After falling asleep at the unbelievably early hour of 8pm last night (jetlag rules) I awoke at 7am this morning, I now have the sleeping pattern of a toddler. Though I didn’t wake up pissing the bed or screaming for toast and jam (like most toddlers) I just stumbled about staring at the excruciating sunshine blasting through my bedroom window. I hoovered, I washed clothes, I washed dishes and it still wasn’t even 8am yet. My life is officially over, gone are the days when I could sleep till 3 o’clock like a right good comedian. I am going to be like one of those old ladies, who wake up at 6am, put on a housedress and then fall asleep on the sofa listening to The Archers.

As it was extremely hot again in Glasgow, I headed out to The Botanic gardens which I like to call The Satanic Gardens...no good reason, I just like mixing my words up, as I am now old I can get away with kind of batty behaviour.

The park was already full of young mums and babies who could now walk, albeit like wee drunken Scottish men. I saw one pink dressed girl with wee croissant type chubby legs, she wobbled about, got into her stride and then the slight slope of the grassy verge took her into a speed that gathered momentum, she was practically sprinting. She surprised herself at the speedy gait she was going at, her upper body was trying to balance and catch up with the bendy robotic legs that just swept her all the way. Her mum dropped a full picnic bag and belted after Zola Budd the baby. I watched wondering how it would all end and it did end, the baby tumbled full tilt into a big blue flowered bush head first and screamed! It was fine, the mum picked her up and the chubby legs speed off again in another direction.

It was funny for a wee while; I got quite broody watching the baby, and then recalled how every time we went to the park Ashley always managed to run in the direction of the only moving car in the park or the only rabid dog in the park or managed to run into a bees nest in an old tree trunk. So, with that in mind I pitied the poor mum who was constantly chasing fatty leg the sprinting baby and lay back for a snooze.

Then annoying students turned up with an electronic glider plane that made girls scream like referee’s whistles as it dive bombed their heads. I sat on my blanket reading happily but silently decided if that glider hits me I would ram it up the ass of the skinny boy with emotional hair, who is running about trying to control it with a small black box. The box seemed to have no control over the object whatsoever. It was pitching and dipping all over the place.

A brood arrived beside me, all middle class moms with Boden clad babies, wooden ethically approved bikes, raffia mats and followed by cucumber eating kids who sported tie dyed tee shirts and fat t-bar sandals.

Couscous, quiche, carrot sticks and organically grown fruit was scattered on a scabby looking blanket (it was probably very expensive and hand hewn, but to me it look smelly) and the kids all gathered round chomping into the grub. Two mums breast fed as the other women organised a sing song. Just then the black glider came out of nowhere and belted a baby on the neck.

It was a joy to behold watching Middle Class Mummy goes mental and snaps the expensive looking electronic aeroplane over her gypsy-skirted knee. The student tried to protest but the breast feeding mummy was rubbing ‘Hugo’s’ neck and screamed “Are you trying to kill our children?”

People stared and people giggled, I watched and hoped middle class mum would ram the broken aeroplane up his ass, but that didn’t happen. Skinny student skulked off and the mummies had a rousing sing –a- long of “Incey Wincey Spider”.

But things then perked up when a bunch of really fat women in strappy yellow and pink vests, with random tattoos over their arms and chests, threw themselves on the grass and cracked open a case of cider. They shouted, swore and started singing “I see you baby shaking that ass” to the park keeper who was cleaning up the grass.

The mummy’s, the kids and the babies were all dragged off to the corner of the park under a big tree and hopefully out of earshot of the fat singing tattooed ladies.

The heat cranked up and before long everyone on the grass slumped down and snoozed for a while. It was like some sleeping drug had been sprayed over the crowd. Even the chubby babies who had been screaming shut up and lay back.

Finally I gave in and headed off home. It got too hot for me, even in the shade I was started to melt. Hope it sunny tomorrow at the park, or maybe I should stay home and write that thing I am supposed to be doing?

I went over to see my niece Ann Margaret and her kids. I had just missed Shawn and Abi, as they were at school but got to spend time with wee Julia. We took her out
to the local cafe and we sat outside in the early morning sunshine.

Julia tottered about; she is so cute and is two and half years old. She spotted
a wee fat woodlouse on the concrete tiles. “Look a wee bug” she pointed. “Go say hello to it Julia” I said.

She bent down, her wee bum in the air; she put her face near the louse and said loudly “Are you out here for a wee smoke?”

