Day 5: Glasgow

Now where were we?

Then it was walk, kebab, sleep, hangover. Welcome to Glasgow.

Ah, I remember now. It was a rather slow morning, doing as little as possible while my liver and kidneys did what I brought them along to do, and the paracetamol kicked in to help some. I was upright and mostly human by around 11.30am, just a little too late to get the breakfast menu at the nearby Smile Cafe, but in time for the lunch menu including some amazing pizza by the slice. And when I say slice, they say 1/4 of a whole pizza. With this amount of salami and zucchini pizza, plus a pot of Scottish breakfast tea, I was, for 5 minutes at least, immortal.

Between M, P, G, and I, we’d arranged to catch up for afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, which highlighted the work of Glasgow’s favourite architect/designer, Charles Rennie McIntosh. Art nouveau/deco extraordinaire, home town boy, number one son. That left me time to ramble down Sauchiehall Street, buying some travel essentials (more paracetamol, a Doctor Who Magazine featuring Jinkx Monsoon, deodorant — i have a roll-on for travel but it’s from Germany and a little more herbal than I like, and with at least 2 weeks to my next flight, I can get an aerosol). Also grabbed a bunch of presents for the folks back home in some random places, and found some interesting shops.

One thing I didn’t find were any record shops selling CDs, they were all selling … records. CDs are obviously on the decline, but it’s my music medium of choice, so I can’t help but feel a little sad/dinosarish. If, in 20 years’ time there’s a CD resurgence, I’ll feel vindicated.

In my travels I’d passed the MacIntosh at the Willow Tea Rooms, so was waiting there at the appointed hour. Instead of seeing anyone I knew, I got a message telling me where the table was we’d booked. At this point, figuring I’d either slipped into an alternate universe, or something weirder had happened, the very friendly staff advised me my pals were probably at the Willow Tea Rooms, not MacIntosh at the Willow Tea Rooms, about 15 minutes walk away. Not confusing at all.

Once in the right place, I had the chocolate clootie dumpling with custard, and it was quite nice. From all I know, clootie dumplings are like large xmas puddings. Often full of fruit, this one instead had choc chips. The custard was also quite old school, no creme anglaise, just bright yellow milky custardy goodness.

After planning our meet-up for the next day to pick up the hire car, we wandered out separate ways, me back to my apartment to do some blogging, tidying, packing, watching tv, and finishing reading the most recent Rebus novel. I popped out to grab dinner, a haggis and chips supper from the closest fish and chip shop. The chips were fine, and the haggis was in a long sausage and lacking the peppery goodness that lifts good haggis to the next level.

Weirdly, it seems that Primal Scream’s awesome 1991 song “Loaded” is now being used in ads to M&S, something I’m really not sure how I feel about. But hey, Bobby Gillespie has to pay the bills, right?

Overall I feel this time around that I’d like to spend a few more days in Glasgow, and get to know the city a bit better. It definitely has some amazing architecture, and an interesting character, and many parts I’m completely unaware of.