T&C

We have just returned from our first bona-fide British Pantomime experience. We saw James & the Giant Peach (admittedly not a classic panto tale but fun nevertheless). Surrounded by hordes of screaming children – “that peach is plastic!” “You’re ugly too Aunt Spiker”, “look behind you James!” it was certainly memorable. We were attending as we had met one of the actors (pictured on the right with those sweet glasses) previously through a friend. We received a back stage tour on our way out checking out the over the top costumes, the disappointingly cardboard shark and the not for childrens’ eyes cast graffiti.

My only wish was for the set to have been more Quentin Blake influenced – then I would truly have been transported back to childhood – as it was James & the Giant Peach was one of my least preferred Roald Dahl books.
We wrap up our year in Glasgow tommorrow with a quick venture to one of Glasgow’s finest curry houses – quite suprisingly this will be our first attempt at dining out for Britain’s national dish followed by a house party before we head south for Christmas on Saturday morning.

This is coming to you live from our lounge room as we finally have broadband connected at our new place (after several false starts). I should be posting a little more regularly now. All we need now is the cable for our camera and I’ll get some of our UK photos posted.
Recovering from our housewarming last night which was fun though somewhat lightly attended! Glaswegians certainly have stamina as we had our work Christmas break-up Friday, had people here until 3.30 this morning and were called out for a whiskey by the same folk this afternoon! Not sure if our livers will survive the winter.
We also somewhat randomly booked flights to Israel on Friday night, to catch up with a friend from Brisvegas and grab a taste of the Middle East. We are heading to the promised land on the 27th after Christmas on the Isle of Wight, returning on the 7th of Jan for a new year in front of the computer screen at JM (at least for me Chhay is still deciding her fate post holiday).

In true Australian fashion we were in our place less than 3 days before we received our first visitor. There is plenty of room, and the sofa bed seems to work ok – so anyone else is more than welcome!

We have been catching up for the last few days, but are hitting the town tonight and hiring a car and exploring a few lochs and glens this weekend. We have a home phone number now, but our phone isn’t working so we are not quite contactable at home yet.

picture courtesy of Chris Haan

Finally moved into our own place yesteday – a ground floor tenement flat in the West End of Glasgow. It isn’t ideal (a bit over the top actually) but it will do while we get settled, and was better than much of the dross we were looking at. I’ll post some pictures once our boxes of stuff arrive – hopefully tommorrow!

We are about 20 min from work if we catch the train and close to lots of interesting stuff in the West End, in fact this weekend there is a little art project happening right around the corner from us.

Weekends are back! For a while I had forgotten the distinction placed on the days starting with S – 3 months travelling blurs the days into one a little. If our first Glasgow weekend is anything to go by it should be a fun place to hang out for a while.

Saturday morning we went shopping at the local farmer’s markets – no mangoes & bananas a la Brisbane’s West End markets here. Instead it was root vegetables, cabbage and lots of free range meat. Had a delicious ‘farmer’s market’ vegetable soup for lunch followed by a random philosophical discussion on the future of architecture (post-post-modernism anyone) over a few pints at the pub.

Saturday night we headed to an isolated back street of Paisley where at the back of an indian restaurant, through an unmarked door we discovered (well actually were lead to) a Glasgow clubbing institution Club 69, complete with dirty techno circa 1993 pounding away all night. As we were warned at lunch, Club 69 is difficult to find, but even more difficult to get home from. After missing the bus back to civilisation we wandered the streets in search of non-existent taxis – finding only off duty ones, one of whom finally relented and took us home.

After a sleep in on Sunday awoke to a glorious sunny day – grabbed a coffee and went for a wander through some of the delightful streets and parks near where we are staying. Follwed that up by finally finding a place to live! We were quite exhausted by the end of it all and looking forward to some respite at work… well perhaps not quite that extreme.