All the adults who were puffing on a ciggie and quaffing coffee stared at each other and stubbed out their fags. I laughed loudly; I could just imagine a wood louse having a wee fag. Julia decided to ‘touch’ it to see how it felt and I think the wood louse became a squashed dot on the tiles, but we ignored that bit.

I headed home and tried not to think about sleeping as my jet lag is a killer.

So now today I up at 6am.

After spending a whole month in freezing cold New Zealand, I am now bathed in glorious hot Glasgow sunshine, and I still complain. I have realised that the weather and I are never going to be best friends. Though I must admit Glasgow
looks great in the bright hot sun, we do wear a yellow day well.

My jet lag still persists in dragging me down, I am falling asleep at 8pm and waking at 5am, this will continue for another week then will probably be my sleep pattern for life when I hit 50 years old (which is soon), so am just practising for getting old and going to bed early.

But yesterday I got up, and did some paperwork, house cleaning and got some early shouting at family done, it’s always good to get the shouting done before midday,
I feel. Husband and Ashley are avid bathroom cleaning avoiders; they both don’t
see the need to scrub toilets or tiles. Which means it’s MY job to get that done.

After moaning at people, I packed a bag and went out to the park. The Glasgow Botanic gardens were mobbed out! There were people sprawled out on almost every single patch of grass as far as the eye could see! The ice cream van was doing
a roaring trade and old people leaned against fences and mopped their faces with cotton hankies. I found a wee shady spot, camped out and read a book in the warm
sun for about ten minutes and then got bored. I don’t do outdoor sitting very well.
I get uncomfortable; I get jittery and then start wandering about. I may have developed some mental illness that prevents me from sitting still for ages, or
maybe I was always this way? I don’t know.

A wedding party were being photographed, some poor bride picked today to get wed and her photos will be full of semi-naked fat Glaswegians in her backgrounds. I watched a drunken man throw an empty beer can at the bride and then watched as the garden ‘police’ threw him out. This is the West End of Glasgow, people don’t throw cans at brides!

I continued watching Glaswegians in the hot sun and it was fun. The park was dominated with students as the park is close to Glasgow University. Big over grown yet tenderly young gangly boys with under developed white concave chests crouched beside studious looking girls whose startlingly white legs look strangely lumpy in childlike shorts. Just heaps of very young kids who looked like they had grown up too quickly were wearing badly fitting clothes and trying hard to pass off as cool sun drenched adults.

Books were strewn around them and all I could hear were boy/man voices trying hard to impress the scantily clad girls. I watched the group and then saw all the boys watch one girl approach them; I followed their gaze and spotted a tall lithe girl who wore a bikini top and a short tie dye skirt. She had the kind of body that got Norma Jean to change her name. Her curves and easy sway of her hips had now mesmerised the clutch of boy/men who gathered round the awkward girls. The pale girls watched the tall girl swing her bag over her shoulder, one boob almost came out but just jiggled a bit and stayed encapsulated in her pink bra top.

The girl dropped to her knees and joined the group. The boys stared, the girls looked away and the bra top girl threw herself onto her back, threw her legs
up in the air and shouted “I fucking love the sun”.

The girls all started to cover up their lumpen white bodies and the boys all managed to move their skinny chests in the sexy girl’s direction. It was fun to watch their gauche teenage ritual dance.

The park soon got boring, the sun got hotter and I gave up and headed home. Ashley and her mates had been out in town annoying the geeky men who work in an obscure comic book shop. She must drive those blokes insane with her mad carefully rehearsed questions about comics she has researched on the web, but has no intention of buying.

So another hot day passed me by, I scrubbed bathroom tiles, I watched people in the park and I got some sunburn on my foot.

(Three hours later)

So this morning after I wrote this blog, I believed I had finished it but NO...
I went up to see my dad as it was 8am and I was awake and he is alone and I miss him. He ate toast with crystallised ginger (Yuk) I ate normal toast with butter.

Dad is recently widowed and I miss my wee step-mum and so I go up and keep him company sometimes when I can. I never realised what a cantankerous old grump he can be, he does the death stare and completely ignores me when I suggest stuff to him and that makes me giggle.

I spotted a coffee stain on the kitchen floor and I took a hot cloth to wipe it, the old man deftly ripped it out of my hands, threw the cloth on the floor, stamped his foot on it and used his feet to rub the cloth and then flicked the cloth with his toe upwards and caught it. I was fucking amazed at this, my dad can do keepy up with a hot cloth. “I can wash the floor and I can manage without bending” he muttered. I laughed loudly at his independence and his footwork!

