Halcyon days

I'm quite conscious that lately my posts haven't really come from within my head, inasmuch as most recent ones have been either reposted material from my website which I've now closed since I didn't update it for the past year or so and it was costing me money to host, or occasional embedded YouTube videos which caught my eye.

I'm not particularly hung up on this, although for a while I considered it to be a bit of a literary failing, because I've accepted that times change and my use of this Blog will change, and probably change back, with my own personal zeitgeist.

Perhaps this is a moment however to reflect on what life's doing to me here at the start of 2011, albeit the virtual ink's still damp on my review of 2010.

Generally, life's reasonably good at the moment, leaving aside a nasty cold that's been lingering for a week or two and which currently is causing me to sound genuinely like a man yodelling when I try to sing in choir.  I'm due to sing live on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave on Monday morning in their Daily Service when the Cathedral Choir will be doing it from Glasgow, but we'll see how that goes!

I'm now at the end of seven days of annual leave, which although is happening now comes from my 2010 entitlement which I will lose if I don't use it up by the end of January.  So with not all that much to do, little money left after the Christmas festivities, and no one else on holiday to socialise with during the day, it's an odd time for a break, but fairly welcome nonetheless.

The biggest new thing to affect my life recently happened only a couple of days ago when, through the miracle of the UK government's Cycle to Work Scheme, I took delivery of a new bicycle, the first I've owned/ridden since 1997 when I bought one and used it for only a month or two before getting rid of it and trading up to a BMW K75RT motorcycle.

It's a Halcyon Monterey, like the one in the picture, which is a hybrid, neither Mountain Bike nor Road Racing bike but something more suitable to daily commuting with the occasional trip along a canal towpath or similar.  Front suspension and seat make it quite comfortable to ride, and although it's very early days to my surprise so far it's been less traumatic leg-wise than I expected, but I really need to replace the comfy gel saddle with a much wider comfy gel saddle!  If you get my drift.  Owwwwwww!

Having collected it, I decided there'd be no point just taking it home and looking at it, so I set off along the nearby towpath of the Forth and Clyde canal towards Glasgow city centre, intending just to be gentle with myself and see how I got on.  Before I knew what was happening I'd reached Lock 27, a pub next to, well, Lock 27 of the canal funnily enough, which was a lot further than I intended.  Taking the more direct route home through Anniesland cross (for those who know this area) and down through Knightswood, I had no real trouble until I stepped off the bike at my front door and tried to climb the 3 stairs with wobbly jelly legs!  One hot bath later I was fine, with only a sense of personal satisfaction remaining afterwards.  A check of AutoRoute showed that I'd travelled almost eight miles!  OK, in the grand scheme of things not all that far, but pretty reasonable for a first effort.

I intend using it to occasionally commute the few miles to work, using the Renfrew Ferry to cross the River Clyde enroute.  If I manage that once or twice a week I'll be happy and it'll be a whole load extra exercise I wasn't previously getting.  Not only that, the Cycle to Work Scheme means that my employer has actually bought the bike and I'm renting it from them over the next year, with the payment coming off before Tax & NI contributions, and at the end of the year I'll be able to buy it from them for an estimated one month's rental.  I won't know exactly what I'll save until I receive my payslip containing the first payment, but the bike (reduced from a retail price of about £400 to £199) plus the accessories (helmet, lights etc) costs about £275 and I think I'll end up paying about £200, so it isn't a bad deal.

Other things that are happening are that the countdown to a significant birthday starts in a week, so to celebrate that less than significant one I've aranged a group of about 20 friends to go for a curry in Glasgow next Friday.  It's ages since I had a curry and I'm really looking forward to it.  Of course the celebrations in 2012 will perhaps be more extensive, but I need to get my head round exactly how I want to celebrate it, and not be overly swayed by other people.

Glasgow Chamber Choir has an exciting year ahead, the first part of which is a trip to the Netherlands in March to sing with another choir there.  Our choir members are being hosted by their choir members, but since I'm not really in a position where I feel I can reciprocate when they come over to Glasgow in May (and I'm an anti-social bastard), I decided just to make my own arrangements, so I'm staying in a hotel in the centre of Amersfoort, near Utrecht, which is where that choir's from.  It's a small hotel, but looks very friendly so it should be good.  The hotel website describes it as, amongst other things, gay friendly, but I get the impression that although it's called the Queen's it isn't compulsory!  The flights and hotel are all booked, and as it gets closer I'll get more into it.

Oh, and the meaning of the title of this post?  Well as I'm sure you know, Halcyon Days are the seven days in winter when storms never happen.

Round 2, and furry things

My plan was to take advantage of being off work to get the gym attendance well kick-started. Oh, didn't I mention? I have 10 days annual leave left from my 2008 allowance which must be taken by the end of January, so I'm off for the first two weeks in January. Aren't you? Shame!

Anyway, back to the point. I had thought that maybe I'd go to the gym and/or swimming pool every day after my good start on Monday. But then for no particular reason I decided to take Tuesday off, and that afternoon I started to get a bit sore in the left leg. The one the achilles tendon got broke on. And yesterday, Wednesday, was pretty much a write off since I was limping around with the feeling of a dead leg in my left thigh. Although yesterday I did get the bus into Glasgow city centre and walked (ie limped) around for an hour or so, meeting RE for lunch when we went to Wagamama. The first time I've been there, but I suspect not the last.

But this morning my leg feels much better, and so at 0930hrs I got to the gym for round 2 of the fight to fitness. Hey, that's not a bad slogan! I didn't do so much this time, but I think I should probably realistically not keep going beyond the time when I initially think "that's enough" otherwise I run the risk of starting to not enjoy it. In all I was there for about 50 minutes.

This time I stayed away from the cross trainer and rowing machine, and spent 15 minutes on an exercise bike, 10 minutes on a hand bike (no idea if that's what it's really called, but it describes it reasonably well), and 20 minutes walking fast on a treadmill. On the treadmill I covered just over 2km at a maximum speed of 6km/h.

