We got up fairly early in the morning, and started with an adequate but not amazing hotel breakfast. I think we might try some nearby cafes for the rest of the week. We then wandered across town to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, for an exhibition about the life and work of John Patrick Byrne, followed by a bit of pootling around the various permanent exhibitions before lunch.
Lunch was an impressive affair. We had the tasting menu at The Ubiquitous Chip, along with the prestige wine pairing split between the two of us. This was my first wine pairing since I gave up drinking a little over five years ago, and it was a really good one to start with. The sommelier had deliberately tried to find wines that weren't the most obvious choices, but still ones that worked, and once he could tell from my responses and questions that I was interested and knew a little bit about wine (I was surprised how much I remembered), he engaged with me a lot more and we chatted about his process for choosing pairings. It was clear that he really enjoys his job, and that enthusiasm was infectious. The food was also excellent. My favourite course was the haggis bao, which was playful in conception and skillfully executed. The bun was perfectly light and fluffy, and also not too thick, avoiding the disappointment I sometimes experience when a mouthful of bao contains no actual filling. The haggis was made with venison rather than mutton, with enough oats to give it texture, but still leaving the meat front and centre, and they certainly weren't shy with the spicing.
It was a long meal, and when we left the restaurant at around five in the afternoon,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obandsoller went back to the hotel in search of a nap. Less wisely, I got on a train to Balloch, and swam from one side of Loch Lomond to the other. This was, on the one hand, beautiful and energising and fun, and on the other, probably not amongst my better life choices. I had thought "well, if I even start getting a bit tired, then if I'm less than halfway across then I'll just turn round, and if I'm more than halfway then I'll be able to finish". But it did take me a bit by surprise how quickly I went from "I could keep doing this forever," to "Actually, I would really quite like to stop soon." As it turned out, that happened when I was about 90% of the way across, so I was never in any doubt about whether I was in danger. But if it had happened whilst I was bang in the middle, well, I'm fairly sure I would have made it, but it would have been unpleasant and stressful." I'd also sort of expected that I'd be able to swim across, have a bit of a rest, and then swim back, but that no longer seemed like a great plan, and my feet are going to be complaining for a while about the barefoot 3/4 mile walk each way down the side of the loch until it turned into a river. So it all turned out fine, but I'm aware that there was more luck involved in it turnout out that way than I'm entirely comfortable with, so in the future I shall be a bit more cautious when I'm wild swimming by myself.
Once I'd recovered my shoes and clothing, I realised that I wouldn't be getting back to the hotel until really quite late, so I messaged Ramesh to suggest that he get dinner by himself if he had any appetite after the nine course lunch, and grabbed some fish and chips to eat on the train. That turned into a whole other saga, where the first train was cancelled, and the next (and last) one was delayed by an unspecified amount, and then turned up about ten minutes after I'd managed to find a taxi firm willing to send out a car and take me all the way back into town. I guess I could haven cancelled the cab and got the train, but even the first one had been rammed with noisy teenagers, so the getting on the second with presumably twice as many didn't appeal, so I decided to eat the taxi fare. The driver was very friendly, and although it was the first time in my life I'd met a Scottish accent so think I struggled to decipher it, I now know more about the taxi and private hire regulations in and around Glasgow than I ever really felt the need to.
All in all, a highly enjoyable day, but I'd quite like today to be a bit less eventful.
Lunch was an impressive affair. We had the tasting menu at The Ubiquitous Chip, along with the prestige wine pairing split between the two of us. This was my first wine pairing since I gave up drinking a little over five years ago, and it was a really good one to start with. The sommelier had deliberately tried to find wines that weren't the most obvious choices, but still ones that worked, and once he could tell from my responses and questions that I was interested and knew a little bit about wine (I was surprised how much I remembered), he engaged with me a lot more and we chatted about his process for choosing pairings. It was clear that he really enjoys his job, and that enthusiasm was infectious. The food was also excellent. My favourite course was the haggis bao, which was playful in conception and skillfully executed. The bun was perfectly light and fluffy, and also not too thick, avoiding the disappointment I sometimes experience when a mouthful of bao contains no actual filling. The haggis was made with venison rather than mutton, with enough oats to give it texture, but still leaving the meat front and centre, and they certainly weren't shy with the spicing.
It was a long meal, and when we left the restaurant at around five in the afternoon,
obandsoller went back to the hotel in search of a nap. Less wisely, I got on a train to Balloch, and swam from one side of Loch Lomond to the other. This was, on the one hand, beautiful and energising and fun, and on the other, probably not amongst my better life choices. I had thought "well, if I even start getting a bit tired, then if I'm less than halfway across then I'll just turn round, and if I'm more than halfway then I'll be able to finish". But it did take me a bit by surprise how quickly I went from "I could keep doing this forever," to "Actually, I would really quite like to stop soon." As it turned out, that happened when I was about 90% of the way across, so I was never in any doubt about whether I was in danger. But if it had happened whilst I was bang in the middle, well, I'm fairly sure I would have made it, but it would have been unpleasant and stressful." I'd also sort of expected that I'd be able to swim across, have a bit of a rest, and then swim back, but that no longer seemed like a great plan, and my feet are going to be complaining for a while about the barefoot 3/4 mile walk each way down the side of the loch until it turned into a river. So it all turned out fine, but I'm aware that there was more luck involved in it turnout out that way than I'm entirely comfortable with, so in the future I shall be a bit more cautious when I'm wild swimming by myself.Once I'd recovered my shoes and clothing, I realised that I wouldn't be getting back to the hotel until really quite late, so I messaged Ramesh to suggest that he get dinner by himself if he had any appetite after the nine course lunch, and grabbed some fish and chips to eat on the train. That turned into a whole other saga, where the first train was cancelled, and the next (and last) one was delayed by an unspecified amount, and then turned up about ten minutes after I'd managed to find a taxi firm willing to send out a car and take me all the way back into town. I guess I could haven cancelled the cab and got the train, but even the first one had been rammed with noisy teenagers, so the getting on the second with presumably twice as many didn't appeal, so I decided to eat the taxi fare. The driver was very friendly, and although it was the first time in my life I'd met a Scottish accent so think I struggled to decipher it, I now know more about the taxi and private hire regulations in and around Glasgow than I ever really felt the need to.
All in all, a highly enjoyable day, but I'd quite like today to be a bit less eventful.
