Friday

Dear God, sometimes  I just love Glasgow!

Me and Hat were celebrating that she has handed in her dissertation (let’s face it – we’d celebrate the posting of a letter if Royal Mail could be trusted to bring fresh lime to the party rather than shove a card through the door stating that we weren’t in despite the fact that we were hanging out of the windows, waving sparklers and singing along to Miss Spears Greatest – hah! – hits whilst gesticulating in a come hither fashion, shouting “we’re in!”) so we went for a gin.

So we were in this bar/restaurant, and we overheard that a table reservation had been made for what seemed to be some sort of celebrity who needed, and I quote, “a discrete” seat. I got the impression that there was a bit of a song and a dance about it.

And then no-one seemed to know who the hell they were. Or even if it was the man or the woman who had such superstar status. The bar staff hadn’t a clue. The floor staff didn’t care and even though I pinched a tray and wandered round pretending to collect glasses l still couldn’t figure it out.

We were going to leave but thought that he/she would need a pee and would have to pass us on the way to the loo so we ordered another round, but despite our best efforts we still couldn’t guess (actually, we sort of lost interest when our drinks arrived) so I suppose I’ll have to wait until someone who was there has a day off and is spending it on the couch watching tv when they’ll suddenly realise that the actor/actress on the telly is the one who had extra parmesan that Friday night when Chef set fire to his apron again.

Meanwhile, Miss/Mr Famous will go home thinking “they all treated me as if I was just an ordinary customer”, oblivious to the fact that, to those belting around like lunatics trying to keep up with a Friday night trade, they were.

I sort of have the impression that in every other city there would be hoardes of screaming girlies, and paparazzi hovering behind the bins and lots of giggling requests for autographs whereas here it’s more likely to be “bloody hell, the weather’s awful – ooh, sorry, hen, did I tread on your foot?” or “you got any salt on your table? The waitress has disappeared”. In other words, a population more interested with getting on with their lives than goggling over the eating habits of a random celeb. Unless they’re bloody rude or jump the queue at the bar and then all bets are off. 

Like I said, sometimes I love Glasgow.

Although the last three days of pissing rain are making it more affection-under-the-duress-of-exceptionally-damp-feet than passionate adoration, so next week we’re going to celebrate Tuesday instead and hope that TomKat are in town.

Should be a blast…

Thursday

It has been pointed out that I haven’t posted in over a month. As I have mentioned before, I see no point if nothing interesting has happened. For example, I consider it utterly mundane that Hattie, Katherine and a very bemused Aurelie took a road trip to Ikea. To the strains of Hattie’s Best of Rock CD (which is not to be confused with the Best of Country CD which saw her boyfriend threaten to throw her out of the car on more than one occasion. She has an…odd taste in driving music, to put it mildly) they left in the early afternoon and by 5pm I was expecting a call to tell me that they’d found a cliff and had driven off it holding hands, or they had found a karaoke bar and one of them was murdering ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ with a faux-virginial smirk.

See? Boring. Slightly more amusing was the sight of Katherine struggling through the door an hour later with a piece of furniture that was, in its flat-packed state, bigger than she is whilst Hattie sauntered along behind clutching a small bag of strawberry bootlaces. Aurelie ran for her life. Wise woman.

(NB: don’t let either Hattie or Katherine eat anything with E-numbers. They become unbearably excitable. Which could explain the garbled tale of taking the long route home so that they could listen to Journey, following a rousing rendition of Poison on the M8. Sad I missed it. Not.)

Other non-events this month have been our staff outing to Ketchup on Ashton Lane where Jonny devoured a Colossus Burger and was still hungry, and Katherine had a Knickerbocker Glory that was taller than she was. Hattie, on the other hand, was so laden with book-filled backpacks that she resembled a gnoll from Labyrinth and had to go backwards out of the taxi for fear of jamming in the doorway. Getting the damn thing off her and wedged under the table was also an eye-opening exercise in frustration. Bloody good job the restaurant is licensed. And that our waiter had a sense of humour.

ALSO: Sometime last week, when exceptionally hungover, Katherine decided to carve some pumpkins. The rest of us thought that giving her a sharp knife and standing well back was a fabulous idea – now we have Count Dracula and Gene Simmons adorning the front window and I have the sneaking suspicion that should she put her mind to it, Little Miss K could be running the country within a matter of weeks…

Actually, come to think of it, the highlight of the month has been Colin’s foray into the world of gastronomic perfection in the form of black pudding stuffed chicken breasts topped with bacon and whisky-cream sauce. Which should have made headlines immediately after consumption.

So: nothing of any interest to import apart from Colin’s increasing mastery in the kitchen.

Further news as events warrant…

(Recipe available upon request, for a small fee.)