I suspect these might become my default machines, at first anyway, until I get a bit fitter and feel able and willing to spread my wings so to speak.

The other difference this time was that I took my MP3 player (note, not iPod, it's an iRiver which when I bought it I considered superior to the iPod albeit it's now a bit, well a lot, dated). This meant that I could ignore the semi-ubiquitous MTV, and instead I exercised to choral music including parts of a William Byrd Mass, the one for four voices, and some Tallis. Turned up REALLY loud!

On an unrelated matter, when I first moved from my hometown of Motherwell into Glasgow in about 1985, I lodged with JC, one of the other members of St Mary's Cathedral Choir in his flat in Hyndland in the fashionable west end. He moved away a while later, including a spell as a doctor in the Antarctic, and over the years I've lost touch, but thanks to Facebook I've just been in contact with him again, which is great. The benefits of modern technology!

On an equally unrelated matter, when I was in the city centre yesterday I decided to buy some new jeans, so went to Slater's Menswear. As I walked in I saw a sign intimating they were selling off ex-hire kilts, so I went for a look and, to cut a long story short, I walked out with a Prince Charlie Jacket, full dress sporran (furry, see right which is pretty much identical to the one I bought!), and dress sgian dhub.

And no jeans.

A total of £158 onto my Slater's account, and perhaps the strangest impulse purchase I've made for a long time! But at least now I have the full dress regalia and can decide whether to wear the kilt with big boots and a tee-shirt, semi formal with the Argyll jacket I bought (and Blogged about) in March last year, or fully formal with the Prince Charlie jacket and waistcoat.

Now, I must get back and buy some jeans!

Stuff your friend

Stuff your friend, originally uploaded by Lay Clerk.

I realise that it's been a while now since I was in San Diego, and it seems almost like a distant memory, but I haven't forgotten that I still have a few days of travel log to catch up with (or should that be "up with which to catch"?). I have the bare bones of it saved as a draft post and I'll get to it as soon as I can.

In the meantime, the image above is of a small billboard in San Diego Zoo. I think it's connected with a teddy bear manufacturing retail outlet.

Or is it?

You decide!

On a slightly related note, but only slightly, earlier in the year I was in Marseilles for a very enjoyable long weekend of socialising and singing with Glasgow Chamber Choir, while we were visiting our twin choir La Maîtrise Gabriel Fauré and during the early part of the weekend we were treated to a reception by the French choir.

During the socialising I noticed a poster advertising some sort of ice lolly, for licking, obviously, which I couldn't resist photographing, and which is reproduced on the right.

I make no further comment apart from the observation that it might sell well if it were available in the UK!

San Diego catch up #2

So what else happened in San Diego, I hear you ask. Well all, or some anyway, will be revealed in due course, but first I'd like to mention that after Evensong yesterday I was very glad to hear that AC has enjoyed my various holiday posts. I mostly write this Blog for myself, but it's always nice to hear of someone who has enjoyed some of what I wrote, and especially so when it's someone I know in real life and even more so when it's someone who's been a friend for such a long long time.

Wednesday 29th October

This was the first full day of being together with RE in San Diego, and my brother, possibly glad to get some respite from being with me all day every day, gave us the keys to his Ford Focus (a bit easier to park than his Chevrolet Trailblazer!) and his SatNav, and left us to our own devices, so we initially went shopping to Seaport Village, which is pretty much an outdoor mall right on San Diego Bay, and near to the USS Midway aircraft carrier I mentioned on 25th October's post.

The weather, as ever in southern California by all accounts and by my limited experience, was bloody hot! Their website carries the tagline "everything under the sun" which is pretty clever and even if the "everything" bit isn't 100% accurate, the "sun" bit certainly is!

As we strolled around popping in and out of shops, one of our popping out moments coincided with a fair sized naval ship leaving San Diego Bay and passing Seaport Village. The top image on the right shows it with the Coronado Bridge in the background (which is apparently the third deadliest suicide bridge in the United States although why anyone would feel like suicide in the glorious weather of San Diego is beyond me. In Glasgow, fair enough, but in that sunshine?).

The bottom image was taken using the full zoom of my Fujifilm Finepix S5700. It has 10x optical zoom, which is pretty impressive on its own, but also has 4.8x digital zoom too. I've never been all that keen on using digital zoom, since my limited understanding of it is that all it does is artificially compensate for the reduced picture quality of the extra zoom by the simple expedient of "making up" the image by adding pixels. OK, I didn't explain that very well, so read this instead.

Anyway, the bottom image of the ship was taken using full digital zoom, and I have to confess that I'm quite pleased with the results of my first try at it.

One good find, bizarrely, in Seaport Village was a New Zealand shop, The Cabbage Tree, which RE naturally had to look round. We spent quite a while browsing and RE spent a while chatting to her fellow Kiwi who was behind the counter. Strange to think that RE had just travelled half way round the world from New Zealand, only to find reminders of her homeland at her destination!

We decided to head to the Old Town next, to soak up some history. I'd really enjoyed it when I'd been there with my brother the previous week, and enjoyed it again with RE.

We'd found out that my brother and his wife really liked a restaurant called Shogun which was about a twenty minute drive from their house, so we booked a table there and all headed off for what was going to be, for me anyway, a brand new experience. Teppanyaki. Ever tried it? I'd barely even heard of it. It's essentially a table round three sides of which the diners sit, and at the other side a chef prepares your food for you using the centre of the table which is a very very hot metal griddle.

But that's oversimplifying it a bit. It's an art. The chef doesn't just prepare your food, he entertains you while doing so, with flashy juggling of knives and spatulas and food bowls full of food, and with spectacular displays of flaming oils making flames shoot from the griddle up into the metal extractor hood above the table.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole shooting match, the food, the sounds, the smells, the sights, and if you get a chance to try Teppanyaki, then do so.

I've just discovered there's a Teppanyaki restaurant in Glasgow, in the North Rotunda, so I'm looking forward to trying it again.

In vino veritas

Ah, wine. The very lifeblood of civilisation.

