Category: Glasgow

Lunch at The Barras – 30 January 2019

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Well, not actually in The Barras, because they’re only open on a Saturday and Sunday and today is Wednesday. Maybe “in the vicinity of The Barras would be better”. Yes, that will do nicely.

Before any lunch could be partaken of, there was some dancing to do, and as we were a bit early getting to Blackfriars, we had a little drink first. Half a pint of Orkney stout for me and a ginger bee ’n’ lime for Scamp. It’s ok, we were travelling by bus today because we had agreed that ‘drink would be taken’ at some point in the day.

After our refreshment, we went downstairs to the dance class. Gary and Frieda weren’t coming today, so it was just us, Graham and Isobel and the two beginner girls. We’re no longer beginners, we’re ‘improvers’, and the Isobel in question isn’t Scamp’s auntie. Nothing like her.

Today’s jive was a reprise of the Step Over. We’d kind of forgotten it. Well, we remembered the basic move, it was just the little “John Wayne dance steps” as Tom Paxton called them, that we’d forgotten. Waltz was the usual round of getting it right first time then not being able to get back to those heady heights. A smidgen of Quickstep with Fishtails and Running Steps added in for good measure.

It was a short walk to The Barras and the A’Challtainn restaurant. Scamp opted for the Scallops with Yuzu followed by Stone Bass on Black Rice Risotto My starter was Mackerel two ways – Escabeche and Tartare. My main was Baked Loin of Cod Celeriac puree, Broadbean & Bacon salsa, Chicken jus. All the foregoing washed down with a nice dark Merlot. Just as good a meal as the last one and a great way to celebrate our the anniversary of the day we met, forty eight years ago. The meal was certainly worth the price of the Itison voucher, but a bit steep if you have to pay the full asking price.

We walked back up the town, had a cup of coffee and shared a slice of cappuccino cake in Nero and caught the X3 home.

We watched half of Ant Man tonight with a small libation to take away the pain of the ridiculous plot, and as you’ve probably guessed, I posted the PoD which was taken through the arches at Glasgow City Chambers and left the blog until today (Thursday).

On Thursday we will tackle the electricity cupboard.

Dress the dolly – 25 January 2019

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Today we were going in to town to get me more highland dress stuff.
Came out of the JL bridge after getting the compulsory photo of the Glasgow skyline and noticed a sale in the Ecco shop. Initially I was interested in a pair of boots to replace my old leaky Clarks pair. Then I saw a pair of black shoes which looked wearable and actually had a fair bit of tread on the soles. The upshot was I got the shoes and left the boots for another day.

The Lakeland shop is on that level of Buchanan Galleries and it was my next target. I’d asked Santa for a pasta machine, but lots of other boys and girls had been asking for the same thing and there weren’t enough to go round. Maybe Santa’s little elves would have been busy making more and put them on the shelves of Lakeland (cheapest place for a pasta machine). Yes! They had the very thing in stock, so I grabbed one and asked if we could pay for it and collect it later. Heavy beasts these pasta machines. Next, the object of the exercise, a new shirt and a belt for wearing to the ceilidh tonight.

We went to McGregor & McDuff in Bath Street, because that’s where we bought my kilt four years ago and we’ve always had good service from them. We could have gone to the House of Tartan which is a ‘cheap and cheerful’ chain which seems to be run by Indians or Pakistanis, but the prices were about the same in both establishments and the quality in McG&McD looks that little bit better. Today I was to be getting a Ghillie’s shirt (I hoped the ghyllie in question didn’t mind) and a belt for my kilt. Belts, along with braces sometimes, are usually used for holding things up, but in this case they are purely decorative but, thankfully not too expensive.  After that it was lunch at Verona, Italian of course and very nice too.

The salsa ceilidh was actually called The Tartan Ball and was held on Burns Night. The only rule was that you must wear something visibly tartan. The kilt ticked the box for me, but Scamp was scrabbling for something for her. She finally settled on a navy and white checked dress for a fiver and remarked that if she didn’t like it when she got it home she’d wear a thistle wrapped in tartan ribbon on a tee shirt. She didn’t like the dress when she got home, so the thistle and tartan ribbon was indeed the face saver.

