Later that day

Well we're back, been back for some time actually. The day was not really what one would call a roaring success, but at the same time it also wasn't a complete wash out (pun intended). As I mentioned at the end of my last post we were heading out to the farmers market in Partick. Well we headed out around 12, we had read that the market was held between 10-3 every second and fourth Saturdays of the month. After wandering around for a bit, getting some lunch, then getting the subway off to Kelvinhall, we arrived at the farmers market at about 10 to 2, plenty of time we thought. Rounding the corner, we look up at the banner sign for the market to read that it's from 10-2. So with 10 minutes to go, we dash up to the market to see that most of the stalls (all the fresh fruit and vegetable ones anyway) were closed up and driving off. Some of them were still open though, we got some fresh strawberries and rasberries (very nice) some hand made chocolates, and I picked up a present for Paul. I won't put up what the present is in case he reads it (don't want to spoil the surprise) but it is tragically apropriate (tragic both for me buying and for him, tee hee).

After wandering around for the brief 10 mintues (we were told that the market used to run till 3, but most people sold out well before that so the closing time was changed, our info came from a book published earlier in the year), we headed up towards the botanic gardens. Along the way, we were looking out for a couple of nice shops that were supposedly in the area along Hyndland Street/Road. One of those, called Delizique is a really nice little deli (and I do mean little). They have a really great range of your typical deli kinda food (cheeses, olives, breads, meats and sausages, and fruits and vegetables) as well as some more unusual like prawns and mussles and other seafood. We kept heading up Hyndland Road till we found one of the outlets of a deli kinda shop we quite like in town called Peckhams. The Peckhams in Hyndland Road is quite a bit smaller than the one we go to in Glassford Street and just basically has the deli counter and but it has fruit and veg. There is another one not too far on Byers Road which is much more like the city one (but not quite as large an alcohol section ;-).

After poking around in these shops for a bit we continued up the road towards the Botanic Gardens. That was about the point in time that the rain suddenly bucketed down. Although quite used to fact that it can rain at any minute in Glasgow (pretty much year round from what we can tell so far) this particular rain shower was quite a bit heavier than most. Being the only one of the group with no real rain protection (I don't even think my jacket was waterproof) I got the most soaked of the group. But we battled the rain running from tree to tree until we got up to the gardens, at which point the rain had died down. We had a wander round the gardens and took some pictures (and one or two in the rain) and then headed up Byers Road (the enterence to the gardens are at the top of Byers Road, for those who don't know it's meant to be one of Glasgows more interesting shopping/entertainment streets of Glasgow, but we don't really think it's much on something like The Parade or Unley Road back in Adelaide, maybe close to Jetty Road. So we walked up Byers Road, looking at some of the shops and came across a French styled bakery called La Patisserie Françoise and had cake and coffee (or hot chocolate). Looking it up just then, I have discovered that they have a shop just round the corner or two from us, I'll definately have to look them up.

Then it was back off home. I also popped up some pictures from the day are here.

Cheers.

Another Saturday morning

Yes, yes, Saturday morning. The kids and I have been up for a while and Annmarie is trying to have a bit more of a sleep (well as much of a sleep as you can with a couple of kids playing in the lounge). Now that the excitement of Paul and Joe arriving has subsided somewhat (hope you guys are enjoying London) I thought that I'd actually try to write some more updates.

The last real update I put up was about going to the Edinburgh festival and seeing the jazz band there as well as meeting the new class for Willow's kindergarten (or nursery school as they call it here, I think).

The next weekend we went to Edinburgh and met up with one of my cousins, Kate. This begins the second terrible train experience in the UK (I'll get around to writing up the first terrible train ride soon, I think).

So we arrived at Queen Street Station in Glasgow around quarter to ten to catch the ten o'clock train. It was a bit crowded (no surprise due to the festival and all) and Annmarie was a bit apprehensive as she doesn't hold the public transport system here in terribly high regard. Anyway I got some money out at an ATM and bought two tickets to Edinburgh. Getting back just in time for the train. The platform was announced at the last minute (as is the norm in the UK) and a huge crowd surged out to the train. The train was absolutely packed and as we didn't want to stand for almost a whole hour we thought that we'd wait till the next one (they run every quarter hour).

The next train is canceled at the last minute (ten fourteen). OK, we thought, that's not too unusual. Then, suddenly it's reinstated at ten sixteen on platform six. Fine then, we rush over with the rest of the crowd and manage to find a table quickly get the pram and bags stowed and settle in. Some of the people across the aisle from us were joking about the mad rush and Annmarie joked that they would probably send us back over to a different train. Which they did (tempting fate me thinks). So everybody has to head over to platform three. By this point it is about ten twenty five and so this is basically the ten thirty train and so there is the crowd from the ten fifteen and the ten thirty all pouring onto the same train. It is absolutely packed and no seats whatsoever, so we decide to once more wait for another train.

