Right where we going today? You said it was somewhere special?
I bobbed up and down on the spot and wiggled my hands at the end of my wrists whilst bending my head left and right as if about to box an Argentinian.
The Good Lady briefly frowned at my moves as if she never wanted to have children ever again.
Cuningar Loop. That's where!
She stopped with the frowning and clucked with pleasure like a chicken mistakenly flirting with a gigantic buttplug.
I shot her a stern look. Such language, didn't she realise the children were about somewhere?
Cuningular what? Can't you wait till the kids are asleep?
I fired a nervous glance at the doorway in case one of these mysterious children were going to miraculously appear.
The Good Lady let out a long-suffering sigh.
No Daddy-Bear, Cuningar Loop, it's this really cool forest walk North of the city.
She followed this with a tinkling laugh.
I bloody knew you would think it was... You know.
She wafted a hand downstairs and made a mouthy gesture as if she was chewing on some overcooked squid.
Are you serious, there is really a place named after fanny-licking?
Remember, my transatlantic colleagues, over here, a fanny is a vagina and not an arse. Yes yes, I know, it's confusing but I don't make the rules. Blame God or something
Hey, behave yourself!
She tutted like Michael J Fox eating soup.
So anyway, it's a forest park. It's meant to be really cool.
She recited like a shilly influencer talking utter bollocks about blockchain on Twitter.
I looked up from Google maps. And shook my head.
Nope baby girl. No can do, that's not North of the city. It's the North of the city. Uh uh, no way.
I tried my best to sound like Elvis with the uh uh.
The Good Lady rudely overlooked my impression of the King and blundered on.
What's wrong with the North of the city?
She said as innocently as the lambs her family strangled back at the farm up in Dundee.
It's fucking minging. You couldn't pay me to go there. And this place, it's in Dalmarnock. Nobody goes to Dalmarnock. That's like the place Simba's dad warned him about.
I looked off bleakly in the direction of the kitchen as if one of the kids was attempting to make toast again.
You said that about Barrhead last week. It was a great walk, remember?
She attempted to nail me with perverse woman logic.
Hmmm. You don't understand milady. This is beyond Barrhead. Barrhead's like a holiday park compared to Dalmarnock.
I resisted the urge to shake her shoulders and continued.
It's horrifying, the people are so scummy it is almost like visiting another planet. I mean, I will be fine, I came from a shit area. But you and the precious children? You will get eaten alive.
I folded my arms across my chest.
The Good Lady did the same with her's.
Stop being such a bloody snob. We're going. And that is that.
Sometime later we arrived.
At the entrance to the park was two gigantic steel claws piercing the ground and reaching for the skies.
Maybe this won't be so bad? I thought.
Underneath I snapped a pic of the claws from below.
Yeah, this will be good. I decided to abandon all my doomsaying and just enjoy the place.
We neared a bridge behind which, shitty blocky flats lurked. Hmm. My optimistic mood started to fizzle out.
We carried on down the path. I scowled at the shitty surroundings. I didn't like this at all, It was all just a bit too urban for me.
I thought this was meant to be a forest walk?
I asked the Good Lady.
It is, look, trees!
The Good Lady pointed excitedly.
As I was shaking my head in disappointment at the shitty metal trees, a man and a woman staggered into view from some bushes.
They were wild-eyed and spaced out looking. The woman, in particular, was drooling and staring at her surroundings as if she had never seen anything before.
She staggered sideways a bit more and fell over. The man tried to pick her up and then he too fell over.
I checked my phone. Ten past eleven in the morning.
Junkies. Time to go.
We left.
Fuck Cuningular, it's shit.