Today, Sunday 26th October (ignore the "official" post date and time recorded here which is in GMT, or in fact probably BST, it's a little after 10.30pm on Sunday here in San Diego, Southern California, as I start to type this) we visited the Callaway Winery near Temecula. Took the (free) tour and heard the story of how the wine is produced, and how Ely Callaway founded the vineyard in 1969 before becoming even more famous as a maker of expensive golf bats (a good walk spoiled, some say). And sampled 6 different wines ranging from pretty good to very good!

Before hitting the winery though we stopped in the town of Temecula. Actually I think it's a city, but it didn't seem all that big so looked more like a town. Didn't stay for all that long, and didn't do much except have breakfast (crepes and coffee) and visit an antiques centre where plaster representations of Winnie the Pooh and the late Emperor Julius Caesar (or G. Cesare as the inscription says, which means Guilio Cesare we have worked out by means of research on t'InterWeb) were procured. The crepes and coffee were good, but served a bit randomly one plate at a time with a gap of a few minutes between each.

Next, and final, stop was a picnic area at Lake Wohlford, where chicken bits and tuna sandwiches were consumed, and a football (of the American version) was thrown around for a while.

This evening I had a long overdue, and very welcome Skype conversation with RE who is in New Zealand. She will be arriving in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing her again and spending some touristy time together.

While in Temecula today, and on all the roads round about here, huge numbers of Harley Davidson motorcycles have been very much in evidence, and to be truthful the more of them I've seen, the more I've realised that I don't buy into the culture of that particular make of machine. I've no problem with anyone who does, and I still think they sound great (although apparently they handle like shit on anything except a straight road), but I've never had a desire to ride one in the UK and have felt pressure to hire one while here only because it's probably The Thing To Do, so over the course of today I've pretty much come to the decision that I'm not going to bother hiring one while I'm here. Sure, it's great biking weather, and if I had a BMW like my own at home (the link isn't to my actual bike, incidentally, just to the same model) then I'd happily head out there, but the San Diego BMW Motorrad dealer doesn't advertise rentals on their Website, and when I did some research before coming out here I saw some BMW's for hire at a price far above what I'd deem reasonable, so to Hell with that!

So tomorrow, we haven't quite decided what to do. Golf has been mentioned, but it remains to be seen whether my brother will put up with a non-player accompanying him and hacking his way round the course to everyone's amusement and probably irritation. Also, I don't look good wearing Pringle sweaters.

Did I mention that last night we ate at Joe's Crab Shack? Very nice too. Almost bought a tee shirt proclaiming My waitress gave me crabs, but didn't!

Hi tech stuff

It's a little after 3pm on Saturday 25th October. So what have I been up to here in still very sunny and unseasonably hot San Diego since my previous post on Wednesday afternoon?

On Thursday my brother, D, took me for a whistlestop tour of the place he works, Solar Turbines, in the centre of San Diego right next to the airport. What struck me most in the assembly area was, considering this is engineering on a big scale, it was really really clean. I'm not an engineer myself, and my previous limited experience of it was a week of work experience in my last years at school, probably around 1978, which I spent at the Terex earth moving equipment manufacturer near my hometown, and various short visits to collect my dad from his work when that was at a steelworks. All very noisy, dirty environments. But not Solar, it was all very clean, very hi-tech, pretty quiet, and very impressive.

Thursday evening saw us eating at the Fish Market at Del Mar/Solano Beach. An interesting if unsurprisingly fishy menu full of things of which I'd never heard before, let alone tried! And some beer too. Wouldn't necessarily recommend you try it, but it was OK.

On Friday we set off slightly north of the city, and finding the beach near Carlsbad we followed the coast south again, largely on the historic Route 101, aka the Pacific Highway, seeing groups of surfers on the way. Through a mixture of towns like Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar and La Jolla (pronounced Hoya apparently), which varied from what looked like not much more than beach huts perhaps occupied by people who moved to California in the 1960's and never left (the area or the 60's for that matter!) and huge multi million dollar properties, probably occupied for a small percentage of the year by film stars and other such celebs.

We'll go back to that area next week though, to explore a bit more when RE gets here. On Friday we were headed somewhere specific, not just Pacific. Our destination was the rather large and exceptionally impressive USS Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier berthed in San Diego Bay just along from the Maritime Museum we visited earlier in the week. When she was launched in 1945 and for the following ten years, Midway was the largest ship in the world, and she is big! Lots to see, and one refreshing thing was that many of the aircraft on the flight deck have bits sticking out of them at body or head height (edges of wings and suchlike) yet there are very few roped off or protected areas so it would be easy to walk into something slightly painful. The authorities who run the ship as a museum have obviously trusted the intelligence of their visitors enough not to have felt the need to over protect them. I genuinely thought that was a nice touch, and perhaps all the more surprising in the notoriously litigious USA.

After leaving the Midway, we visited Beverages and More, which if it were in Glasgow would be a very regular haunt for me. I got some Gordons Gin and some Pastis, and D got various Belgian and UK beers and some wine. Great store!

So that was us all set for Tapas type starters followed by Jambalaya, sitting outside in the still warm evening, with large glasses of Pastis for me, and red wine for everyone else (except my niece J, who had Sprite!). A good evening, yet again, of good food and drink and company.

This morning, Saturday, and my sister in law and niece, C and J, available to join us since it's the weekend, we all set off to San Diego Wild Animal Park, a few miles north of San Diego. Something like 1800 acres of wilderness tamed and filled with a variety of exotic animals and boutiques selling the usual touristy tat. It's part of San Diego Zoo, which is in Balboa Park in the city and which we'll visit next week, and by all accounts it isn't quite as good as the zoo itself.

Now it's chill out time, because it's too hot to wander about outside, so I've copied all the photos I've taken so far from my camera onto a flash drive pen, just in case. I'd post more of the images here, but I've got the camera settings such that my images are roughly 3Mb each, and while if I was at home I'd use the Microsoft PowerToys image resizer to easily and quickly make small copies with just a right click of the mouse, D's laptop runs Windows Vista and the resizer only works with XP, so I don't want to upload too many big images. I'll upload smaller ones to my Flickr account after I return home, and provide a link to them from this Blog, in the unlikely event anyone wants to see them.

