{"id":5287,"date":"2015-07-04T12:57:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T19:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=5287"},"modified":"2015-07-04T12:57:41","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T19:57:41","slug":"many-happy-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=5287","title":{"rendered":"Many Happy Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a>
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

Wood, wood, wood. Everywhere.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

No – in fact we weren’t celebrating the 239th birthday of independence in the U.S. – although that’s nothing to sniff over. We were referring to the happy return to the city where toilets flush like Niagra, cab drivers tell you their life stories and ask probing personal questions, and where a few of our really dear friends still live – we’ve returned to Glasgow.<\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Home of antiquities in architecture, and glass door knobs<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

You may ask, as we often ask ourselves, why<\/i> we’re back here. We asked ourselves laughingly, as we arrived in a hissing downpour, during the after work commute traffic on Thursday, drove through slightly dodgy neighborhoods enroute to our flat, and listened to our cab driver whinge to us about his mother in law. (Okay, kidding about that last. But it has happened before.)<\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

The view from the front room.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

We finally decided it’s more about us than about Glasgow; more about who we are when we’re here than the place itself. It’s kind of representative of our shared college experiences – only we were much older in this charmed time and place than we were as undergraduates, thus less apt to take for granted finding our tribe. We enjoyed the academic atmosphere, the variety of lectures open to the public, and that no one – on the West End of the city, anyway – thinks anything of people who read in public and ignore everyone around them. There are places to be a hermit, and places to emerge from “hermitude” and eat supper while watching ping pong tournaments. It felt oddly like non-adult life, and it’s fun to return to that, albeit briefly.<\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a><\/div>\n

And Glasgow welcomed us back with style! Well, in Glasgow-style, anyway. We were sitting in the front room, having a quiet read\/doze in the overcast afternoon, with the sky pewter gray and the breeze whipping through the trees outside… and then we hear the sound of dripping. From inside.<\/p>\n

…Oh, no. OH NO!<\/i><\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Oh, yes. Water ran down this chain and splattered.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The exchange of disbelieving looks! The scrambling for mop buckets! The dash to hail the neighbor upstairs! It was all so familiar!<\/i> We truly felt we were back, at that moment. And then we spent the next hour in intermittent snickers. Good old Georgian-era houses and ridiculous plumbing. (Apparently the neighbor upstairs was using the kitchen tap… somehow, the pipes objected. He now promises not to use the tap until Monday when someone can come in and look at the thing… We don’t dare turn on the overhead light in the front room, we’re sure we’ll short out the whole house. Good times, people. Good times.<\/p>\n

\"Kelvinbridge<\/a>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

The bedroom light fixture.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Happy Fourth. May your fireworks be safe, and here’s hoping that the boiler doesn’t blow up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wood, wood, wood. Everywhere. No – in fact we weren’t celebrating the 239th birthday of independence in the U.S. – although that’s nothing to sniff over. We were referring to the happy return to the city where toilets flush like Niagra, cab drivers tell you their life stories and ask probing personal questions, and where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glasgow","category-life","category-traveling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}