Anyway we both headed out to the bus stop as he was meeting some pals and I was heading back home. Glasgow is really hot today and even though it is early, you can feel the sun really burning already. Glasgow has a history of violence when it gets too hot, this is a fact! To confirm my theory, I spotted two women and a fat man punching each other’s heads outside the old butcher shop at 10am on Maryhill Rd.

Not only were they fighting, swearing and sweating, they had dressed for the weather. Big fat sausage arms, wobbly pot bellies and chunky blue veined legs in strappy vests and too tight shorts were on show...nice! I stood and watched as the fat woman punched the big tattooed fat man round red bulgy face.

Then something struck me (no, not a fist) but I just realised that all big fat drunk women in Glasgow have the identical same haircut – The short shaved grey hair at the sides with curly short waves on top, it looks like a man’s hair style from the 50s. They ALL have that style believe me, none of them had long wavy clipped up hair with maybe a red flower at their ear or blonde wavy tresses pinned up in a bun...no they all had Brenda The Spot- Welders hair, I was momentarily distracted from the early morning fight by this hair phenomenon. Then I got back to watching them punch each other and swear loudly. I so miss The East End of Glasgow and am somehow pleased that Maryhill has retained the tradition of street fighting in summer mornings for me to reminisce.

I left the fight and walked down twenty yards onto The Great Western Rd where posh Aga shops and Clive Christian kitchen designs all sit cheek by jowl; we have loads of Asian jewellers, Asian dress maker’s shops and fancy upmarket cafés, great bars and designer clothes shops- no street fighting there.

It always amazes me how the two roads (Great Western Rd and Maryhill rd) are parallel and just yards apart but are so very different.

One has upmarket shops that sell fridges that Elton John would buy and the other has a second hand shop where drunken people lie on the sofa in the street.

I once got my hair trimmed in a hair dressers on Maryhill rd and the woman who owned it told me she hated the Great Western Rd as it just catered for ‘Paki’s’

I left with my hair wet and walked home in disgust, no wonder people punch people on Maryhill Rd.

If world travel opens the soul then jet lag is a punch in the vagina (repeatedly). My brain will not get itself into gear. The flight from Auckland to Hong Kong wasn’t too bad, I had a front seat with leg room and I did sleep a bit. The flight from Hong Kong to London was cool as I got upgraded to business class; though the seat wasn’t that great the food was good.

I would have sold my soul to stretch out and lie down, I started getting grumpy. I occasionally get so grumpy I need to sleep properly and I get mental, husband and Ashley and maybe best mate Monica have seen me in full swing ‘GRUMPY and MENTAL’. I go very quiet and become secretly determined to annihilate everyone in a five feet radius. I usually start on the small people and work my way up. Luckily just as I was plotting everyone’s murder, I fell asleep!

I finally arrived in London, got off the plane and immediately lay on a flat floor to stretch out my back, people stared at me but I didn’t care.

I almost pushed the flight to Glasgow with all my will, I never knew my mind could control an aeroplane, but I really believed that driving my thoughts forward that plane would go faster, I was sleep deprived and tired beyond belief.

Glasgow was sunny and happy to see me, the M8 looked beautiful, much in the same way the Serengeti looks good to a lion that was re-released into the wild.

Husband smiled and helped me with my luggage. I was excited to see him.

“I was so cramped and pained in that seat I feel deathly” I leaned into him.

“It could be worse, you could be taller and that would be worse” he said.

“Welcome back Janey” I thought to myself, welcome back to the man who will always point out how things can be worse if you ever complain about something; I forgot he did that and it annoyed me.

We sat quiet all the way as he drove me home. I wanted some sympathy not a sermon about how worse things can be.

“My neck has been sore for weeks” husband said as he stroked his neck and drove with one hand.

“Could be worse, you could have neck cancer and it might be ready to kill you” I said. He stared at me, recognised that I was batting his comment back at him and we both knew...welcome home Janey! Let the games begin.

Well anyway I got home and was so happy to see my own bed. I immediately threw myself flat on my back and it felt great. Ashley was out at the University end of term showcase awards.

Husband had made a big pot of mince and potatoes and it was great to eat the hot food.

Finally after all the travelling and eating I headed into my own bed. The covers were all freshly washed and my pillow was just divine. I woke up the next morning to hear the news that Ashley had won the Script Writing Award and I am so proud of her!

Husband and I managed to get some paper work done, we visited my dad and we got flights and trains booked. Things just work out when your busy.

