, Because His Car Won't Go In The Snow And Has Spent The Last Month And A Bit Sulking In The Garage****, dropped me off at the train station in Dyce yesterday morning on her way to work. Normal rush hour in Aberdeen is a vast, burning pain in the behind, but ever since the snow came it's been made even worse by the huge collection of ninnies who have about as much business being behind the wheel of a motor vehicle as a perverted octopus has being in your underwear drawer. Gettin' yer pants all slimy and smellin' of fish...
Hmm, maybe not the best of analogies.
Anyway, we got stuck behind a lovely person in a silver Ford Fiesta thing, doing thirty miles an hour all the way into town. Seriously, Princess (and I'm not using 'Princess' here to imply that it was a woman driving, because it wasn't, it's just a general term of crappy-driving abuse) if you're that scared to be on the road ... DON'T BLOODY DRIVE!!! Park up somewhere nice and live off the hairy jelly babies that have accumulated in the passenger footwell of your car until the snow melts. Dear God, we live in the North East of Scotland and every time there's anything even vaguely approaching snow or rain, these people drive like they've got a boot full of nitroglycerine and excitable puppies! Dicks...
Anyway, digressing again.
So, the reason I was going into town yesterday was to meet up with a mate for a pint and a vaguely-nasty hamburger in the evening, and to get some publicity shots done for a wee tour I might be doing in Germany later in the year.
"Oh, hark at him," I hear you mumble, through a mouthful of biscuits, "Mr Glamorous international photography boy!"
Cynical, sarcastic bastards that you are.
I know it sounds all glam, and the guy taking the shots is one of the best in the business (John Borwski who's a bit of a legend in Aberdeen) and a genuinely nice guy to boot. But that doesn't change the fact that it was the two of us sodding about in the sleet, snow, and howling wind all afternoon. By the time we finished, he couldn't feel his fingers, and my nipples were glowing like twin Rudolphs. Dear Jesus and his My Little Pony hot-water-bottle, it was cold.
All very Aberdonian and atmospheric though, and perfectly appropriate for promoting Dark Blood, being set as it is on the January-February cusp. But it's Blind Eye that'll be coming out in Germany this year, which is set in the height of summer. Now, there are some years when the height of summer in Aberdeen is indistinguishable from the depths of winter everywhere else, but in the book I lied like a bastard and made it blisteringly hot. Hahahaha... oh, the irony.
Especially as my nipples now look like two burst blisters.
Try not to think about them too much, OK?
* This post doesn't really have anything to do with 'soup' - I just thought it sounded classier than 'raw nipple' on it's own.
** Not counting Halfhead.
*** Like an episode of the Simpsons.
**** The Car, Not She Who Must
Labels: Book Number The Seventh, Dark Blood, rant, Whinge