Boxing day

I wake up late on boxing day. It's good to be this relaxed. I've not thought about work in days which is a pretty good achievement for me. I used to love boxing day, because when you were a kid you spent the day realising what presents you got after the euphoria of the previous day when it all went back in a blur.

It's a day to build the lego, to read the books, and make a start on the big bucket of sweets. By the time I was a teenager it was the day to listen to soem classic album you;d ask for and tattoo it on your brain as you build into a fully fledged music fan. I try to recreate all this which is pretty easy, as my body has no problem with lying on a couch and watching DVD's, flicking through books, and eating sweets.

If there's one thing better than Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, it's leftover christmas dinner on boxing day. Chewy bits of stuffing! Cold Chipolatas, Honey roast ham sandwiches with great british condiments such as Chutney and Piccalilli:





Eventually, my mother suggests a walk around the country roads of my home town. This sounds like a good plan, as I'm looking to kill time until about 3pm when I know that Mowgli, Luke and the Cadet are definitely out their beds. Although to be completely fair, The Cadet would probably be up.

The walk we do is a common one, which gives you a nice view of the village and also a nice view over the rolling hills of Ayrshire.

I head off with my mother and grandmother. Its a nice winter walk, although it's not nearly as cold as it should be at this kind of year, so we have none of the atmospheric weather that we had on Ayr pier. Maybe I'll have to get up a mountain again to find that. The sun is setting slowly in mid afternoon, so the light is really nice:









Hardly a Munro, but nice nonetheless and a good leisurely wander for boxing day. I also get the troops on the phone, and we have formulated a plan for the night. We are heading up to Glasgow to meet the Similarski Sisters and go for some drinks in Glasgow. The good news is that Luke is going to drive, so I can drink a few pints of foaming ale.

By the time we've made it to Partick it's early evening. We are going to head out in the West end since we haven't been in town for so long. For want of a better decision, we head to Curlers:



It's a good night of laughs, hilarity and silliness, and I wish I still lived in this street across the road from such fun drinking sessions - but studying for exams comes along with that, so maybe not.

When last orders is called we decide to commandeer Mowgli's brother's flat in oder that we can continue the fun and games over some drinks.

His flat is in the East end of Glasgow near the Barrowlands and the Barras market. :



The Barrowlands is the best medium sized music venue in Glasgow(And possibly Britain), it's where I saw nine inch nails a few blogs ago. It's in a dodgy area of glagsow but it manages to drip with atmosphere when a good band plays in it. Next door is the Barras market:



The Barras market is a Glasgow institution. It's a open market which sells just about everything. It's not as good as it once was due to such interruptions as the law, customs and excise and copyright law, but it's still a great slice of Glasgow. It's not for the faint hearted but, if you are street wise enough to keep your mouth shut and your head down, it's a must for anyone who wants to step off the beaten tourist path.

Anyway, via a pakora shop which is flanked by bars named after highlights in the history of Celtic Football club, we get to the flat.

We've managed to buy some red wine for an inflated price from across a bar and we have enough pakora to feed an army. This allows us to sit about and talk bollocks until the early hours, where eventually we all fall asleep among the mess and dream our little dreams....