So since last night I have been sleeping on and off for hours, husband has been rubbing my sore legs and back, I have been elbowing his sore neck when he snoozes, that’s marriage!

I am not really great at parties but last night was lovely – it was the end of the New Zealand Comedy festival and I was exhausted.

One comic got so bladdered he had to be physically carried to his hotel room, I twisted my ankle dancing, and that’s how hard core I am! I was fine; I didn’t need escorted home with a cold compress. I did however manage to catch up with Fiona O’Loughlin who is a wonderful OZ comic and mate of mine from Edinburgh Festival. I had stared at her twice during the day thinking “She looks familiar” Bloody Fiona thought I wasn’t speaking to her, I am getting old that’s all.

My flight out is at 11pm NZ time and the amazing PR lady MEL who has looked after me like a guardian angel extended my stay so I wouldn’t be homeless half the day in Auckland. Mel has been a Godsend to me, she just has the magic touch to make things happen and good Karma will follow her everywhere.

So NZ was awesome. Scott and Bridget had a beautiful baby, my show sold out, I mock married a puppetry of the penis man, I pole danced in a brides veil, I invented a knew filthy lesbian hand signal with Hannah Gadsby and I got make friends with Jason Cook’s mum who is just AWESOME!

I never did anything exciting, like jumping off towers or bungee jumping off a bridge, I did do 6 kids shows and the last one a wee boy shouted out “My dad’s arsehole” when I asked them to suggest rotten ingredients for manky soup. That made me giggle but I did say “what happens in the kids show stays in the kids show” the parents were fine, I giggled more.

I am quite tired and this is starting to resemble a posh girls fake diary, so am off to pack up but when I get home I will write a full account of the madness I witnessed.

Cannot believe how slack I am with the blog, am such a lazy bugger. The past few nights have been great, show selling so well and audiences to die for. I love NZ. Just loving my self contained suite at The Sky City Grand hotel...I mean that bed....whoa...it’s SO comfortable, I don’t want to get up in the morning. The room has a living and kitchen area and a separate bedroom which is super sweet. The Grand Sky City is just the best hotel I have been in for ages.

I tried to watch an in house movie, it was a romcom called Zak and Miri make a Porno – but the sound was out of synch slightly so I had to go downstairs and explain to the reception.

The girl was tiny Asian and we were both having a slight accent problem, so I had to shout (coz I am a dick) “My film I paid for ‘Zak and Miri make a Porno’ didn’t work properly” and all everyone in the reception heard in my big Scottish voice was “My PORNO film didn’t work in my room”

The wee tiny Asian woman stared at me with startled eyes. “Did you not get to hear the voices ok? But was the picture ok?”

I had to re-explain that the film wasn’t a porno but a US romcom and seriously if I was watching a porno I really didn’t need the voices to match their mouths, it was a long conversation and ended in me just nodding and walking away looking like a fuckwit.

Gok Wan the TV host was staying at the hotel and we ran into each other a few times and had a beer at the bar and a good old natter, he is lovely really.

Other than that I am happy as a fat pigeon. I go home Monday night and get back to Glasgow sometime later (not sure, really I go back in time two days, come back into the international dateline -age three days forward, go back two days and look like a skanky rabbit with hepatitis B by the time I get back home).

Good news, I got to go over to Scott and Bridget’s house and hug their new born baby Nicholas. He is SO adorable and my big warm boob was the perfect place for him to snuggle into and fall asleep. There are photo’s which I can’t wait to see.

So now I am awake and the sun is streaming through one of my many hotel room windows! I watched guys jump off the Sky Tower in a bungee type thing and decided I will never do that. Having once had a gun at my head in my past, I reckon I have had enough adrenaline rushes in my life. See you all soon.

Been missing in action lately am afraid, been busy and wild in NZ. Here is the thing...I am not a big drinker, two gins and am pissed, sick and crying for my dead mammy. People know this. Yet the past week, I have actually drunk more than possibly in my entire life time. Not that I did drink copious amounts, just enough to make me giddy, which isn’t good as I had kids 11am shows at the weekend! Yay...kids shows with me tired and slightly dizzy.

The shows at Classic have been going great guns, lovely busy shows with nice Kiwi folks and a smattering of Scots swinging by to hear me talk, all good. But the weather has been shit so I was in lockdown mode at Sky City Hotel, which although is nice, I don’t like living in a casino. The hotel staff is wonderful and the lady PR is awesome and so well connected, more about that later.

