Where Do I Start?

I know where I left off...it was cold...it was snowy...
it was rainy...it was thawing...it was frozen...and then we started all over again. Don was getting out very little for golf and I was dieting. In the first two weeks of the diet I lost 6 lbs but in the last week, starting with my birthday celebration, then through a 3-day getaway to Glasgow during the week, and having supper last night at the Sutcliffes', I put a lot of those pounds back on. Would that the old adage "Easy come, easy go" could apply but as we all know, the pounds are so easy to put on and so difficult to take off. Difficult, but not impossible.


My birthday celebration happened the night before the actual date. Last Sunday night Peter and Robbie Innes came for a meal. Don made a wonderful Greek stifado which we served with rosemary-braised carrots, crusty bread, and a green salad. For starters I made bulgar-stuffed mushrooms and for dessert, my quilter friend Linda Bennett made one of her marvelous cakes at my request. This one was a dark chocolate mousse cake. Mmmm. That started me down the slippery slope.


On Tuesday, Don's presentation to the St. Fillans Music Circle on "Angels and Devils" was most enjoyable. He was warned by the late Nisbet Cunningham when he first started to plan the program that "the devils have all the best tunes." Nisbet was absolutely right about that, but the angels did have some moments of glory. The program was very well received and was most enjoyable to listen to.


That evening, we attended the annual Burns Supper put on by the Association of Chartered Bankers. We were at a table that was 2/3 full of Friends of Cognac--not a one who was a banker. It was a terrific event, though, with good food in abundance, a variety of libations in great quantity, some artful speeches and recitations of Burns' poems, and some musical offerings by singers and a pianist. Thankfully, as all FOC events do, there was a coach laid on to get us to and from Comrie. It was a most enjoyable evening.


The next morning, Wednesday, we left for our 3-day getaway to Glasgow. We had booked into The Millennium Hotel on George Square (next door to the Queen St. Railway Station) and were able to take advantage of a winter break special rate. We found the hotel to be welcoming, all of the staff to be friendly and service-oriented, the accommodations comfortable and well-appointed, and the entire experience to be one we'd like to repeat.

After getting settled into our Club Room and going down to The Brasserie for lunch, we walked a while in the "neighborhood." We browsed through an art store and then came upon the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) so we spent an hour or so wandering through the various galleries. (The photo below is taken from a peephole looking down onto the main floor of the GOMA gallery.) We returned to our room for a "toes-up" (nap) and then got ready for our evening out.


We had tickets for two Celtic Connections performances. Wednesday's performance was for their Open Stage for newcomers, which we had enjoyed last year. It began at 5 but was general seating so we walked to the nearby Glasgow Concert Hall at 4:15 to join the queue. This year there were only 4 acts and, overall, we didn't find them as entertaining as last year's groups, but we are not unhappy we went. We had booked into the Concert Hall's restaurant, The Green Room, for our evening meal. We had eaten there once in the past and found it to be a peak experience. We were not disappointed. We loved the view from our table looking down Buchanan St. in the rainy dark night. We walked a bit through Glasgow before having an early night.

The next morning after breakfast we took the nearby subway to the Botanic Gardens which I've been keen to visit since I first read about it in a Scottish newspaper years ago. First I must tell you that this was a day of extraordinary weather. First it snowed on us, then it rained, then the sun came out, then it went away and it snowed again, then it rained while the sun was shining, and so forth and so on. This went on all day long. It was most extraordinary. You will see from the photos at the top of the blog that some were under leaden-grey skies and others were under bright blue skies. We wandered through both the old Kibble Palace Victorian greenhouse and the modern agglomeration of greenhouses. It was a treat to be inside among tropical plants while it was snowy and rainy outside.

From the Botanic Garden we walked close to 2 miles through part of the campus of Glasgow University (photo on left) (est. 1451!), across the River Kelvin to the Kelvingrove Museum and Gallery (photo below).
Both the Botanic Garden and the Kelvin-grove Museum/Gallery have under-gone several years of extensive renovation. They have only been reopened a little over a year. Ever since we moved over, I have been waiting for the renovations to be finished so we could go for a visit. We found both attractions to be well worth the wait and we will go back again.

The museum/gallery has been variously described from "a mish-mash of artifacts" to "a superb collection." I suppose it depends on who you are as to how you'd describe it. We don't find either of the statements to be mutually exclusive--or incorrect. The Kelvingrove is simply an amazing collection of what might be housed in several different buildings in other cities. Yet all of the items are accessible, well-explained, well-displayed, and well-maintained.

We were fortunate to arrive just in time for lunch, as we were foot-sore from our walk over and needed a while to sit down. At about 1 pm, when we came upstairs from the cafe, we heard live organ music and were charmed to see an enormous pipe organ up on the next level being played by a member of staff. It was a 30-minute recital with quite a varied programme. This perfectly set the stage for our wander through the museum. Alas, we were so tired by the time we had seen all the exhibits, that we decided to save the art galleries for another visit. Below, however, is a photo of the the famous modern masks (white, which change colour as a wheel below rotates) over a display of masks, including some from 4th century Greece, busts, and statuary. There are even hand-held masks that visitors can try on and a mirror to see themselves in. Another photo is of a modern artwork called The King, an almost life-sized statue of Elvis Presley with a fluorescent "halo."

Fortunately, it was an easier walk back to the subway from the Kelvingrove and a short wait for the train back to Buchanan St. We had a couple of hours to chill out and get off our feet before heading back out for the evening's concert. A long soak in a hot tub helped a lot! And that's a good thing, because...

The concert Thursday night was at a "standing-only" venue in the Old Fruitmarket. Fortunately, it was a short walk from the hotel and we found a lovely restaurant right across the street for dinner. It was all general admission and so we queued early to get a good vantage point, and we certainly lucked out. We were standing at the rail, stage centre with the whole "mosh pit" behind us. The downside, of course, was that we not only stood in the queue to get in, but then had to stand until the program began. We got in at 8 and the opening act, The New Shoes, started at 8:30. After their 45-minute set of excellent traditional Irish-flavoured music, there was an interval of approximately 15 minutes while the stage was re-set for the main act, Fanfare Ciocarlia. The eleven-man band of brass instruments would have knocked the crowd of its feet had there been any seats for us to fall into! Wow! It is almost impossible to describe this group except to say you've never seen a more frenetic or wild group of excellent musicians made up of men in their 40s and older. We were not only standing through this perfor-mance, we were dancing in place (the hall was so packed there was no place else to dance). Our feet and legs are still sore but what a blast!

Their encores were perf-ormed in the middle of the audience, which by this time had been whipped into such a frenzy that we are amazed that the band ever got itself back out of the hall.

So that is the kind of 3-day break that you need another break to recover from! It was nice that we had been invited to David and Juliet Sutcliffes' for dinner last night so that we didn't have to stand up to prepare any food for ourselves! We had a great time last night.

We brought home a couple of music video DVDs to remind ourselves of the Celtic Connections, including one by Fanfare Ciocarlia. (We're going to sit down to watch it!)