Annmarie is rather annoyed by this entire debacle and decides to make a complaint. She heads over to a group of what look like Scotrail workers (they had ID badges) and some of then look like they might be more managing types. None of them seemed to want to make eye contact with Annmarie and actually look rather uncomfortable at being asked. They said that there was nothing they could do and it was no use complaining to them and to go to the ticket office instead. The queue at the ticket office was huge and we couldn't be bothered waiting that long. Annmarie found another worker, a younger one, and went to ask him how to go about asking for a refund. He started off by trying to deflect her and to suggest that she "focus on the problem" and how "she can solve it herself". This of course ignores the fact that our problem is out of our control (they run the trains) and that the solution we were seeking was also for them to produce. I didn't hear the beginning of the conversation, but when I arrived I heard the guy say "running a railway is very complex and not everything can run smoothly" or something to that effect and Annmarie replied with "have you been on a train in Germany? The Germans CAN run a railway smoothly" once again something like that. I thought at that point that it was probably better to let her get on with it and I went to buy some water for the trip since everyone was getting thirsty. When Annmarie got back we went and caught the 11 o'clock train and finally got to Edinburgh. Annmarie later told me that the conversation stepped through how bad the railways are run, the fact that the company often makes up bogus excuses like switching problems when it's just that they are disorganised and that he had come back from New Zealand six months ago and now wants to go back.

Once we finally got the Edinburgh, we tracked down Kate and sat outside at a nice Italian cafe down George Street and had a nice catch up chat, which was good. After that we went for another wander around the festival. We walked up the Royal Mile, a particularly nice old street that has historical significance.

The Royal Mile leads from Holyrood palace (which I think is a royal residence that used to be an abbey some time ago) and leads all the way up to Edinburgh castle. Very lovely there and we found a french chocolate bakery/patisserie or something and two traditional fudge makers (we were in a bit of a junk food mood at the time). We also saw the new Scottish parliament building. In case you have not heard much of the news about it, it was many years late, and had a cost increase of almost 10 times (I think it was meant to cost about £50 million and ended up costing about £490 million) and is a super modern design that is now the subject of much debating, especially in the papers. Personally I think that it is a bit over the top and doesn't fit the surroundings well at all being in the middle of the Royal Mile, but just so long as the materials don't weather badly it should end up being quite accepted. The sad part about the building is that the original designer didn't live to see it completed.

Once we got back down to the festival end of the Mile, we wandered up through the crowd and watched some of the performers. We stopped to watch a girl singing songs from musicals. Willow asked her if she could sing something from Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang and she obliged with Doll on a Music Box, which Willow of course loved. After that we wandered up further through the festival and looked for somewhere to have dinner, but everything was VERY booked out and so we trained it back to Glasgow, with a much better train ride that time, and got takeaway pizza from Pizza Express.

Anyway, we are about to head off to find the farmers market in Partick, so I'll finish this when we get home later tonight.

A little art for art's sake

Just thought that I'd quickly post up another link. Not this time to someone else's material, but to my own. A few weeks ago, Annmarie's brother visited here in Glasgow before he head back off to Australia (he had just finished studying at a University in Freiburg in Germany). While he was here we visited Stirling and showed him the castle. I got a few snippets of film of him on the Pentax while I was all interested in time lapse filming. Also at the time, one of the other consultants at Integria was dabbling with film editing on his computer and I decided to have a go too. Well you can see the results of my attempts here [warning, 2.6 MB].

Contact is established

Well my brothers are now confirmed as having arrived alive and well (if a bit tired) here in the UK. They'll be spending the next week or so checking out London with it's many museums and galleries and maybe even taking some time out in one of it's many fine old pubs. After that they are off to Whales to see a rally. Hope they have fun.
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Update:
Sorry to all those readers out there, but I seem to have made a couple of slight errors. After London they are going to Wales to see a rally. Sorry again for the confusion.

Britt's Japan Journal: Questions and Misconceptions

Well I think that it's about time that I participated in one of the great blogging traditions of cross linking to the blog of someone I have no idea who they are. Anyway, I found this post while randomly jumping through Blogger and found it highly amusing: Questions and Misconceptions

私の兄弟は東京を訪問し損った。

Well, I can't pretend that I'm not a little bit disappointed. My brothers Paul and Joseph are at this very minute flying somewhere over eastern Europe, winging their way to the UK. They'll be landing at Heathrow at about 4pm GMT. When I loaded up the old browser this morning, I noticed that Joe's blog has had an update. Checking to see if he may have put up a last minute goodbye message, I came across this post.

I was shocked to say the least. After spending a good deal of my time, helping him plan an all nighter trip into Tokyo City itself, it seems that the nay-sayers have poisoned the well of 日本の旅行. He's wussed out (or as one of my colleagues here, Paul Muldoon, put it "he girled out", how delightfully Scottish). So one of my best opportunities to vicariously visit the Land of the Rising Sun and the Great Eastern Capital has slipped silently away...