CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS NO 3 - SHOPPING

I do all the shopping for presents and, on the whole, am quite happy to do this.  Most of the time I bump into people that I know.  Never one to be backward about coming forward I will often fall into conversation with someone and no more so that Glasgow wifies sitting on the train or flicking through the clothing rail in, say, Marks and Spencers.

The covered shopping mall in Buchanan Galleries is once of my usual haunts.  At this time of year I reckon the whole of the city should have a glass roof over it!

Lots of sparkles in the mall.

And Princes Square had this big tree in the middle of the central well.  I remember when our children's orchestra played there.  The shop owners on various levels situated around the open well really didn't like it at all... "too much noise"!

On the very top floor of Waterstone's, Sauchiehall Street, Bookstore is this piano in their coffee bar. It's for the public to play.

And this is the stool that was with it.  It is certainly very colourful!

I loved the funky signs at the Milngavie British Rail Station platform coffee kiosk.  I said to the chap serving the coffee that there was a wonderful smell of frying sausages coming from his van.  "It's just my after-shave!"  says he!

I came across an outdoor clothing store on Crow Road called Cotswolds.  It was like walking into one of the stores on 4th Avenue in Vancouver!  This brand of outdoor clothing caught my eye 'Arcteryx' which is made in North Vancouver.  I bought a jacket there when Alastair took us to the store some years ago...still have it.

Finally this photo illustrates one of the many headaches when it comes to parking around Glasgow.  Just about everywhere is now organised such that you have to pay at a machine for a parking ticket.  That's fair enough; what irritates me is that often the machines don't work, or in the case of the photo above, you can't find it!  Finally I asked a passer-by and she pointed to the hedge where it was very cleverly concealed.