This Weekend We Were Mostly Being... Tourists
One of R's friends from Americaland is staying with us at the moment. Actually, that's a lie, since she's off on a three day coach trip of the highlands and islands while we're working, but you know what I mean. It's always fun to play tourist when we have guests, though I am an appalling tour guide, and even the simplest questions about places I have been many times completely stump me. On Saturday and Sunday we "did" Edinburgh, though it was bitterly cold and windy, the highlight of which being, of course, a trip to Monster Mash. Yeah, there was a castle and stuff as well, but I've seen that plenty of times before, and it pales into insignificance next to the sausagey goodness. I wish their Glasgow branch hadn't closed, though I see from their website that they now have a restaurant in Singapore, of all places!
I had Monday off, so we spent that in Glasgow, toddling around Pollok Park and attempting to attract the miserable-looking highland cows, but they were having none of it and stayed put in the center of their field, after which we went into town and took in the GOMA and Necropolis. The weather remained the same as the weekend - biting cold wind and flurries of snow, which quickly gave way to blue skies and sunshine, which quickly gave way to more snow. Actually, it was quite pretty when the snow started, and it was far preferable to being rained on.
Labels: diary, edinburgh, food, glasgow, scotland
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke died today. He was 90.
As a teenager, and in common with many young men of a geeky disposition, my reading was almost exclusively fantasy or (more often) science-fiction based, and Clarke was one of my favourite authors. He dealt mainly in "hard" sci-fi, where accuracy or at least credibility was key, and though recent re-readings of his work have left me a little cold, finding his prose style a little dry, it was the sense of wonder it installed that kept me hooked back then. He wrote about the amazing and otherworldly, but there was always the sense that everything you were reading about was possible, which made it far more exciting than that of authors who worked in the more fantastic realms where grand ideas were be plucked out of thin air and could be enjoyed for what they were, but were ultimately disposable and forgotten when the book was over.
His work rate had slowed in recent years and his latter books were more often than not "collaborations" with other writers that read as though they had simply paid to have his name on the cover, but of course it's still saddening to hear of his death.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
What's Goin' On
This weekend was a very relaxed one, in which we did a lot of sitting about and eating food. A good thing for our gradually cracking sanities, yes, but not one for getting things done, which needs to happen at a faster rate than it is. A friend of R's from the states is coming over on Friday and staying with us for a week, and the flat is, as usual, a tip. We did buy a futon for the spare room the other week, but it's still unbuilt. The rest of this week's evenings will likely be spent cleaning and making habitable our home. As we're planning on selling it soon anyway, having guests is actually quite a good motivator.
The car is with the car doctor today having its exhaust replaced. With a bit of luck, once that's done it'll be fit to take us out of town so we can see a bit of the countryside while our visitor is here. Glasgow is, frankly, getting on my tits.
To the person that found this blog by searching for "feeling poorly as fuck" recently: Sorry to hear that. Have you seen your GP?
Labels: diary
link | 0 comment(s)Monday, March 10, 2008
BrrmBrrrmScreeech!
Man, I hate driving. Partly because I'm not very good at it, and partly because I find it exceptionally stressful. Admittedly both of those things reinforce one another. Also: I know bugger all about cars, lacking as I do many of the manly genes that promote skill at DIY, interest in football, and a love of the automobile.
Why, then, did I go and buy one the other week?
Well, obviously when Wiggles comes, he (and he is a he, we discovered last week) is likely to have little short stumpy legs and will lack the skills necessary to use them for locomotion. In order for the little fella to get from A to B he's gonna need some wheels, and while we do have a pram on order, they are somewhat limited in range and speed.
So, I picked up a cheap third-hand Renault Laguna from a bloke that lives nearby. And, y'know, it's fine. I think. It's a wee bit noisy so I'm going to have someone take a look at that. But it goes and has lots of room in the back for a child and associated accessories.
And I am quite excited about being able to get out of town at the weekends. Though I am not remotely excited about trying to navigate around the city with only a vague set of instructions from Google Maps to point me in the right direction, given that someone seems to have gone before me and removed all the street signs. To compensate, and for the sake of my blood pressure, I have ordered one of those magic boxes with the lady inside who tells you where to go, leaving me free to concentrate on not crashing.
Labels: diary
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