As you may know, I often write these posts very retrospectively. I would love things to be all up-to-date, fully capturing thoughts and feelings as well as experiences but Real Life means that I'm usually pulling posts together way after the event using photos, my calendar and my weekly to-do lists to help jog my memory. And this is the case with this post. As such, it will just cover, mostly, the things we actually did during our trip to Scotland and not dwell on the unfolding Coronavirus pandemic happening at the time. When we got back to France, I made a point of live blogging again so all the posts from the 17th March onwards are in real time and cover thoughts, feelings and events surrounding the pandemic.
Spring In Scotland
Here we go, Ecosse!..
This time we chose to fly from Toulouse to Edin with Ryanair. The times just worked and it meant we could easily pick up a hire car from Carol at Europcar once we landed in Scotland. After talking with the Titos we also indulged in valet parking at the airport which was incredibly easy and reduced all the hassle of parking and carrying all our stuff back to the terminal like we normally do at Bordeaux. Definitely worth every cent. I was particularly organised and even took a packed lunch with me. Aaaah, the life of a coeliac. The flight was on time, everything went smoothly with the car and we were back in Glasgow by tea time. What a welcome from Sheena - a whole table of GF goodies in my own GF area of the house. Absolutely incredible. 
Knowing that the trip was likely to involve quite a lot of indulgence, I took my chance on the Monday morning to head to the pool for some laps. It was great to get in the water and get the heart rate up, especially after spending all day on the Sunday sitting on our jacksies. My experience of Bellahouston Pool showed how you can quickly become used to life in France though; I was utterly horrified at people walking through the changing areas, right on poolside, with their outdoor shoes on. It's little wonder that the place just felt dirty. Anyway, like I said, just good to get some laps clocked up.
We went over to visit Jinty on Monday afternoon and hung out there for most of the day, rounding things off with dinner at the Black Bear. It was a good, easy way to spend time together and it also just shows how easy it is to eat out in for coeliacs in the UK. I was back over on the Wednesday, and on Thursday I got some time to do my usual wander around the shops at Silverburn. I was extremely tempted to invest in some Docs but just couldn't justify the price, particularly with one eye on spring.
On Thursday, we headed over to the West End for lunch and a wander around Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. Being so close to Heather's work, we contacted her to see if she was free and managed to get up for a visit at her fancy office at Glasgow Uni. It was funny walking around the campus, surrounded by students again and now feeling so old compared to them! We also joked at seeing some of the Asian students in their coronavirus-aware medical masks and saying how that might be us soon (!). It was also cool to revisit Kelvingrove. The last time Iain and I were there was that day we did the big treasure hunt for Joe Fuch's 30th.
The Friday was a Big Day Out for William and me. Iain was away doing PD stuff with the Scotland team again so I planned a day trip to Edinburgh for me and the boy where we would meet Suzy and Laura for lunch. It was actually a massive day as it took over two hours to get there just from leaving Ronnie and Sheena's house, walking to Maxwell Park, getting the train to Central, walking to Queen Street and getting the train to Waverley. William was loving it though, as you'd completely expect! Suzy and Laura (and Fergus and Hamish) arrived into Waverley about 20mins after us and we headed up to Pizza Express on George IV Bridge for a feed. It was so great to see them after all this time and, as you'd expect, we all just fell back into our usual chat (albeit in-between lassoing our kids!). It's crazy to think, the last time I saw them was 2016 when I first brought William to Glasgow. Mental. After lunch, we headed over to the National Museum of Scotland where the boys could run around a bit more. There was a big dinosaur exhibition on which kept them entertained a bit longer still. ;-) Eventually, it was time to pull the pin and we all headed back to Waverley. I was bealing as my return ticket wasn't valid for travel during peak time and I was forced to buy another single at £16. Arrrrgh. We finally got home at about 7pm and we were both absolutely gubbed. A Grand Day Out indeed!
On Saturday, I met Gail and Susie for dinner and we went to see Susie headline at the Stand. Again, it was just great to meet up with good, old mates and talk nonsense for hours on end. We started off at Stravaigan for gins and headed across the road to The Left Bank for an early dinner. Trendy, really good GF options and a nice atmosphere. Susie was kinda watching the time and we shot over to the Stand where she'd reserved us a table pretty close to the front but thankfully not at the front. What a laugh. A couple of the early acts were a bit odd (especially the older American woman) but the compere, Joe Heenan, was brilliant. I remember him distinctly joking about the best place for people to be during a pandemic was rammed in poorly ventilated cellar. Jeez, how right he was. Susie's set was brilliant and it was cool for her to drop a couple of "in" jokes too, namely the thumb ring. It is just mental that that is what she now does for a living. I'm so proud of her. It was also just braw to catch up with Gail again. She's hilariously forgetful and I honestly sometimes wonder if she actually hung about with us at school - she barely remembers anything. After the Stand we went back to Stravaigan until kicking out time and then ended up at Speakeasy in Merchant City until half three by which point it was chips (pakora!) and hame.
While I was out, kidding on that I'm still in my mid-twenties, Iain and William had dinner and a sleep over at the Woodsie's house. As you can imagine we were all quite tired on the Sunday. One week down already. It's amazing how quickly the time can go.
Lorna. 👍
No comments:
Post a Comment