It's hot hot hot

As I start to write this it's now half past four in the afternoon of Wednesday 22nd October here in very sunny and very warm San Diego, southern California. The temperature today down at the water was forecast for about 78deg and inland was to be about 98deg. That's almost 26 degrees and almost 37 degrees Centigrade, for those who like me work in those figures and for whom Fahrenheit means nothing! It's bloody hot anyway! And I forgot to put on sun screen this morning. Oh well. RE will kill me!

In my last post I mentioned what we did on Sunday morning, and on Monday.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we headed a little further afield, to the Mount Palomar Observatory in fact. Operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which coincidentally is who our friend MB, recently formerly of Glasgow Chamber Choir, is now employed by, but in LA (or somewhere nearby) not at Mount Palomar. He's a physicist, and at his leaving party in Glasgow a few months ago (he had been working at Glasgow University) I asked him, as someone who has passed Higher Physics and who has a keen albeit passing interest in "popular" science, what he actually did. Ten minutes or so later, MB had explained to me in really simple terms how he was involved in a world wide experiment relating to gravity waves, and I understood not one word! RE and I are visiting him at the end of next week on our way back home. Oh, did I mention that RE, who is currently in New Zealand, is making a stopover for a few days and joining me in San Diego?

Anyway, the observatory is at the top of a mountain. Mount Palomar in fact, funnily enough. It was a spectacular drive up an extremely twist road, and I took over at the wheel of D's Chevrolet Trailblazer with its 4.2 litre engine and automatic gearbox, part way up the mountain. An interesting experience, not being at all used to left hand drive vehicles (although I have driven them a few times in the past) and not being familiar with the US system of road markings and the rules of the road.

There's not a great deal to see at the observatory, apart from a single room museum nearby (fairly small but quite interesting), and of course the 200 inch Hale telescope, which is HUGE! Well worth the trip though.

Coming back down the mountain, we took a different route part way, and headed to the traditional western town of Julian, which is an historic gold rush town, now famous for its apples and the pies and cider therefrom! We sampled neither, but my brother told me of a previous visit with a couple of friends from Scotland, D & L, when D was horrified to discover that the cider he'd just bought and drank was in fact alcohol free!

Julian is a lovely wee town, and there are some good shops too. Next time I might try an apple pie! And the roads round it are really good, and would be excellent for biking on.

I forgot to mention, at breakfast yesterday we tried Einstein Brothers Bagels instead of Starbucks. The bagels were great (Egg sandwich with bacon and cheese, on an onion bagel) and the orange juice was exceptional, but don't believe their website when it claims darn good coffee. The coffee wasn't great. While sitting outside waiting for my brother to come out with the Bagels, I overheard half of a telephone conversation which made me glad to live in the United Kingdom, and very appreciative of the National Health Service, with all its faults.

The phrase I overheard, which requires no further comment from me, was:

".......I'm not having the heart procedure, because it costs way too much money......."

We rounded off yesterday by having a bit of a barbecue and then watching a DVD, Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum, which if you haven't seen it I would suggest not to go out your way to do so. Harmless and inoffensive, but not the best! I enjoyed the company though.

This morning, Wednesday 22nd October, we mixed and matched at breakfast, finding an Einstein Brothers Bagels next door to a Starbucks, so we had orange juice and bagels from one and coffee from the other, and sat outside in the shade.

Off then to Balboa Park and to the museums. Specifically to the Air and Space Museum and the Automotive one. The Air and Space one has loads of interesting stuff including the Apollo 9 command module, and the Automotive museum has a large collection of Ferrari cars. Again, both well worth a visit. It was $15 each to get into the Air and Space Museum, and $8 each for the Automotive one, although D received a $4 discount to that one for being a member of AAA.

One of the things I experienced in the Air & Space museum was a flight simulator of a fighter aircraft, an F-18 I think it might have been. Let's just say that after my first barrel roll and loop the loop, I was glad I hadn't been to the diner this morning for the size of breakfast I'd had on Sunday! Very exciting though, particularly the upside down bits! Made me glad of the time I've spent in the past using Microsoft Flight Simulator, because at least I knew which way to move the stick!

Leaving Balboa Park, we headed for the Old Town of San Diego, which was fantastic. Lots of history, and lots of shops with the staff dressed in traditional costume. Certainly worth another visit and we'll go when RE is here.

Lastly, for the out and about stuff anyway, we found a Harley Davidson motorcycle dealer, and went in for a look round. More chrome, leather and tassles than you can shake a stick at! Just like the H-D dealer in Glasgow, in fact, only much much bigger.

Before coming here on holiday, I had considered hiring a Harley Davidson for a few days and riding part of the Pacific Coast Highway, but when I started to look online at prices I realised that I wasn't all that bothered! However, when I was engaged in conversation with one of the dealer's staff this afternoon, he mentioned hiring a bike for 8 hours, and it turns out this only costs $59 (plus maybe $20 insurance and the cost of fuel too) and for that I can choose any bike. It also includes helmets, although no other protective gear is supplied. Watch this space!

So that was today. I'm currently relaxing in preparation for some nice steak tonight, and maybe some beer or some wine.

I see no ships

It's Tuesday morning, 21st October, at a little before 8am in San Diego and thankfully it seems my body clock is managing to right itself. More or less anyway. I stayed up until about 10pm last night before I had to sleepily make my way to bed!

Yesterday my brother, D, and I started off at one of the ubiquitous Starbucks where we had coffee and something to eat for a bit of breakfast. My Superman teeshirt apparently caused a bit of a stir as two people, including a down and out, commented on it on the way into Starbucks, and the server inside just wrote "Superman" on the cup before passing it to someone who was going to prepare the latte. Thankfully no one else during the day had anything to say, otherwise it would have become fairly tiresome I guess, so maybe it's just at that particular Starbucks no one had ever seen one before! Or maybe they thought I was actually Superman instead of a Scottish bloke wearing it ironically! It is California after all and I understand that mind altering substances have been used here in the past!