I’d not been looking forward to the salsa ceilidh, but as sometimes happens with these events, as the time drew closer, it lost some of its dread. We drove in to Glasgow about 8pm and missed the turning off Clyde Street, exactly as we did last Christmas and had to rely on the Juke’s satnav to get us out of trouble again. Again it did exactly that and directed us to the wrong carpark for the second time. Two Q-Parks within 100m of each other seems daft to me. Anyway we were parked and under cover.

The salsa part was great and we danced a fair bit. The ceilidh was equally good with a real ceilidh band and caller! The caller did a wonderful job of instilling some order in the inevitable chaos. After the band, it was back to salsa again and I was danced off my feet by the end of the set. We left around 11pm because we have an early rise tomorrow.
Home and a wee dram to cure the ringing in my ears and the aching in my bones, then bed.

Today’s PoD is of a variety of architectural styles as viewed from Sausage Roll Street in Glasgow.

Tomorrow, hopefully we’ll be taking part in a workshop without the need for boiler suits or heavy machinery.

Different Dances – 23 January 2019

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It was cold this morning when we woke and that cold stayed all day.

Phoned the surgery to get the result of my blood test and it was fine. It was back to normal, but the doc had given me a course of penicillin to take to completely clear up the lingering UTI. Good result. Good start to the day.

Drove into town to go dancing and found out that we were doing a host of dances today. First we rattled through the seven spins of our jive routine. Then Michael started us on the Rumba which we hadn’t done since the Hamilton class years and years ago. After that we had an introduction to the Cha-Cha, which, again we had done before, mainly on sea days on a variety of cruises, but never in so much detail. Who knew your feet had to stay on the floor at all times? Finally we did a fairly representative waltz and a quickstep. Five dances in an hour. That’s not bad going. I think that’s us prepared for the workshops on Saturday in Strathaven, provided we can lay our hands on a pair of boilersuits.

Walking back from Blackfriars I looked along Hutcheson Street and saw the old Hutcheson’s Hospital lit up by the afternoon sun. It looked like a good subject and that’s why it became PoD. A fair bit of post processing in LR and ON1 2019 which meant the digital noise was a bit overpowering, but I managed to tone it down a bit in LR. Bought a couple of half pans of watercolour paint to beef up the Joan of Art painting box.

It tried to snow a bit as we were leaving Glasgow, but didn’t come to much. We weren’t sure if we were going to salsa tonight, but finally agreed that it would be fine. That was before the sleet and the snow on the M80 going in. Luckily again, it didn’t last and we arrived in fairly good time for Scamp to help out with the last half of the 6.30 class.

Moves in the 7.30 class were Astrella Complicada, Prado and Bayamo. Enjoyed the class although it was smaller than previous weeks.

Tomorrow I’m a Joiner for Shona fitting a lock to her bedroom door and then a Roadie for Scamp who’s got a gig for the Probus club. Not her favourite audience.

Back in the old routine – 16 January 2019

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Back dancing again.

Down to Blackfriars again to begin year two of our ballroom and jive dancing. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t remember Spin No 5 and then got the sequence wrong too! Waltz was good, not perfect, just good. Even Quickstep was recognisable as a dance. That’s the first class over and we survived it. More importantly, the dances survived it. Lots of folk there. Four couples which is an improvement in what we had before Christmas. I was beginning to wonder if the class would survive with so few people on the dance floor during the class.

Coffee and a discussion afterwards and Scamp agreed that we’d been ok. Room for improvement, but we hadn’t lost too much ground with our three week lay off. I tried to grab a shot outside the GOMA, but with the zoom on the Teazer at maximum and a shutter speed of 1/15th, it was doomed to failure. Luckily I’d taken a couple of shots of clouds banked over the cityscape earlier when we were leaving the car park. What you see above is the PoD which came from one of them. I’d half intended to go out early over to St Mo’s to get some ‘banker’ shots. I wish I had. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do that, because tomorrow will be a busy day too. Hopefully not as busy as today, but still busy enough.

Drove in to Glasgow tonight and for once, the 6.30 class had too many men, so Scamp got an extra half hour’s dance and to refresh her memory of Vacilala Con Paseo. In the 7.30 class we covered Estrella Complicada and the Rueda move, Bocadillo

Tomorrow, Scamp has a meeting with Isobel in the morning and I’ve got a meeting with the doc in the afternoon.

New hair, Old friends

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We drove in to Glasgow today, just to get out of Cumbersheugh, but we came back.