Then more good news, Scott and Bridget who own Classic and brought me over for festival delivered a bonny baby boy last week. He is ridiculously beautiful and just such a delight to us all.

So, back to my high jinkery, Dan Nightingale is here and I adore him. We never met much in UK but he is just such a funny wee fucker to hang about with and his infectious humour cheered me up, so I drank shots. Yes, shots. I got rather drunk spoke shit and ambled back to the hotel at 5am basically every night over the past weekend. Time catches up with you, trust me,

So Saturday was party night at the Classic and after THREE shows I ended up back at the bar. Mickey D, Jason Cook, JJ Whitehead and all the guys were doing their late night show in the basement, which was just a bunch of folks high on life and ...booze, it was intense is all I am saying!

Yet it is funny to watch performers at varying degrees of fun-ness do their stuff, made me chortle a bit. So we all ended back up at Classic, I had at least two drinks, but that mixed with tiredness tipped me over the edge. You know it’s bad when young people come up and say “Janey are you going to drink tonight?” Apparently I am hilarious on booze, fucking should go onstage more drunk then? No, that’s just sarcasm and tiredness talking.

The blokes from Puppetry of The Penis turn up, I for some bizarre reason ended up dressed in a bride’s veil, pole dance and had a mock wedding to a penis bender and got dry humped from behind. Strange that everyone was pissed drunk one minute yet managed to have HUGE cameras flashing when I slid down a pole dressed in a bride’s veil (where did that veil come from? Who was dressed as a bride?). The barman shouted “I have a photo and we are off to Facebook Ashley” that sobered me up quickly!

The night ended in all decent behaviour my new fake husband was a gentleman and treated me lovely (after dancing like a horny dog at my bum for a wee while, can’t wait to see the pics!) To be honest he got very drunk and wandered off with another woman (men can be cruel) and I got into bed in enough time to get five hours sleep, which was enough to get back up and do another kids show. I love screaming kids; I never knew my ovaries and kidneys could actually twitch. But they do when kids scream that loud. Yummy, my favourite thing!

Today, I moved to The Sky City Grand Hotel Suite (thanks wonderful ladies in my life), which is awesome and just amazing. I have two plasma screens (one in each room) and a full working kitchen. Thanks Sky City, you make me smile in places people can’t see.

I bought fresh lamb, salmon and salad...no more living on cheese Grain Waves for me, real food is on the cards people.

It’s the last week in Auckland and then I get to go home. My drinking and marrying strange men days are over. Jason Cook, JJ Whitehead, Mickey D, Carey Marx, Dan Nightingale and everyone else I have missed out have been a great support network of buddies and I have had such a fun festival this time around. Jason Cook is going to swim with sharks and then jump off the Sky Tower, I am thinking of buying socks. People like different things.

I wish the weather had been better as I holed myself up over the past few weeks watching the rain batter down. All I needed was two dangerous dogs a dead junkie and I was back in Glasgow.

Ashley had a busy week and I missed it all, I am missing my family like hell – but here is a tip, booze does NOT numb the pain, it only makes you mock-marry men who can make the Cutty Sark with their cock. Just a warning people, just wanted to put that out there!

I have loved being here in Wellington though it rained nonstop for days on end which meant I stayed in my room until show time. I really hate that I never got to go around Wellington and doing stuff, I never ate down at the water front, I never went up the cable car, all the things I have done before. It just rained and made me quite depressed lying in the dark in my hotel room.

The shows have been going great guns and the festival people look after you so well. Dan Crozier finally got me a phone I could use (it wasn’t his job to get me phone but he is awesome) but the phone is all smashed in on the screen and it looks like it was lifted from a rape crime scene. There might be blood splatters on it, BUT it works and that’s the main thing.

I have hardly seen hide or hair of Blanket Man the famous Wellington street hobo. Even he got out of the rain. I miss him in a strange way.

The San Francisco Bath House (which isn’t a gay sauna) is a wonderful venue and Ziggy and his crew make everyone so welcome and the shows have been selling out good.

Today I did the Kids Comedy Shows and that was a great experience. On Sunday I do one kids show then fly to Auckland and go straight into Diva’s Comedy show...so busy life.

My bit in NZ telly at the comedy Gala was awesome, I am so glad they didn’t edit the Susan Boyle skit that I did and I will get it uploaded to YouTube as soon as possible. Meanwhile you can see it on Facebook if you are added as my friend!

My Twitter count is going up as well, I gained 100 people in the last week...I am touched.

Missing husband and Ashley and my daddy of course, will tell you all about Auckland when I get there.