A night at the SECC

So while my dear friend Bec is celebrating her hen do (hey Becs if you are reading - I was sad to miss out) we were off to see Mark Knopfler in concert at the SECC in Glasgow. Now, we booked the tickets in August from the sunny climes of Portugal and have been looking forward to it since. I'm a bit unique in that I can take or leave Knopfler's Dire Straits stuff (except for Money For Nothing, of course, which has a crackin' riff - incidentally it is the only Knopfler riff I can play) but I love his more recent rock-inflected folkie stuff. He has got an amazing band behind him which includes a number of top folkies. Even the great Phil Cunningham turned up on stage last night (he received a big 'whoop' from me).

They played a terrific set including my favourite, Sailing to Philadelphia and D's favourite, Telegraph Road. And to top it all off, who should be sitting in front of us but former Scottish Labour leader, Wendy Alexander and her husband, Professor Brian Ashcroft. This caused quite a bit of excitement for politics buffs D and his friend, Coops who came with us. D's only concern was that she'd charged her tickets to expenses. Professor Brian seemed to enjoy it very much. Not sure about Wendy...

We then spent the night in Glasgow with our dearest Matt and Daisy and their wee son Matthew. Arrived last night and had some happy chat. The four of us can talk late into the night about all sorts of things. We generally arrive at theology in the end. When we awoke this morning wee Matthew was all ready to play trains with Uncle David and Aunty Claire. What fun! It was boiling hot so we went for a walk in the park. There was a family fun day and we ate candy floss (man, that is seriously sweet stuff) and played a bit of footie.

We drove back through to Edinburgh and stopped at Kevin and Kat's (bro-in-law and wife) to pick up a chest of drawers and enjoy a Diet Coke in the sun of their garden. Both D and I are a little pink. Proper Scottish weather!

Looking forward to a visit to Carrubbers tomorrow and will be travelling back to Lincoln on Monday for a week of meetings, marking and getting on with research. This week in the National Library has been really productive and, though I was never going to get everything done, I do feel that I've got enough material to at least start the next two chapters. Can't wait to spend a bit of time only concentrating on that.

CSW