Sunday, April 03, 2005

France, Cuba and…Bearsden

A good night last night with Martin and Michelle. Anne’s Veggie Lasagne and individual Banoffee Pies went down a treat as did a good few of bottles of wine. I had a couple of beers then went on to Diet Coke after Friday’s shenanigans. Turned out Marty was rather hungover too.

Highlights of the night were the tales of M&M’s four pet rats (all females) Biscuit, Raisin, Peanut and of course Buttons….you can’t forget Buttons. They all live together in a big cage in the spare room and seem to have rather a lot of adventures. I think someone could make a kids’ TV programme about them no problem.

Got to bed around two in the morning again, but no headache this morning – just as well as we were driving to Glasgow.

Recently, my mum has become less confident in her driving capabilities (some of us were actually never confident of them) and so Anne and I have been taking her through and bringing her home from a couple of friends places on the West Coast

She arrived at the house around eleven and we set off for Glasgow, or to be more accurate, Bearsden, just north of Glasgow, to visit old friends Lex and Moira. Mozart’s “Haydn String Quartets” accompanied us on the journey.

My mum and dad met the Patersons whilst on holiday in the early sixties, 1964 or 65 I think and reciprocal visits have been a fixture of the calendar ever since. Their daughter, Lindsay became a top European Lawyer but gave it all up a couple of years ago to set up a Gite near Avignon in the South of France with her husband, Guy. Lex and Moira have a million stories about the place.

We arrived at twelve and lunch was set for one. Our intention was to head into Glasgow and then come back and pick mum up later on. But Moira and Lex have just been to Cuba on holiday and their entertaining stories of how things seem to work in that strange country allowed us to lose track of time until we found it was already three.

Anne and I drove to Byre’s Road at Hillhead and took the Clockwork Orange (Subway) into the City Centre. Considering I visit Fopp and HMV Record Shops almost everyday in Edinburgh, I suppose it’s a bit sad that those two businesses were two of only three (ahem, the other was Missing Records) I visited whilst Anne went clothes shopping. She bagged a couple of hats and some kind of white cardigan with holes in it.

I picked up four Blue Note compilations in Fopp and the two Mick Ronson solo albums released in his lifetime - “Slaughter on 10th Avenue” (which I originally bought in February 1974 from The Record Exchange in Edinburgh for £2.10 upon its release) and “Play Don’t Worry” (which I obtained in a record shop in Germany whilst on a school exchange in 1976). I have both those albums on CD already. Aah, but these new pressings have more bonus tracks.

After an extremely LARGE coffee (Latte Vente) in Starbucks, we got the train back to the car and arrived back in Bearsden around 6:30. I thought we’d be heading home, but there was more food and refreshments and more stories to be told. They really are a young couple for their age – I actually don’t know how old they are, probably mid to late sixties but they seem a lot younger than my mum. Moira’s tales of her various computer courses were funny – I said she ought to get herself a blog!

We left around 9:40 and took a slightly shorter route home, then my mum drove home from our house and Anne and I had a reasonably early night - I fell asleep with Mick Ronson on my headphones....

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