Kitchen Serenades and Floaty Lugflaps III

Saturday night at The Restaurant: I had finished my shift at 2am and was lingering in the kitchen because I liked work and I didn't want to go home to bed. I was living a small sliver of the teen dream: Bedtime, What Bedtime!? The whole week my sleep pattern had been zig-zagging all over the place, getting in from work or town at six in the morning, waking up at work for nine… I could feel my throat starting to ache and catch whenever I swallowed, I was coming down with Nasty Cold Part II, but I didn't really care. I relished the fact that I was well and alive and just as tired as everyone else I was working with.

I had been distracting one coworker when another came in to say goodnight and grab his stuff from the staff room. He had a travel guitar that he'd bought delivered to work, it was sitting in its box by the dry store. It was late and I was tired, everyone else was still working until four in the morning; so naturally, the next thing I know, he and I were sitting on the kitchen countertop, taking turns to play each other songs. I could hear the doors to the restaurant floor swing as those still on the clock would come in and out of the back, letting a blare of ABBA or Otis Redding in with them each time. The mad disco of Saturday night tried to fight its way in but couldn't quite penetrate the small bubble we had been constructing around ourselves. He played Skinny Love. I played Toronto.

I remember a teacher I had in school when I was ten. She believed in angels, had us keep our heads held high and always scolded us when we used the word "nice". Nice was a non-word: it didn't mean anything, it was blah, it was beige. But I'm going to go for it because I can't find another word for the whole kitchen-serenade experience: it was just… nice. We harmonised Paolo Nutini at two in the morning, and it was nice. We ate the leftovers from dessert cheese plates, and it was nice. Just nice.

Working at The Restaurant has given me these small doses of nicenesses intermingled with the usual blood, sweat and tears one would find in the hospitality business during the holidays. I savour little things, like the banter with the chefs concerning my terminal case of Singledom ("Have you got a boyfriend yet? You tried internet dating? What about *insert name of male colleague*?"). I feel little pangs when I think about the fact that I'll only have one full week of shifts left after Christmas. *sob*

(picture credit to Robert McAteer)

It has been exhausting, but rewarding. This past week in particular has had me all over the place, AND - excitingly - playing actual sets in Aberdeen! On Sunday I hit up Korova's Acoustic Sessions with a half hour set including a sessy cover of Sisqo's Thong Song (which I used to LOATHE as a kid whenever it came on Top Of The Pops; I thought that it was literally the dumbest thing ever to sing about a pair of tiny, embarrassing pants and was mortified to have to sit through three minutes of it every Friday with my sister and parents… I later came to appreciate the utter genius of it: thighs like what, what!? WHAT!?). The half-hour set I played was one of my favourite gigs ever, I had my bestie-best friends with me, and the way I felt when I could see them all singing along to songs that I had written was electric. To add to the experience, halfway through one of my first songs, a bunch of gyrating ladies, fresh from salsa dance class, stepped up to the front and started to dance. Och, I thought, here we go, and inwardly rolled my eyes (yes, inwardly rolled my eyes - I didn't roll my eyes inwardly, which may be some symptom of Satanic possession). But they were dancing, and then my friends came up to dance, and then everyone was kind of smiling and jiving and nodding and tapping feet and cheering me on as I finished each song. By the end of my set I was smashing my way through my cover of T-Pain's Buy U A Drank (which is my special speciality from uni days - oh god, am I really that old that I'm now starting to call them my uni days???), feeling like a God (watch out Yeezus), and these were my faithful worshippers. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but by the time I got to the final line (Imma buy you… Imma buy you… IMMA BUY YOUUU… A DRAAAAAANK) I was milking it for all it was worth, and stepped out from behind the microphone with shaking hands into a myriad of arms, all reaching out towards me. I felt like someone had plugged me straight in to a power socket - I was supercharged.

It was such an amazing experience, to have people I didn't know listening in and grooving to my songs. I went to bed that night trying to collect all the nice little bits from that night and save them in my head so I could look back on the whole experience some time later and still catch some of that feeling that had coursed through me. The next day was my last shift at work before the holidays, which sailed by. Soon enough, it was RAFFERTY CHRISTMAS TIME.

(instapictures courtesy of my sis)

Christmas with my Dad's extended family is always a special affair which often results in bizarre activities. On Christmas Eve, Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas sparked a conga line, about 15 people strong (I must stress that this isn't the first time that this has happened; also related: the mini dance party we had to this song one day in July - yeah, this song does things to us). Christmas Day had my uncle Irish dancing (questionable) in front of the fireplace and a ridiculously extravagant balloon hat constructed and attached to the chandelier.

One of the finest moments was during the classic game of Headbands, in which we take turn to fix cards on to our heads which have an object or animal pictured on them, and we ask questions to figure what we are. Uncles seem to excel in making it ridiculously difficult for themselves, I remember a few years ago my uncle Ross was 'a pillow', and he insisted on asking questions such as "am I a natural landmark? am I part of the Earth's crust? am I a volcano?". This year, Dad's brother Jamie was 'money', and it took us a good half hour to get him to realise it: "i'm in my car… would you find me in a car? would you need me to start the car? do you need me as I'm driving the car?" to which we were all eventually yelling, "GET OUT OF THE CAR" ("okay, I've driven to the beach. do you need me at the beach? ok, i'm back in the car…").

My younger cousin got a hamster on Christmas morning, which meant we had to take a big family poll on an appropriate hamster name. As per usual, we had some good, normal suggestions (Dave, Roger, Tiger) as well as some bog-standard, mad, Rafferty names:

• Ronnie-Ronnie Bingo
• Apollo Sunking
• Wee Willis
• Snicker Bounty-bob
• Floaty Lugflaps III

Floaty Lugflaps III made it as the hamster's pedigree name, but the wee creature escaped with the more forgiving name of Archie. Welcome to the family, Archie. To me, you will always be Snicker Bounty-bob (special thanks to Mars' Celebrations).

The rest of the holiday has been beach walks and cups of coffee (and lots of Cava/Prosecco), which is all right by me. Today marks THREE WEEKS until I leave the country, it inches ever closer day by day. I'm savouring the moments where I can kick back with family and chill out. Soon enough I'll be out on my own, trying to make new connections, but for now, I'm happy enough to sit with my own clan.