Cold Glasgow and Snowy London
Glasgow has a reputation for its cold weather and its warm people and
we certainly found both to be true last weekend. Staying with our
lovely host for the weekend, and fellow Aussie chorister, Tall Paul,
we got to experience both aspects of this great town - sorry - city!
On Saturday, Paul's Glaswegian friend Margaret, and her partner Brian,
gave up their Saturday to show three Aussies the local sites, including
the gorgeous Loch Lomond and Glen Goyne distillery who are proud of
not only producing some very fine single malt scotch whisky but the
fact that they are allowed to call themselves a highland producer,
even though their scotch is matured across the road in what is officially
the lowlands. It was a very interesting guided tour, helped along
by several samples, and we wished we could ship a bottle of the amber
fluid home to Kate's Dad, Tim, as we know he would have appreciated
it even more than we did!
Saturday night we took in some of the bars and pubs of Glasgow, with one in particular
making an impression; fantastic food and £3 cocktails. Located in
an old movie cinema it was a great place with red bead trims and great
use of space. We only drank so many cocktails as we knew we were going
to have to go outdoors again and face the freezing winds of Glasgow,
honest! On Sunday we may have managed to squeeze in another round
of 3-pound cocktails as we waited to leave for our flight, but we also
managed to watched the first half of the Rangers v. Celtics match
(both Glaswegian teams and it was a match that divided the city),
have afternoon tea at one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Willow Tea
Rooms and rode the 'Clockwork Orange', Glasgow's dinky little subway.
Everywhere we went Glaswegians fell over themselves to help us, from
Margaret and Brian's giving up their Saturday, to someone who stopped
us in the street and recommend a great pub for lunch to the taxi driver
who took us to the airport and talked solidly for the entire half
hour. Glasgow certainly has a different attitude to strangers than
London where 100 people packed onto a tube will think nothing of being
squeezed so close you're breathing each other air but smile or talk
to one another and you're a weirdo! Paul's chosen a wonderful place
to call home.
Apart from our trip North we've had a few other interesting things happen this
last fortnight. Firstly it's snowed for much of the week here in London,
check out the photos of our backyard
and street! The snow isn't really staying around for long but it is
snowing none the less, although it's markedly less cold here than
in Glasgow! Tuesday night we went to a great event at the Natural
History Museum, a session on Nanotechnology. Held at their Dana Centre
it was a really interesting night out, and we got to hear some great
people speak. Kate's science brain has swung into action again, OK,
she's thinking of buying 'New Scientist' more often! We've also signed
up to sing the Verdi Requiem at the Barbican centre in a month's time,
with the first rehearsal this weekend, so that should be interesting.
We've been invited and inspired by Brendan Quinn and his choir's performance
of the same work the weekend before last which was a fantastic performance.
Sunday we headed back to the Natural History Museum and toured through
their Darwin Centre, the home of their 'wet' collection, 22 million
glass jars filled with all manner of animals, insects and a Gippsland
Earthworm, and we all thought they were an urban myth!
Otherwise we're just muddling along as per usual. Kate's going to yoga, Andrew's
playing lots of phone games in an effort to fit in better at his game-centred
work and we're both wearing lots of layers!
- 27th February 2005
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Two Aussies in the Scottish highlands
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