Mon 29th Aug
The day after the wedding was expected to be a subdued one, with a barbeque in the backyard of Bec & Bob's flat for them, their families and some close friends. Surprise, surprise in became a delightfully debauched afternoon and evening.
By about 8pm, those of us still standing proceeded to moved on to SLEAZY, where Robin, one of Bob's old housemates, mentioned that he was off to see a band at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut. It wouldn't be a visit to Scotland for me without seeing some live music, given how much I love some of this country's bands, so off we staggered - me by now far the worse for wear.
I don't remember much about Mother & the Addicts other than the fact that I didn't particularly like them, but the headlining band My Latest Novel blew me away. They've only been around for less than 14 months, and already are supporting bands such as The Pixies and Teenage Fanclub. They're a quintet whose tunes feature dreamy vocals, violin, softly strummed guitars and fragile harmonies; think Belle and Sebastian meets early REM and you'll have an idea of the band's sound. Trust me, they'll be big. I'll play their single for you when I get back to Oz, or you can hear an MP3 here: http://www.mylatestnovel.com/Homepage.htm
Tues 30th
Very subdued day due to a bad hangover - I remember leaving King Tut's last night, but not actually getting home...
As Bec and Bob were off to open present's at Bob's folks' place today, I elected to walkthrough Kelvingrove Park and along the banks of the River Kelvin to the Botanic Gardens; the sunshine, leaping fish, babbling water, the tumbled stones of an old ruined mill and millrace, stalking herons, and quintesentially green British landscape soothed my poor head and liver significantly (although rounding the corner to find a pack of drunken neds blocking the footpath gave me a moment of surging adrenalin!).
I returned to the flat for a quick lunch, and then headed into the city for a spot of shopping and browsing. I ended up buying a collection of creative writing by some University of Glasgow students and look forward to sitting down with that on a train sometime soon, as well as a few more CD's from Mono (see Sat 27th Aug) - including My Latest Novel's debut single.
I also explored the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Sauchiehall Street, but was a little underwhelmed; shame I won't have time to Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art; it's apparently much better.
Tuesday night finished with a quiet dinner with Bec and Bob in a fantastic Belgian restaurant called Brel. Tucked away in the cobbled Ashton Lane in Glasgow's West End, this upmarket but friendly strip of resaturants and bars was a real find: definitely the kind of place only a local could bring you, and a real joy for the senses. My seafood dinner at Brel (named after Jacques Brel) brought a flush to my pale cheeks and a gleam to my jaundiced eyes. Highly recommended, although not exactly cheap.
Tues 31st August
Mountains! Moors! Islands! Fishing Villages! Lochs!
Having had countless people tell me that a trip to Scotland is incomplete unless you take in the Highlands, I jumped in the car with Bec and Bob on Wednesday morning and headed north.
They were bound for their honeymoon on the Isle of Skye (que chorus of 'awwwwwwww'); I tagged along with them as far as the ferry terminal at Mallaig, a tiny fishing village that describes itself as 'the gateway to the Isles'. While I debated staying the night there, the 5 hour return trip by train was a little daunting; I'd have to catch the 6.05am train in order to get back to Glasgow at a sensible time on Thursday. My mind was made up for me by the fact that the only hotel I liked the look of - as well as those of the guys drinking in the front bar - was booked out.
So, no bed for the night but a two hour ramble about Mallaig's narrow, rainwashed streets, listening to the sounds of the gulls and breathing in the wind off the sea before a 6 hour traintrip home. Occasionally the rain would lift enough to show Skye as more than a shadow on the horizon, but even so it was still a beautiful sight, and a fitting end to a trip which had taken us up along the shore of Loch Lomond, through gloomy yet beautiful Glencoe (hemmed in by spectacular mountains and the scene of bloody battle; that's a pic of Glencoe at the top of the page by the way), across the stark scenery of Rannock Moor, and past Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in Britain.
On the train home I glimpsed steep waterfalls foaming down near-vertical cliffs; black-faced sheep grazing in the rain on the narrow shores of a vast loch, whose waters were dotted with tiny, craggy islands from which pine trees soared; white-washed cottages nestled among dark leaves; lichen encrusted outcrops of granite; and clouds pouring like stuffing down the sides of mountains which had burst their seams...
It was all truly, spectacularly beautiful.
The only shadow over the day was an attempted rape I think I helped overt as I was walking home that night past the St Vincent Terraces (rather like our housing commission flats in Melbourne). A very drunk or tripping young woman came stumbling towards me calling for help, followed by a big, burly, scowling bloke who tried to pull her back off the footpath towards a small clump of trees that lay off the side of the road behind us. She calmed down after a minute, told me the guy was a friend of hers and that everything was ok, but his body-language scared me despite what she was saying. As he was way too big and aggro for me to anything about it, especially seeing as the girl wouldn't walk with me to the nearby police station, I left, but went straight to the cops, one block away on St Vincent Street, as soon as the pair had gone. Having alerted the police to the situation and described the girl, they said they would sent a car straight out.
It was a nasty end to an otherwise beautiful day, and showed me a side of Glasgow I'd really rather not have seen.
Anyway, putting that behind me, it's time to shower and pack - I'm off to Edinburgh this afternoon!
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