I forgot to mention that on Sunday morning we went to a traditional diner where I had my first experience of pancakes and syrup for breakfast. And eggs benedict with what was essentially a slab of gammon steak, and eggs benedict with crab cakes. And orange juice. And more coffee than you could shake a stick at. Fantastic. And the pancakes were a surprise to me, since I didn't think I'd like them but did! Can't imagine ever doing that sort of thing more than very occasionally though, and indeed D & C confirmed that they do it very rarely.

So back to yesterday then. After breakfast we went to downtown San Diego, next to San Diego Bay, where we parked and bought tickets for the Maritime Museum. They have six ships listed on their brochure, but there were only five there, plus a former Soviet submarine which wasn't in the brochure so we didn't feel short changed at all.

The ships they have are:

• Star of India, the world's oldest active ship, built in the Isle of Man in 1863 and originally called Euterpe. She has been used for various things, including transporting emigrants from the UK to New Zealand, and in the Alaskan salmon packing industry.
  


• Berkeley, an 1898 steam ferryboat that operated for 60 years in San Francisco Bay.
  


• Medea, a 1904 steam yacht built at Linthouse on the River Clyde in Glasgow (roughly 3 miles from my house!) for a rich guy from Argyll.
  


• Pilot, a 1914 harbour pilot boat which for 82 years was San Diego Bay's official pilot boat.
  


• Californian, a replica 19th century revenue cutter, which wasn't there.
  


• HMS Surprise, a replica 18th century Royal Navy Frigate which featured in the 2003 Russell Crowe film Master and Commander: The far side of the world, which I haven't seen but will do so at the earliest opportunity.
  


• B-39 Soviet attack submarine which was launched in 1972, and carried nuclear (or should that be Nucular since I'm here in the states?) weapons.
  

The top photo, taken from Berkeley, shows the stern of HMS Surprise, the bow of B-39, and most of Star of India. The bottom photo shows the saloon of Berkeley.

They were all really interesting, and for only $14 for a ticket which allowed unlimited repeated access to all of them for a day, it was really good value too.

After leaving the downtown area we went to a Mexican food place, Baja Fresh, for lunch, and had fish tacos. An interesting experience! Stopping at a huge, and I mean huge, electronic warehouse called Frys, which sold pretty much everything gadget related and was decribed beforehand by D as being Toys R Us for men, and then at another smaller one called Best Buy, we collected my niece J from school, and pausing momentarily at a local Baskin & Robbins for some ice cream, we headed home.

A good day, well spent.

Hairy Bikers

If you haven't managed to catch The Hairy Bikers on tv, you should do so. A couple of, well, hairy bikers who do cooking around the world on their travels. I recommend it.

Five on one

On the second Sunday of the month the motorcycle section of the Glasgow North group of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) meets for a ride which is not only longer than the observed ones which happen on Wednesdays, but is designed for pleasure, not training. Today is the second Sunday of the month so I duly went to the designated meeting point in Glasgow, having been told and also having read that they can have up to 60 riders attending so the way it would work would be that we would be divided up into smaller groups of about 6 riders of similar style etc so that no one gets left behind or feels pressured into riding faster than they feel able.

Six riders turned up, including me.

So that was how I, a new Associate member who has so far had only two proper observed rides, went on a 185 mile round trip accompanied by one observer (the same guy who observed my second run about a week ago), three senior observers, and the chief motorcycle observer of the Scottish IAM! So no pressure or anything! In fact it was fine. I didn't feel overwhelmed by the people around me, and I think I acquitted myself well. They're a friendly bunch too!

We set off up the M80, across the Kincardine bridge (read about its construction here, it's very interesting and has good historic images), where they're constructing a new crossing, past Rosyth and up to Kirkcaldy where we stopped for a toilet break and also a cup of tea with a roll and sausage with onions (well I did anyway, and I wasn't the only one).

Setting off again we went up the Fife coast to Anstruther where we stopped for about an hour and ate lovely fish & chips for lunch from the deservedly award-winning fish & chip shop at the harbour. Onwards to St Andrews (we didn't eat anything there) and back down some reasonably twisty roads and back over the Kincardine bridge and home. Very enjoyable. Once I got over the initial shock of sticking to the 50mph speed limit on the M80 that is. Felt very slow, especially when vans and lorries were overtaking us!

Off out for what I think is a well deserved beer now.

Oh, and made contact with a friend again today. One of the very limited number of friends I have who rides a motorcycle (as opposed to the friends I have because I met them via riding motorcycles, if you see what I mean. Clear? Good.) Haven't seen him or his wife for a LONG time. In fact I briefly met them when I was on crutches, before I stopped attending the cathedral, so that was many months ago. Anyway, to my shame I haven't made the effort to keep in touch but I finally managed it today. Sent him a text message last night, and he replied to it today. We will hopefully manage a ride out together soon, before the slippery leaves of Autumn make it more challenging than fun.

To the pub!

No dumping

I took the photo on the right yesterday in the Charing Cross area of Glasgow. Some people clearly can't read, or maybe just have a blatant disregard for the law of the land!

On a related topic, when I moved into my new flat, despite having specified that I didn't want the scabby looking old washing machine which had been in the kitchen when I came to view the place, inevitably it was still there when I took possession of the property. The nice removal men were already going to be disconnecting and reconnecting my own washing machine, and they kindly agreed to disconnect the old one too. So they duly left it outside the back door and I was left wondering how long it'd be before I'd feel fit enough to lift it (with assistance of course, the days of me being able to lift a washing machine on my own are probably over) and take it to the recycling place 500 yards away.

I happened to be waiting for the engineer from Scottish Power to arrive on Wednesday morning when I heard what was the rear shutter of a van being opened or closed outside. I hobbled to the window to see if it was the engineer, only to discover a white transit luton parked outside and two scummy neds manhandling the old washing machine towards the back of it, while looking furtively around. I could see that the back of the van already contained various old looking white goods (cookers etc) so presumably the bold boys had been doing the rounds looking for stuff lying around to nick. I took their registration number, but to be honest it saved me the trouble of disposing of the thing myself so I didn't bother chasing them away.

