Fantastic!

I had such a good day!

Woke up in time to catch the train I planned to take (which was quite an achievement since I didn't set the alarm and John wasn't there to kick me out of bed!)

Browsed around a couple of shops but noticed I enjoyed it a lot more to take in all the goings on of the city - things I forgot about happen in a city, absolutely LOVED it... Saw at least 4 bagpipers (I am such a tourist, I love that), a man covered in gold pretending to be a statue, a fantastic jazz band, a few not so brilliant but still ok singers and a loud juggler.

I stepped into House of Fraser and went to the nice smells and creams department but I must admit that was too intimidating, all these people trying to sell you something, or when I wanted whatever they wanted to give away I seemed to be invisible. Always wonder what that is? Do I not look posh enough? Young enough? Old enough? Do they really not see me? I know the grumpy old women always say that, that over 40 you become invisble, maybe it has happened to me already. Not sure what I think about that but it did make me just want to run out of the place!

Anyway, after that shock I moved onto the main event and bought a cinema ticket. Luckily that process was exactly the same as in Rotterdam so it wasn't too daunting. :-)

Then.. went to TGI Friday... we have one in Holland but I never actually visited it, it took me about 3 years to realise that 'TGI' means 'Thank God its'. Hm... shows you how out of touch I am! Anyway... thought this was the perfect opportunity to have lunch.

I must say.. it was a bit of a culture shock and brought home to me how enormously I have changed since I am living here.. I looked at the menu and it hit me that you could only get masses of food on a plate.. I started to feel full just looking at the menu!

Every dish seemed to have things like 2 chicken breasts AND fries AND onion rings (the thought crossed my mind that they probably thought that those rings would make it a balanced meal (being vegetables and all that ;-)). Anyway.. I dithered about just going but there was this very cute waiter so I thought I'd sit it out and have something I would normally NEVER make myself.. spareribs.. the last time I ate those must have been 6 years ago when I had these sort of outings at least once a week....

That definitely changed! And after enjoying half of my ribs, fries and onion rings I decided it was a good change! I like my own cooking I'm afraid, even though the ribs were very nicely made (ring and fries were awful unfortunately) I now know I will not have the need to visit them again :-)

Oh.. and then he tried to charge me 6 pound more than was on the menu.. being a bit scared of any language difficulties I so hoped this would not happen. But it so infuriated me that I went up to the guy and put him right, saw he got scared, real scared and it was solved in minutes, phew! I really felt something stubborn happening, like they can drag me to the police if they like but I am NOT going to pay for this! It was all very exciting!

I must say... Glasgow has enough shops to keep a woman happy for days and I don't know if it is the protected life in a village with 1 Spar but I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the choice and happy that it was movie time.

I know.. 'Take the lead' is not one of those filmhouse films and will not get an Oscar I am sure, however I loved it, absolutely every minute of it. It was quick filmed, I absolutely love to watch Antonio Banderas and sexy dancing, it was all there.. and of course it was a great feel good movie. I had forgotten how nice it is to see a movie properly, on such a big screen, there is something so intimate about it even when around you are a bunch of strangers.

Note to self.. need to do this more often, it was great!!

Oh.. and when I bought myself a lovely proper Easter Egg because I felt I deserved it (and because it has been tradition in my family since I was small to get one) I bowled over the cashier of Sainsbury who commented on its beauty by telling him I bought it for myself. "Really? But it has a bow and everything" he said, hovering my change in mid air "You're pulling my leg!". "Nope! I said, it is for me!" and he said "people who feel they are worth enough to buy themselves nice things are confident people" and I saw him thinking "need to give myself some of that".

:-)

Enjoy Easter!