Seagulling. Quite Literally.

This has been something of an extended stay in the Land of Jock. I arrived some time ago, the precise date and time are lost on me at the moment, but it's been long enough to become accustomed to off licences that fail to serve after 22:00 and legions of school children that prowl the town at lunchtime eating various items of battered and deep fried foodstuffs. Not just the usual chips, fish, sausage and chicken nuggets; but also black pudding, pies, pizza and chocolate. I shit you not.

A plan had been set for a trip to Mull and an engagement with Sea Eagles. However, wet and stormy weather on Scotland's west coast sent me and Mrs Mac scuttling for the balmier climes of the east coast where we set up camp in Belhaven. A few days walking on long, clean, sandy beaches, eating lobster and chips, and sharing a tent with a Staffordshire Bull Terrier were topped off with a boat trip out to Bass Rock, a volcanic plug of phonolitic trachyte rock a mile or so out from North Berwick. There are no Sea Eagles resident on Bass Rock but there are some 200,000 gannets occupying just about every and any survivable surface on the rock. They squawk, shriek, strut about and shit on the ground. The only other place I've witnessed so many birds behaving in such a manner is Croydon on a Saturday night.

 I guess that an open fishing boat, bobbing about in the North Sea with 200,000 gannets flying about, might be an unintended target for a spot of guano. And indeed during said trip, some airborne bird shit did indeed head southward into the open boat. Directly onto the face of an attractive, blonde woman that was enjoying a wee seaborne sojourn with her boyfriend. As I witnessed the white, sticky substance hit the woman around her mouth I had an odd flashback to a video I once watched. One that was purchased from underneath the counter of the local video shop. The female reaction to the facially accommodated bodily function failed to concur with what I'd seen on the TV screen, however.

Anyway, on to matters running. The River Ayr Way Race is almost upon us and I've done fuck all training. I have secured an entry to the race but have serious doubts as to my ability to run for 41 miles without the wheels seriously falling off. At this time I'm in two minds as to whether starting the race is a good idea. At the very least a tale of pain and early withdrawal would provide an antidote to all the crowing, 'I'm so great' blog tales that are bound to appear afterward, but that really shouldn't be a reason for taking part.

What I've discovered is that if I do run the race, and subsequently decide to withdraw, it's unlikely that I'll be able to make myself understood anyway and will have to run to the finish. I initially realised the perceived alien nature of my accent when attempting to purchase soup for Mrs Mac's lunch. The woman serving me responded to my request for 'a serving of yer finest loop-the-loop and a bread roll, love' with a cocked head and a confused smile. I eventually exited the cafe with a polystyrene cup of soup and two slices of bread. But today a trip to KFC, coupled with an Asian purveyor and a Cockney customer, resulted in twice the amount of fizzy drink ordered and a complete lack of the requested corn on the cob ('two bits a cawn, mate' obviously translated as 'please furnish me with enough Pepsi Cola to sail a fuckin' battleship.').

Mrs Mac has noticed an odd occurrence where, rather than taming my Cockney accent in the face of confusion, I actually broaden it as I attempt to make myself understood. This isn't something I do intentionally, although I do hear a South London accent bouncing off the walls and wonder if Ray Winstone is in the house. I should point out that this isn't my first time in a faraway land where men wear skirts and women have a hierarchical system based on the number of their remaining teeth, and I appear to have got along OK thus far. So maybe the Jocks are becoming more Scottish or I'm becoming more Cockney, I'm not too sure, bless ya cotton socks, me old china. But if you happen to be in the vicinity of the River Ayr Way on Saturday and you meet a Cockney fella that says:

'I'm cream crackered, do me a favour and call me a sherbet,' it doesn't mean I want you to feed me dry, savoury biscuits and children's powdered sweets.

Laters.