Incidentally, can anyone confirm that the roadsign on the left has the correct spelling? I always thought that mews would be correct. It's directly across from The Observatory pub in Glasgow's Elderslie St. A nice little place to have a bite to eat and a drink, particularly if you can sit in the conservatory, from where the photo was taken.

Beer and sausage

The festival was excellent. Lots of beer to sample, and German sausage to eat too. A tiring day, but enjoyable.

Jacques Brel, Tintin, waffles, Poirot ............

So what was Belgium like? I hear you ask rather belatedly. I'm glad you asked, so I'll tell you. It was bloody hot for a start! And it was rather a struggle on the crutches, of which more anon, but it was a very enjoyable weekend.

No problems on the outward bound flight on Friday, and rather annoyingly no one took the trouble to open the envelope and read the medical certificate which I had been forced to piss about getting. Still, I had it with me just in case.

So we got there uneventfully and we (my dad and me) were collected by my brother at Charleroi, having waited for about an hour in unventilated, un-airconditioned, sweltering heat for our bags to be offloaded and appear on the carousel. Tempers were running a bit high amongst some of our fellow passengers, and it turned out that the baggage handlers (amongst others) were on strike at Brussels airport which meant that Charleroi was not only busier than usual but was subject to the handlers there apparently being arsy in support of their colleagues.

So once we got into the car we decided there was no point in wasting time going to the hotel, so we headed towards Brussels, stopping enroute at the battle of Waterloo memorial. Very little mention of Wellington, but lots of Napoleon and they clearly were unaware that the short arse had lost the battle! The photo on the right is of Napoleon and the way he is depicted standing with his arms folded he looks like he's having a bit of a hissy fit. You can't actually see a petted lip, but I think it's there!

After a brief stop at Waterloo we carried on to Brussels, and found ourselves near the Grand Place eating lovely sandwiches on hot bread.

A bit of a wander round and we saw the famous pissing boy, sorry, Mannequin Pis, which frankly isn't worth crossing the street to look at, never mind travelling to Belgium. What was worth looking at though was the beer shop nearby which has an unfortunate name. I'm sure they don't actually sell Piss Beer!

Brussels is full of cobblestones. Said cobbles are rather uneven with big gaps between lots of them. I am on crutches. Crutches have rubber bits on the end to stop them slipping. If you put a crutch into one of the gaps between cobbles often enough then the metal pole which is the actual crutch eventually will pierce the rubber stopper on the end and poke through. If you then use the crutch on stone or tiled surfaces it will slide. This isn't hypothetical. Day one and one of the crutches was knackered, causing me for the rest of the weekend to be very careful where I put the crutch, careful not to angle it out too much (keeping it as vertical as possible) and careful not to go too fast or too far for too long. It was much harder work than it would have been with undamaged crutches. When I got back home I went to the fracture clinic and they changed the ends in about 30 seconds. What a difference!

Anyway, Brussels was a nice city, the little we saw of it (see reason above) but very busy.

On Friday evening we had dinner in the hotel in Charleroi. It was acceptable but unexceptional, although it was nice to be able to eat outside in the still-warm weather.

On Saturday we decided we'd head to Ypres and have a look at a war cemetery as well as the city itself. The cemetery we chose was Tyne Cot, which is the largest of them with around 12,000 soldiers of the Commonwealth Forces buried there. About 70% (that's over 8,000) graves have no names on the headstones but are marked simply "Known unto God" and the wall at the rear of the cemetery lists 35,000 names of soldiers who died but have no known grave. These are numbers. The numbers are staggering. But more staggering are the rows and rows of identical white Portland stone headstones. A lot of men died near Ypres. You may have heard of the battle, no, slaughter, at Passchendaele. That was just one of the battles at the Ypres salient between October 1914 and October 1918.

In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing, fly
scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
in Flanders fields.

Take up your quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
the torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
we shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
in Flanders fields

Anyway, that was Tyne Cot. A very moving place.

We then tried to look at Ypres, but there was a market on in the town centre and we couldn't find a parking place close enough for me to hobble so we cut our losses and headed north to Bruges.

Bruges is a lovely city and undoubtedly was the high spot of the weekend (Belgium-wise that is, it goes without saying that it was great to see my brother and to spend time with him and dad).

We found some underground parking near the centre and wandered to the square, which might be called the Grand Place, or might not. Lovely architecture and some great looking cafe-bars around the edge. Selecting one more or less at random (see photo left) we sat outside, shaded from the warm sunshine, and had some cold beers and a set lunch. Flanders stew is delicious and I heartily recommend it. Except if you're a vegetarian of course.

After lunch we took a stroll round, finding another square and what looked like a mediaeval church which on inspection inside seemed to related to the crusades.

A busy town, but not as busy as Brussels had felt. I will certainly go back and visit Bruges once my mobility is unimpaired. I quite fancy taking the bike across on the Rosyth - Zebrugge ferry and doing it that way. Of course I'd also have a further look a bit around Belgium generally, but Bruges was excellent and I could easily and happily spend some time there.

On Saturday evening we ate in Charleroi, but not in the hotel this time. We started by heading off to, of all things, an Irish bar! There is clearly a European law which requires all towns to have one, because we saw one just about everywhere. The Irish Times Pub in downtown Charleroi was everything you'd expect. And I don't really mean that as much of a compliment. It was OK, but very smoky for one thing. Drinking in Scotland where there is a ban on smoking indoors (and in Ireland too for that matter) you forget how spoilt you become by the luxury of being able to breathe clean air and go home at the end of the night not smelling like an ashtray. The selection of Belgian beers in the pub was poor, but then again if you're looking for Belgian beers in Belgium you just have to go anywhere else rather than an Irish bar so you can't really complain. Big screen TV showing Manchester United playing against someone else. And probably Watney's Red Barrel and Fish & Chips. The Guinness was OK.

