The Pineapple 5th February 2004

It�s Glasgow day today, I am so excited about being in my home town. The last twice we�ve been in Scotland we�ve been nowhere near Glasgow. We park up in the new Buchanan Galleries and walk down to St. Georges Cross to catch a tour bus around the city, the cosiest way to see a lot of Glasgow on a cold wet day.
Back off the bus we tried out the Buchanan St. tearooms but we found nothing we really wanted on the menu. We much preferred the Willow tearooms in Sauchiehall St.
We walked up to Hill Street, where I spent my childhood, this is now a conservation area so hopefully will not change too much. We trotted down towards Kelvingrove Park, although we knew that the Art Gallery and Museum is shut for renovations till 2006 and the rain caught us again. We turned around and headed back to Sauchiehall St. to Absolution, a great restaurant where we dried out while munching our way through some excellent fajita�s and a sticky toffee pudding for Andrew incase he�d not had enough to eat, and excellent coffee too. I found an old fashioned cigar shop and bought some Sobranie cocktail cigarettes.
We hurried back to the Buchanan Galleries in the pouring rain, Andrew pulled an amazing trip cum stumble cantering down the street at high speed, We sat down in the shopping centre, he to recover from assuming he�d break a bone plus the camera, and me I�m afraid to wipe my tears of laughter and try to control the awful stitch in my side and the frequent snorts of hysterical giggles that recurred for quite some time afterwards � full of sympathy me!
This shopping centre is brand new but could have been CMK, why do shopping centres all have the same chain shops these days? The individual shops are so much better and more fun. We bought Andrew some Australian red liquorice and a Scottish cookery book in Lakeland stores. Browsed a bit more then headed back to the Pineapple as dusk appeared. A pity that our day in Glasgow was the wettest we had, but I really enjoyed it anyway.
Back at the Pineapple we ate pasta and salmon and spent our last evening curled up by the fire.
During our perusal of the Landmark log books and places to visit locally we found the Falkirk Wheel, something I�d heard of and wanted to visit sometime when we were in the area, it was closed for a refit. It sounds great and is earmarked for next time.