My hair badly needed cut. If I did it myself it would just be cut badly. If we went to Glasgow, it would be cut properly. No contest. For a change we parked up at Cowcaddens and for the umpteenth time, we didn’t see even one cow. Why do they insist in giving places these confusing names. While Scamp wandered round the shops, I walked down to West Nile Street (which, it turned out, is not even near the Nile), sat down and had my locks cropped by a nice Polish lady. She did a very good job and I was happy to give her a tip. I told her not to visit Cowcaddens if she was at all interested in dairy farming.

Met Scamp back on Sauchiehall Street and we decided that lunch time was approaching so we headed down to Charcoals where I had Chicken Bhuna and Scamp had Aloo Saag. Mine was fine, but Scamp’s Aloo (potatoes) were nearly black. We didn’t pay that much for the lunch, so we couldn’t really complain. £20 for two starters, two mains, rice, a naan bread and two drinks is a very small price to pay.

Walked back up to Sauchiehall Street for Scamp to visit some more shops while I wandered round Waterstones. After that we went for a coffee in Costa where we met an old salsa friend. We sat and talked for an hour or so, just catching up. It was really good to see her again, I think it must be about three years since we’d last spoken to Elsie. We both felt she seemed quite lonely, having finally broken up with her once boyfriend George, and I think we both felt quite sorry for her.

Drove home and I built a new boot disk for the old Raspberry Pi that Val gave me more than four years ago. Booted it up and it ran just the same as ever! Not got a lot of use for it because it doesn’t have built-in WiFi or Bluetooth. It was just a wee challenge.

Watched the start of the new dance program on BBC. About ten minutes in, we both decided it was too dire to be bothered with and removed it from our recording schedule. Afterwards, we watched an episode of Marie Kondo’s series on Netflix (yes Hazy, I did watch it.) Interesting, but “Oh my God” <sic> that repetitive and superfluous phrase from the american woman became really annoying. I might watch another episode, but maybe with the sound turned down or preferably off.

PoD was from Sauchiehall Street. The woman was singing Tracy Chapman songs while accompanying herself on guitar and drum. Very entertaining and it brought a bit of sunshine into a very dull day.

Broke a cap on one of my front teeth tonight.  That’s what happens when you eat too many sticky caramels.  Luckily(?) I have an appointment with the dentist booked for a week on Monday.  Oh what fun!

Tomorrow? No plans as yet. Maybe taking Marie Kondo’s advice and tackling another cupboard.

Glasgow – 30 December 2018

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Today we took the train in to Glasgow

Scamp offered to drive us to the station to get the train in to Glasgow. The ‘leccy train. Very comfortable and much quieter than the diesels. Also the seven carriage train was almost full. Everybody must be getting out of Embra with all the preparations for New Year celebrations. Not so Glasgow. It was heaving with punters and tourists alike. I was looking for a new pair of Bluetooth headphones so we marched straight into HMV to grab a pair before the whole HMV empire came down about our ears. It went into receivership the day before yesterday, whatever day that was and was the cheapest place for the Skullcandy headphones I wanted. Got the last pair on the rack.

Wandered along Argyle Street after that, then headed for Nero in St Enoch’s shared a toastie and a cake for lunch. Outside I got today’s PoD of a man fixing a puncture on his rickshaw. There used to be loads of these things in Glasgow, admittedly that was in the warmer weather, but I’ve hardly seen any recently. Just a fad that faded out, perhaps.

Crossed the road to Waterstones where Scamp bought me a late Christmas present which was a Times Sudoku a Day desk calendar. I like the way it’s set out and the rhythm of the puzzles never changes throughout the year. It keeps me sane … just. Even better, the calendar was half price! Saw a book I had been looking for, but it was on sale in Waterstones for £17. Amazon have it on sale for £10. That’s why the high street shops are closing. I’ll miss HMV, but I can hardly remember the last time I bought something there (with the exception of today). Possibly we are cutting our own throats by our short sighted reliance on on-line stores, but a 40% markup is a bit excessive. However, I did get a chance to read a random page in the book, something an English tutor told us to do when I was at college, and it looked interesting enough. Even that I could have done easily on Amazon. The book is now on my Books Database in Notion, Hazy.

Caught the train back to Croy with just five minutes to spare. Scamp drove us home. Dinner tonight was my version of the Chicken & Chorizo with beans and tomatoes. It got a thumbs up. Even my attempt at garlic bread was a winner.