We then ate in Cafe Leffe, which was perfectly fine. They wouldn't let us sit outside at the pavement tables which seemed to be reserved for those drinking but not eating. After some hilarity (!) with the waiter and discussion on how to pronounce the word Archiduke (don't ask) my brother and I both ordered Filet de Beouf and dad ordered chicken of some description. When the plates were delivered my beouf looked remarkably light coloured, even under the Rocquefort sauce, in comparison with the other one (which was supposed to be identical apart from having Archiduke sauce on it. When I scraped the sauce away I discovered that my beouf looked remarkably like pork. I really couldn't be arsed trying to sort it out so just ate it anyway. I could understand if I was the only one ordering it, but we actually ordered two of the same dish cooked the same way (apart from the sauce) at the same time. Not to worry. The pork was fine. As apparently were the beef and chicken.

Back then to the hotel for some more beer (see right) and lazing about outside enjoying the weather.

Next morning we went back to the airport and flew back to Glasgow Prestwick airport (No! Stop calling it that Ryanair. It isn't in Glasgow).

As I climbed the steps to the aircraft the senior cabin crew person (German - wonderful sense of humour, the Germans) tried to give me grief for not having requested assistance in advance. I told her I didn't need assistance. She said I did. I said I hadn't had any problems on the flight out and in fact when I had called Ryanair in advance they told me I wouldn't need assistance as long as I could get about on crutches. She told me I should have asked again. Wait a minute, so she was suggesting that once I have asked a question and received a reply, I should continue asking the same question until I received a different reply. Fanny. She made a big show of having to ask people to move seat to accommodate me. Fanny. Everyone else was fine (her colleagues were kind of rolling their eyes in her direction as I hobbled up the aisle, as if in apology for their fanny of a colleague). She'd obviously had a bad day but I wasn't going to let her bad attitude spoil my mood. Let her screw up her own blood pressure if she wants.

Anyway, all in all a good weekend. I haven't mentioned the obvious thing about Belgium (OK, one of the obvious things, but the most obvious to me) the beer. We had plenty and it was good lager. Sod all that fruity flavoured nonsense. If I want to taste fruit I'll drink Ribena. The bog standard lager was perfectly adequate, and thankfully ubiquitous.

So, Belgium - go there, especially Bruges.

That's a bloody long time!

Collected my sick note from my GP this morning. The first one I can remember ever having in something like 27 years of working! I had asked that, having self-certificated for a week, my GP give me a certificate from Monday 26th until my next appointment at the fracture clinic on 20th April. This would give me about 3 weeks of certificated absence plus the first week, then I would re-address whether I need to stay off work for longer, in consultation with the doctors at the clinic and my GP of course. I thought 4 weeks was a long time to be off and had hoped that I might be able to return after then.

So I collected my pre-prepared sick note (written after my GP received a letter from the hospital so I didn't actually have to see her) this morning and took it straight to work. To my surprise, when I got to work and looked at the certificate it said I was to stay off for 6 weeks from 26th! That's 3 weeks longer than I had hoped to be off for this initial period. Although I'm mindful of the very real possibility (actually it's a probability) that I'll be off for the full 3 months, I don't want to accept that as for definite and was hoping to fool myself by staying off for repeated shorter periods. But now the earliest I'll be back to work is about 7th May. Fuck.

So, anyway, went for lunch to The Lansdowne with dad, who had kindly come and collected me to deal with said sick note. Very enjoyable it was too.

For the first time since starting to look for a place to buy, I've seen somewhere which has sparked my interest enough to actually go and look at it. So I've emailed the estate agent asking to arrange a viewing. It's slightly further away from the west end of Glasgow than I'd have really liked, but the property looks interesting. Hopefully no one gets in in front of me. No doubt further posts will reveal all!

The image? I watched a bit of Shaun of the Dead last night on TV. Good film. I have it on DVD and need to watch all of it again soon.

I hobble the line

I may have slightly overdone it yesterday.

Was collected by a friend and we went for a bit of a drive up the A82 as far as the start of Loch Lomond, then turned left and across the hills down into Helensburgh and then back towards Glasgow. We were both hungry by then so decided to eat out at The Lansdowne Bar and called ahead to book a table. To cut a longer story mercifully shorter, we had a nice meal and two bottles of wine (the car having been dropped off en-route), but by the time I got out of the taxi at home my leg was aching and felt, well, congested might not be a medically accurate word but it describes the feeling quite well. I think basically it was swollen a bit inside the cast, so I spent a wee while before going to sleep lying on the bed with my leg balanced on the end (i.e. raised a bit) and wiggling my toes as much as possible. I don't know whether it actually made a difference, but I felt a bit better by the time I lay down to sleep.

This morning the congestion was back, and it's been quite painful, but the medication has sorted that a bit. I don't really feel like doing anything today, although I'm supposed to be going to a concert tonight just round the corner. I'll wait and see how I feel at the time.

The other thing I did yesterday was watch the first of my DVD mountain. Well, as I mentioned, it's not quite a mountain but more of a hill. Maybe a Munro. Yes, that's it. I have a DVD Munro. But I digress, as usual. Yesterday I watched The DaVinci Code and I enjoyed it. I know it largely got slated by the critics, but so did the book and I enjoyed that (more so than the film to be honest). I even enjoyed the line "I've got to get to a library ... fast!" which is a rather strange quote.

I've set up the Sony DVD Cinema Surround Sound system (of which I'm very proud - can you tell?) with the next film I'm going to watch (so I can press the buttons and start it without moving from the sofa) and I've decided on the Oscar winning Walk the Line, the story of Country Music legend Johnny Cash's life. maybe a review will feature once I've seen it, but probably not and in any case it would probably only consist of either "it's shit" or "it's great".

Trusted Places

I've discovered a rather brilliant new Website where you can read, and write, recommendations about pubs, clubs and restaurants throughout the UK. It's driven by what users say, not by adverts placed by the establishments, so should be as fair and unbiased as it can be (within the bounds of human nature of course!).

