Horseshoes!

Today... the horse stable.

We hopped on a bus (90p) and landed in the center of the city. From there we walked to Glasgow Green, a huge park near downtown that folks around here have used for hundreds of years to do their laundry, slaughter animals, hang people, grow plants, play football and take naps. While some of the before mentioned activities no longer take place on the Green, we did see a few people taking naps on the grass today.

The weather was beautiful and for us, this is what Scotland is - a land of beautiful weather. While we have been here, the only day it rained was the day we visited Edinburgh. I mentioned this today to the fishmonger and she said, "Oh, that's too bad. I like Edinburgh." This spoken after she sold me a crab, a handful of shrimp, a smoked cod, and two North Sea cod fillets. All were wonderful and cheap.

Back to the park. We landed at the stable to watch the ferriers change the shoes of the clydesdales they board there. It was pretty interesting to see the process but also unnerving. It's tough watching someone rip the hell out of an animal's foot and think that the animal isn't feeling any pain. Neither of the guys doing the work got kicked in the head, so I guess it didn't hurt that bad. I swear, however, that I have an itch in the back of my throat from the smoke produced from the burning hoof material that flamed up when the guy put a red-hot (well not red, but hot) shoe against the horse's hoof. The smell was rank. I could feel the scratchiness or crappiness in my throat the whole of the rest of the day.

From the stables we hit the adventure playground and the large greenhouse on the grounds. Great park.

On the walk back to the center of town we stopped by the aforementioned fishmonger and had a late lunch at a sandwich shop. The girls shared a BLT and I had a salami toasti. The fare was wonderful and we left having only to pay 5 pounds. Amazing.

We were worn out by this time, but managed to squeeze a visit to a charity shop (I bought a tween jacket) and the Modern Art museum. They had a couple of Grayson Perry pots on hand and all sorts of crazy things. One of these was a short film about a boy who wants to know where he came from. His dad's answer: a door in his mother's belly. He wants to go back. Rose and Xyla liked that one.

Back at the apartment, we hydrated and went to the park to hang out.

Later, we cooked, the girls went to bed and I watched the Man U / Schaelke football match.