The rodents are going mad tonight. Maybe it’s because I blocked up the holes in the front and back steps and they are locked in. I had hoped that they were out when I did it and I was locking them out. Perhaps not. The “Rat Man” is coming to Angela next door tomorrow and she promised to send him round to us when he was finished. We’ll see.

The sound from the headphones was rubbish by the way.

Tomorrow is Hogmanay so we won’t be going far I think.

Driving, driving all the day – 19 December 2018

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Today began with the alarm at 7.45am and I finally parked the car tonight at about 9.15pm.  Ok, I wasn’t driving for all that time, but it felt like it.

Out for a podiatrist appointment at 9am after scraping the thick ice that had appeared overnight from the windscreen. I’d forgotten that some people still have to get up at this and earlier ungodly hour to go to work.

The nice lady podiatrist poked and prodded my feet and told me my feet were scoring 4/5 for health. I tried not to laugh when she told me I should try to improve my flat feet by standing on tiptoes when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning. “Brushing my teeth? What’s that?” It only happens twice a year when I’m due to visit the dentist. That’s not going to help my poor fallen arches much.

Home for a coffee and then it was Ho Ho tee shirt on and out to Michael’s Christmas Party. It was great fun with some Samba (loved the Samba Walk) and a bit of Charleston before we finished off with an almost perfect couple of waltz patterns. Left with a smile on my face. Got today’s PoD in George Square in Glasgow on the way to the car. It looked ok on the camera screen, but it was a bit untidy on the computer. However it was a record of the day.

Scamp’s sister is in hospital and I trusted the satnav to find Monklands Hospital for me. It did find it, but took me through the busiest parts of Coatbridge at the busiest time of day. I’ll use Google next time on my phone. That will lower my blood pressure significantly. With Scamp reassured that June was being well looked after, we drove home (without satnav directions).

Dinner was fresh spinach and ricotta ravioli and it was lovely, then it was back in the Juke and in to town for the second dance class of the day and the second Salsa class of the week. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, I was fed up with driving. Having said that, it too was great fun with almost all the games we’d played on Monday being played again. This time Jamie G managed to film part of the proceedings from his drone. Now, that’s just showing off, or was it one of the reasons he gave himself for buying it? “But it could be useful for filming a Rueda from above, couldn’t it??!!”

Oh yes, and I finally managed to get Python to play nice with the Blinkt board that’s the LED output from the Raspberry Pi. I even wrote my own little program to reset all the lights to zero. I was well impressed.

Three parcels arrived today. One big parcel and another clinking parcel, both from somewhere near Cambridge and one extremely long parcel from near Chessington! Wonder what’s in them?

Tomorrow Scamp meets Nancy for the re-scheduled lunch and I am hoping to make a video, but not with a drone!

Balloon Dancing – 17 December 2018

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We both had stuff to do, but couldn’t decide where we’d do it.

I suggested Silverburn, but this was swiftly removed because there’s not a bookshop there where Scamp can happily leave me while she’s off buying things. A bit like a creche for adults. Scamp suggested Braehead because there is a creche there called Waterstones. However, we finally settled on The Fort. Quicker to get to, with lots of shops and two creches. One called Waterstones and the other called Hobbycraft. The only thing missing was a Nero, but just this once I was willing to be a martyr and go to Costa instead.

With the destination settled, there was no time to waste, so we drove over to Easterhouse and finally got parked. It looked like everybody else had decided The Fort was the place to be today. Scamp got her essentials, I got a look round the bookshop and Hobbycraft and we had lunch in an absolutely jumping Costa. Five people working behind the counter, but only two tills in operation and a queue for an execution waiting to be fed. There must be a better way than this.

Drove home and had just enough time to get out to grab some of the fading light down at Auchinstarry which is where today’s PoD came from. Instead of walking west along the north bank of the canal, I walked east along the south bank. It’s only a short walk, but an interesting one that takes you round to Nethercroy which is quite an eerie place at gloaming. Got some photos and came home to a plate of Scamp’s excellent “Just Soup” for dinner.

Drove in to Glasgow for tonight’s end of year salsa party where Jamie G had laid on his usual manic hour of dancing and silly games. ‘Dancing in the Dark’ with glow sticks is now a well established party favourite, and ‘Steal the Hat’ is a Christmas standard. However, dancing with reindeer antlers, glow sticks and balloons is new and even better fun than you can imagine. Some moves looked so easy until you added in the balloons and the reindeer antlers. A fitting end to the year.

