Over iced and overpriced

Ka and myself were back in Glasgow, late on Saturday afternoon. With the intention of dinner and drinks we headed for the Merchant Square in Candleriggs. It felt like we hadn’t been out for ages, as we’ve had a few quiet weekends recently, and now that George Square was free of zombies, crowds running amok screaming and breaking their arms and detoured Number 20 bus routes, we thought it would be a pleasant change and get us out the house.
The city’s old fruit market and surrounds, in which much of Glasgow’s old Victorian architecture still proudly stand in cobbled streets, has been a bit of a favourite for Ka and myself when it comes to going for a wee tipple at the weekend. Although a little pricey, the atmosphere is always relaxed, comfortable and enjoyable as you can sit in one of the Square’s bars inside the roofed courtyard with it’s high ceiling of curving, twinkling lights which shine down over the cobbles of the people filled square below.
On Saturday the Merchant Square’s Craft and Design Fair was taking place. It turns out that it’s more of a permanent fixture these days, and there were various traders attempting to sell the product of their various hobbies and pastimes.
Paintings, drawings, photographs and jewellery were all on sale around the various stalls in the Square along with two stalls selling fairy cakes… sorry, cup cakes.
Ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously over iced cup cakes sold by large grinning ladies in silk scarves. These small sponge creations sit there on the silver plates, innocently looking up at you with their colourful décor, probably containing enough icing on top to easily feed you double the amount of your daily sugar allowance by just eating one. Enough to send you off in a wild eyed buzz to buy a horrendously overpriced print of a photograph at one of the surrounding stalls before going off into one of the bars and ordering yourself ten Mae West cocktails.
Don’t get me wrong some of the photographs at the fair’s stalls are great. There are some really nice shots of various Glasgow locations and beyond. But selling small A5 prints straight from the computer’s inkjet computer, in small card frames bought in large packs from stationery websites and charging silly amounts of money for them, is a bit much.
The painters, illustrators and jewellery makers are the one’s that really interested Ka and myself.
The work of Glaswegian artist and designer, Adrian B. McMurchie, for instance, really grabbed my attention, with his fantastic architectural line drawings and watercolours. In fact, my own style of sketchbook and watercolour work is very much like McMurchie’s, only a lot less detailed and not half as good. His eye for catching the details, perspectives and structure of his chosen, architectural subjects is brilliant and well worth a look.
Another stall that took Ka’s eye was the jewellery of Moon on the Loch. This is the work of Scottish jewellery designer, and fellow East Kilbridian, Stephen Dickie. Dickie works with silver, gold, copper and glass to create fantastic and stylish jewellery in elegant, often simple, smooth, minimal shapes. Using nature and reflection as inspiration, Dickie creates ear rings, necklaces, bangles and cufflinks all to a beautiful, polished finish.
Ka’s eyes lit up when we looked over the jewellery laid out over the ‘Moon of the Loch’ stall but with just under 100 days to go, I simply took a business card and moved onwards to Arisaig for lunch, after which we spent the rest of the evening on the big, black, comfortable cushions of Bar Square.
Bar Square’s Vodka based Mae West cocktail was particularly good. That was our pudding. The Cup Cake stalls had closed by then.

Time flies

Happy New Year!
2009 already?!
Hogmanay and New Year flew by in a whirling blur of drink, parties, food, dancing, and the inevitable slight anti climax of a usual New Year. Waking up on New Years Day, I had a few moments of wondering where the hell I was before I slowly recognised the surroundings. Room 202 of the Premier Inn, Glasgow. A comfy bed, in one of the comfortable enough cloned rooms in the supposedly cheaper hotel chain (although they slap on a extra £20 for New Year). Not quite the exciting adventure Ka and myself had last year in Paris but it brought in 2009 with an enjoyable night and a brilliant meal at Mama San on Bath Street, an Asian themed restaurant and bar. Serving us with a cocktail on arrival we were then presented with some great food in the form of Asian tapas with spices, vegetables, chicken, salad, tofu and noodles. Way too much for our stomachs (and the space on our table) to contend with. After eleven the rear of the restaurant was then opened out to produce a dancefloor on which we brought in the bells, ten minutes late. By my watch it was at least ten past twelve before we got the familiar doomladen bell chimes of Big Ben played through the speakers. No countdown, no party poppers on the stroke of midnight, no hip hip hooray, no 'Auld Lang Syne' just a constant 'is it not time yet?' look of puzzlement running over the faces of everyone in the bar. We could do nothing but shrug and get on with enjoying ourselves. At around one I fell into a bit of a stupor suddenly feeling the effects of the cocktails and decided that to cure this I would turn to Vodka. Probably not the best of moves but on these nights out people rarely make good moves. Espeically the tall, bespectacled bald man on the dancefloor, alongside Ka and Chaz, who thought he was Michael Jackson and started working on an elaborate version of the moonwalk. On seeing this Chaz took it upon himself to try and out-moonwalk the guy. Not sure who won, but I'm sure I got some photos.
New Years Day was largely quite quiet as a result of the previous night's excesses and after luch at the Counting House Chaz drove Ka and myself back home to EK, feeling better after our food but still slightly stoned. Ka and myself relaxed the rest of the day, eyes dragging shut as we sat on the couch infront of Joanthan Creek in the evening.
The next day, the second, was brighter and busier as we were once again entertaining. The McGarva clan and the Reid clan were visiting at five so preperations had to be made. The meeting of two great families, coming together for the first time on the year of our Wedding. Another great night was had with more food, drink, and fun, involving pass-the-parcel, with Morgan's own portable stereo system, that had tormented the kitchen since she had arrived, and a three hour game of Cranium in which team members hummed at one another, drew for one another and generally shouted at one another. A board game that, I suspect, should be played with a few drinks in you in order for you to enjoy it (and perhaps understand it). The night drew to a successful close with music requests including The Stereophonics, The Kinks, Elvis, Take That, ELO, Roxy Music, REM and The Killers, to name but a few.
On Saturday was the inevitable. The dismantling of the Christmas tree and the taking down of decorations. Back to normality now... though I have a sneaking suspicion 2009 will be no 'normal' year.

The perfect tea

Have just spent half my Sunday building a chest of drawers. Then emptying the old chest, reorganising the clothes and reloading into the new. The other half - the first half, was a little quieter as I had a bit of a sore head from last night's wander into town. We started with a 'Dutch Iced Tea' in Revolution. This refreshing cocktail consisted of Jack Daniels, Cointreau, Bacardi, Vodka and coke. Quite strong but definately one to keep in mind for future excursions into the cocktail bars! We were sitting with a bunch of folk from Johnstone, one of which snapped a picture of us telling us afterwards we'd be on his Bebo page the next day. What an honour, I thought. One of his mates seemed a little too drunk but assured us it was because he was high on the sweeties 'man'. What 'sweeties' he was referring to is anyone's guess. Smarties is my guess. Too many E's in them. Afterwards escaping from Revolution we visited the Hope Street Bar Bhudda where Ka had a Champagne Raspberry cocktail (pictured half empty) and then onwards to the Butterfly and the Pig on Bath Street. I unwisely had a beer to finish the night when we got home which is always bad for the head the next day (nothing to do with the vodkas beforehand of course). Back to work tomorrow though and the beginning of another week.