Their site says:

Trustedplaces is a community of real people, like you and me, who all have opinions on places they have experienced in their daily lives. By being part of the community you can share your opinions on places that you know, trust and recommend - or even avoid - with all of your friends and their friends too. Discovering great new places is both fun and easy as you tap into all the recommendations shared by the community - it is also great value as you enjoy special offers from participating businesses.

I've signed up (it's free) and posted a fair few reviews already. Why not have a look and see what you think.

In fact, if you follow any of the links on this post, and then sign up while you're there, you will automatically be added as my friend on the site, which'd be nice!

Give it a look, you can always choose not to sign up if you don't like it! You've nothing to lose!

An updated hippy cliche

Many thanks (not) to GS for sending me the image on the left, after me saying two posts ago that I couldn't use the original after this year. Isn't Photoshop wonderful!

Was in The Bothy last night for a meal with a few friends. Private room, lovely surroundings, excellent food, good wine. All in all a very very enjoyable evening I thought. And I would heartily recommend The Bothy for food if you're in the west end of Glasgow. In particular the steak is awesome.

I've just been out on the bike and it's bloody cold. Back into the lockup it has gone.

o rly?

Yes Really!

Twice in one week without alcohol. Who'd have believed it. Certainly not me and probably not many who know me.

Having abstained on Monday I went for a meal on Tuesday and let's face it, there's no point going to a restaurant if you're not drinking as well as eating so I ordered house red (Montepulciano since you ask) while having some very nice pasta in Di Maggio's in Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow city centre. Off then to The Counting House just round the corner to meet CH, who conducts a choir on a Tuesday and they follow the rehearsal with a trip to this pub. Lovely building, former bank. Anyway, more drink was had.

But last night I didn't feel like drinking. I was at home doing not very much apart from surfing the InterWeb and occasionally glancing at the TV, but I actually didn't feel like drinking. Not like me at all. Maybe I'm becoming menopausal (don't bother emailing me, I know!).

Choir practice tonight has been cancelled at exceptionally short notice due to lack of numbers, so I will be meeting up with some friends in The Primary for a bite to eat and a wee swally of beer. Maybe drinking and abstaining on alternate days is the way forward!

Belated Happy Holidays

A bit belated, but Happy Thanksgiving to y'all!

I've had a busy and quite interesting old time over the past wee while.

A new tenor has joined the Cathedral choir, DA, and let's just say he turned a few heads (both male and female I am told) when he arrived a bit late to the rehearsal on Thursday straight from work still wearing his Royal Navy uniform!

On Friday four of us were invited for dinner to the new home of MA (who has been in the choir for a wee while now) and her boyfriend J (just realised I don't know his surname!) who has just moved to Glasgow to join her. He makes an excellent Risotto! A very fine night. Too much wine though! And MA makes the best chocolatey desserty sweetie type things ever!

So Saturday should have been a restful day. Nah. We had to sing at a memorial service for Prof Leslie Alcock OBE, former Archeology Professor at Glasgow University and by all accounts a giant in his field of expertise. Leslie was a member of the Cathedral congregation, and his successor, CM, still sings Bass in the Cathedral choir. It was a well put together service, with all the music being chosen by CM.

So straight after the service there was a buffet lunch including a tray of wonderful carrot cake, then I headed off into town to buy some bits and pieces to take along to the east end of Glasgow joining CH and SH in NG and CG's flat. SH and CG are from the US of A (I trust you're following all this!), and we were about to celebrate, a bit belatedly, my first Thanksgiving (well technically not my first, but the first one I've observed/celebrated!). We had tried to find out what Thanksgiving is all about beforehand. What is the tradition? Should we bring presents, should we dress up, do you play games etc etc, but the story was very much "you eat and drink too much". That's it. So we did. Sadly there is now a photo in existence of two of us sitting happily sleeping on the sofa having pigged out fiercely! But then again if we had remained fully awake we might have been forced to sample the Buckfast CH and CG disappeared off to buy at the local shop on the basis that several people hadn't ever tasted it. Despite dire warnings from those of us who had actually tasted this fortified wine (I've consulted my lawyer so I'm not going to describe it further!) they tried it. Hell mend them! Not a particularly late night, we got taxis home before midnight, but it had been a long day.

This morning we sang EC Bairstow's Let all mortal flesh keep silence, which is an anthem I'm very fond of. I was asked to sing the tenor bit at the end, along with CM who was doing the bass bit. I think it went OK, but to be honest it's so rare that I do solo stuff I've almost lost the skill to judge for myself whether it sounds OK or not! One of the reasons I am fond of the anthem, apart from the fact that it's a good one, is that KY has said she always remembers it from the early 1990's as "my" anthem because she remembers me singing the tenor solo when we were both in the choir of All Saints' Church in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

After the morning service we had the Cathedral AGM, the first one over which KH has presided. I thought he handled it all very well, although I haven't got much with which to compare it because that's the first one I'd been to for years and years. I only went to show support because one of the choir had been asked if she would agree to be nominated for election to the Cathedral vestry and despite several of us counselling her she agreed. It then transpired that there were three vacancies and three candidates, so all became vestry members without a vote. Ah well. She can't say she wasn't warned!

Evensong tonight should be OK, and the pub afterwards will be as usual. Oh and on that note, I am sad to report that the Junkyard Dog (born 1927) may be not much longer for this world. Depending on who you ask the lease is up and the people who have been running it are not renewing the lease so it reverts back to another pub chain, or it's being/been sold. Either way the only reason anyone would surely dispose of it is if it wasn't making money, so whoever takes it on, if indeed they keep it open at all, will surely close it for refurbishment and relaunch. Let's hope it won't be a lager-joint. In the meantime we might have to find somewhere else. And related to the Dog, one of the barmaids seems to perhaps have had some surgical enhancement recently. Either that or she was wearing a "sheepdog" bra (rounds them up and points them in the same direction). Scary.

update: her baps had returned to their normal dimensions by the next time I saw her!

Cake and Gin

I think this might catch on!