Cumbernauld House Park

We did the Cumbernauld Glen walk in the afternoon, which has a nice contrast between the wooded glen and the large open grassy spaces of Cumbernauld House Park. Much fun was had rolling down the slopes and taking time lapse videos of the clouds.

In the morning we watched the Women's World Cup Final which was a very exciting match but it was not to be for the lionesses after their victory in the Euros last year. Spain are world champions.

After our usual roast chicken Sunday dinner we did another family voice memo discussion about the week just gone and here is the transcription:

Week Ending 20th August 2023

So, it is the 20th of August, 2023, and we're going to try and recall what's happened this
week.
Weekly family blog, um, eventful things that have happened.

Conor:
Conor, what was the big eventful thing that happened to you this week?
The Nintendo 64 games.
No, not that.
You started back at school, didn't you?
In primary six?
Who's your teacher?
Mrs. Duggan.
Yeah.
Um, and you've had three days back at school now.
How do you feel?
I feel good.
Good?
I only tell things in one word.
Okay.
So, Conor going back to school was a big event this week.
Um, what else?
We did Orla’s summer interview.
Yes, we have done over the course of yesterday, and Sunday.
We have completed the summer 2023 interview.
Yep.
Um, Mum?

Mum:
I was in the Glasgow office on Monday and Tuesday.
And then I went to Blackburn Wednesday and Thursday.
And then I worked from home on Friday.
Um, I had quite a big meeting on Thursday where I managed to kind of,
where I had to kind of communicate to a group of sort of senior people
the scale of the challenge that we have facing us in terms of ESG reporting.
And because they had, like basically they thought that the IT department
could just build me a spreadsheet.
And then so I did a whole presentation to show them why that wasn't going to work.
And at the end of the presentation everybody was like,
yeah, that's not going to work.
Let's just pay for proper packages.
So that was a big win for me.
Oh, wow.
I felt quite good about that.
Excellent.
Um, and then I have been also continuing with my training for the half marathon.
So I did...
I did, well, four Ks on Friday and 11 Ks today.
Maybe.
Doing a special technique, which I learned.
So I'm following Ailish McColgan's training program for doing run walk training.
So I'm basically like I run for three minutes and I walk for a minute.
So you don't feel too shouted.
No, that's completely fine.
It's just boring.
It's not boring.
Listen to podcasts.
And then there comes a point where I put my playlist on and I listen to music.
And the one minute walk actually lets you change podcasts and stuff.
Yeah.
Change songs.
Yeah, if you want to.

Orla:
Um, something else I remember I should probably mention.
Um, over the course of this week I have done module four and assignment four of physics.
And then, so I did the assignment on Wednesday.
And then English language.
I managed to complete the whole module in a day and then complete the assignment on Friday.
Because unusually there's only one topic for English language.
But managed to get them both done.
Um, also, like since it's the first week that Con has been at school.
I have, and also because of Mum being away in Blackburn.
Um, only just realised how empty the house feels when there's only just me and Dad in it.
And like, realised again that I'm very much not good at being alone.
Like, example?
Um, I don't know.
I can get caught off my own head, I guess.
And like, when there's not other people around.
It's hard to have like a distinct separation between certain states of mind.
Like at lunch there's a very different state of mind before and after lunch.
Because you have other people to like grounds that almost.
But if you just by yourself, like at lunch or at dinner in the evening.
It's like, I mean Conor is with me, don't know.
But there was an evening where Dad was outside and Conor was upstairs.
And I was by myself and it was like, weird.
Yeah.
Because Conor was upstairs because, another thing that happened to Conor is he got a new room.
I rearranged your room for you, didn't I?
How did you like your new room?
Good.
But also presumably you were upstairs because you don't mind being on your own.
You quite like it.
Well, not only did he have his new room, he also had, this is on his first day back, I was at second day back.
The Nintendo 64 games.
He had a subscription, a new subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online.
So, yeah.
Which gave him access to all the Nintendo 64 games.
So Con, what were you playing?
What were you?
You had access, I gave you access to the Nintendo 64 games.
Anything to say about that?
Not at all.
What's the one you're playing the most?
Speak up. What is it?
I only don't say things because you don't know what it is.
How do you?
Only asking you to say one word.
We had the Nintendo 64.
We're asking you to say one word.
What game are you playing?
One word.
Or just one thing.
Towel.
Well, he's been playing a lot of the original Legend of Zelda.
That sort of scene.
That's only the second most.
Second most, okay.
I've never guessed what the first most means.
Mario?
No.
Donkey Kong?
Mario Kart?
No.
I don't believe there are Donkey Kong games on there.
Okay.
What is it then?
Long silence.
I'm waiting for Conor to answer.
Okay, sadly we've run out of time, Conor.
Right, what were you going to say, Dad?
What's your week been like?

Dad:
Well, it's been like taking Conor to school.
Doing interview with Orla.
Learning R for a potential contract.

Orla:
Yeah, I might want to mention what we did today.
Do you know what I did do?
Something quite important happened today.
Go on.