Tomorrow Scamp is off again to The Fort to meet Nancy and I’m hoping to paint.

Divide and Conquer – 14 December 2018

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I was first out this morning which makes a pleasant change!

I went for a walk over to St Mo’s hoping to catch some low morning light, and almost succeeded. I should have been maybe half an hour earlier then I’d have got some better angled light, but the trees with the light behind them proved useful, and made PoD. By the time I got back, Scamp was already out and on the bus to Glasgow. I just had time to dump my photos and then head off for coffee with Colin.

The great thing about having three friends with totally different, but in some ways similar interests is that when we’re all together as a group of four, nobody really has a chance to dominate the conversation with their personal stories and it’s easy for everyone to chip in. The good thing about meeting one-to-one is that you get a more in-depth talk and sometimes a chance to air your opinion or grievance without interruption. Both setups have their advantages and disadvantages and are not mutually exclusive. Some days like yesterday when talking with Val, I pick up loads of information and also enthusiasm. Today with Colin where we share a history but not any mutual interest, it’s a totally different conversation that materialises. We talked about people we’d taught and met along the way. Colin is perhaps the most forgiving and also the least acerbic of the group. Me? I just try to stir things up until an argument ensues, then walk away with a smile. Usually I get caught, but sometimes I can still play ‘devil’s advocate’ and get away with it. Not today though, Colin’s too long in the tooth for that. Parted after an hour and a half and I drove in to Glasgow to meet Scamp for lunch while Colin drove home.

Met Scamp and walked down to Paesano for lunch. The place was jumping, but since we only needed a table for two, we easily found a space at a bench. Bloke next to us just had his pizza delivered and was about to start in on it when it was just as quickly whisked away. It wasn’t his. We began talking and when ours were delivered I was about to offer him a slice when his own came. He made a very strange comment that I wouldn’t have considered making to a stranger. He turned to me and said “You don’t wonder why our generation is totally screwed when you listen to the two on my right.” The two in question were two obviously gay men and although I couldn’t hear their conversation, he obviously could. I gave a rather noncommittal reply and he continued with his lunch. I don’t know what his agenda was, but as far as I’m concerned, they can live their life as they please. “They’re not asking me for the money” as my mum would say. Live and let live has become my motto.

After lunch Scamp and I split up and went our own mysterious ways and met up again at the car.  You see, you can spend even more money if there’s two of you doing it.  That’s what Xmas is all about.  Nothing at all to do with Christmas.

Drove home in the gathering gloom and the lowering temperature. Weather tomorrow looks grim with rain, sleet, snow and freezing rain forecast. All blown in on a strengthening wind. We had planned on going to Embra, but that has now been shelved for a better day.

Dancing, dancing all the day … again – 12 December 2018

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We went in to Glasgow a bit earlier today, so that we could, or should I say I could do some Christmas shopping, closely monitored by Scamp.

It took us most of our time to find a place to park in Buchanan Galleries car park. We were up in level 6 for the first time in ages, that’s nosebleed territory. Even then, it was my eagle eye that spotted a hidden space. After that we walked down through George Square and down Queen Street, then on to Argyle Street. Coffee in Nero with a toastie for me and a slice of Cappuccino cake for Scamp. From there it was a short walk to Blackfriars.

Jive was good. We were the experts today. It’s always good to be the experts for a day, but you have to realise that there’s only one way to go after that, and it’s down. However we basked in the glow of Michael’s praise for an hour and it was good to see the jealousy of the other dancers. Waltz, it was even better. Finally, we had a quick introduction to the ‘Running Step’ in Quickstep. Good fun. It’s a great feeling when a plan comes together as Hannibal used to say.

On the way back I managed to grab a couple of shots of a Royal Mail Festive Post Box. I hadn’t noticed it on the way down to dancing, but Scamp had. It’s a great idea. I applaud the RM for brightening up the place. The festive post box got PoD.

Tonight after one of Scamp’s best ’Stir Fries’ we left for Salsa and had an enjoyable hour and a half of jigging. No new moves, but we did get a chance to reprise Prado.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with Val in the afternoon. Don’t know what’s happening for the rest of the day.