Dad:
Yeah, we watched the World Cup final this morning.
England were in the World Cup final for the first time since 1966.
Yes.
The Lionesses.
Versus Spain.
It was a very exciting match.
1-0 to Spain.
But it was very tense, particularly when Spain were awarded a penalty.
And I did a lot of blipping, including figuring out how to...
I used Google Collaborative.
I watched a video about the best way to get a free transcription of a voice recording
using Google Collaborative and an open source Python script from OpenAI,
which I transcribed all the voice recordings that we'd done of the holiday,
which was incredibly only last week.
And then put those onto Blip, onto Blip,
and then did a whole load of other extra things on Blip
and made a couple of more YouTube videos and put those up.
Doing the things that I need to catch up on whilst I'm between contracts.
What was it we did today?
We had a walk in Cumbernauld Glen.
Cumbernauld House Park.
Yes, Cumbernauld House Park.
And it was very, very nice.
We went on the walk and we discussed things.
And Conor and I did the mock argument thingy,
which you did a voice recording of, which is very funny.
The last one was insanely long.
Yeah.
That would be funny getting a transcription of that.
Yeah, we rolled down a hill.
Did you enjoy rolling down a hill?
I very much did enjoy rolling down a hill.
It felt like being in a washing machine.
How do you know what that feels like?
Empathy.
Dizziness.
And we've got a guest.
We've had a guest for dinner.
A fly, which is quite a rarity.
Mum's just pointed out that the leaves seem to be starting to turn brown.
Yep, it won't leave.
And it's still August.
What's that all about?
Time's getting colder.
It's not actually getting colder yet.
The temperature is about 20 degrees, probably still now.
It's not been sunny though, sadly.
It's just been clouds.
Oh, I also forgot to say on Friday was the 17th anniversary
of us moving to Glen Lochay Gardens.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Didn't I actually know that?
Yeah, we didn't mark it.
I've now added something to the calendar that will remind us.
Which would have been rather important considering our recent decision to not move.
Also, speaking of anniversaries, today is Halley and Connor's first wedding anniversary.
A year ago today we were at their wedding.
Yep.
Anything else?
Would you like to add anything, Conor?
Yep.
I do not believe there is anything else to add.
Oh, wait, wait.
There is something else to add.
What was it we watched on Friday and yesterday?
Well, yesterday we watched four weddings and a funeral.
Which I very much enjoyed.
Good, that was a 90s classic.

Conor:
I thought the funeral part would just be...
I thought the funeral part was because some person died,
I thought it would just be some random person and you wouldn't see them die.

Dad:
No.
Well, it was quite sad, wasn't it?
Because it's one of the main characters.
Orla had said just moments before he died,
oh, he's my favourite character or maybe my second favourite character.
And I was thinking, oh, he's about to die.
That was the intention though.
He's supposed to be one of your favourites.
Because he said before something about go out and have fun or something like that.
He says go forth and conjugate.
But yeah.
And then what did we watch on Friday?

Orla:
On Friday, we watched the first episode of Shelter,
which is a sort of mystery series.
Yeah, it's like a kind of American high school spooky house mystery.
Yeah, and I really, really enjoyed it.
And I'm very intrigued and I definitely am looking forward to watching the rest of it.
And then we watched the first half, a bit less than half of...
Triangle of Sadness.
Triangle of Sadness, which felt vaguely like a modern art piece.
Yeah, but I think when we actually get round to watching the second half,
it will actually feel like we've watched two different films.
Yeah.
It was very strange.

Mum and Dad talk reminisce about From Dusk Til Dawn:
But I think it will be slightly reminiscent of that experience.
What were you talking about?
Where you think you're watching one film and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my god.
What happened?
Also, are you referencing something specific?
Yeah, we're referencing a film called From Dusk till Dawn, a Quentin Tarantino film.
Which we will now spoil forever.
We'll never have the same experience that we had when we watched that at the cinema
and not even knowing what it was about.
And we were almost about to leave because we were so sickened by the...
Because it's Quentin Tarantino, it's all 18 certificates.
Like, Pulp Fiction, for example.
Right, it was so not much, wasn't it?
And we thought, oh, this is just beyond...
This is like, don't really fancy watching this if this develops any further.
And then it all went completely wild.
It went perfect.
Because what didn't seem like a vampire movie turned into a vampire movie.
Oh.
We had no idea, we hadn't seen any synopsis of it or anything.
I didn't even know why we went to watch it then.
Probably because we were just like, oh, it's Quentin Tarantino.
Might as well.
It must be good.
Turned into vampires?
But then it became hilariously kind of...
They had me to at least build it.
Hilariously violent and it was definitely an 18.
I mean, by the time I watch it, it will be three years since now,
so maybe I'll have forgotten, maybe.
Yeah, we'll just say, oh, this is a really nice movie that you can watch
and it involves some horrible things to begin with.
But then it gets...
But then those people get their comeuppance in a hilarious vampire fashion.
No, don't mention the vampires to me.
I want that to be a surprise.
OK.
And hopefully we don't listen to this voice recording any time around then.
Shh.
Yeah, so the second half of any of these voice recordings
will just be us reminiscing about stuff.
Yeah.
But we do still have the rest of Triangle Sadness Award.
Yeah.
And hopefully they don't turn into vampires.
Or maybe hopefully they do, because that'd be funny.
That's us.
18 minutes.

Added a little later:
I forgot to say, which might have been obvious.
It's obvious, we didn't need to think about saying it,
was that we had a roast...
We had just had a roast dinner.
Oh, yeah, that was totally true.
Roast chicken.
Yeah, just had a roast chicken and gravy.
Which we have almost every Sunday.
I don't know if it's worth mentioning here.
I don't know how many of these we're going to do.
And sprouts for the first time.
Yeah, ages.
In ages, because it's been summer.
Which I actually, for the first time, liked.
Properly liked.
Good.
To be fair, they were a jam and gravy, but still.
And on Friday night, we had pesto chicken.
Yes, with penne pasta.
With penne pasta.
It's your favourite, isn't it?
I actually prefer spaghetti.
Really?
Yeah.
We'll alternate it then.
Okay.
I like penne.
But we still can't have pesto every Friday.
Yeah, sadly.
And you appreciate it more when you do have it.
Yep.
That's all.