The holiday of a lifetime.

I'm going to change the names of a couple of my relatives here. One is an innocent victim in what follows; the other would appear to be somewhat thick.

Relative number one is Sandy, a skinny girl of twelve. She had never, until today, been to Glasgow, but she really wanted to go, because she'd heard how great it is. (And Glasgow, for the record, is great.)

Relative number two is James, Sandy's affable but somewhat arrogant and occasionally obnoxious step-grandfather. Sandy loves him to bits. He decided to treat her with a day trip to Glasgow.

So he bought a couple of flights, and off they went this morning.

They arrived at Glasgow airport and got the bus into the city centre. The bus takes about twenty minutes, and takes you right through the centre of town, past the copious shops and eateries, to Buchanan Bus Station, about a minute's walk from the main shopping centres of Buchanan Galleries, Buchanan Street, and Sauchiehall Street — the UK's largest urban shopping centre outside London, fact fans. Sandy and James arrived at the bus station and looked around for a couple of minutes. Quite which direction they looked around in is not clear, but James decided that there was nowhere to eat in Glasgow, so they got back on the bus and went back to the airport. And spent the entire day there.

Sandy has a new keyring, bought from a gift shop at the airport, as a souvenir of her day. I hear that she is not particularly happy.

Those of my readers who know Glasgow even vaguely will be aware of the levels of stupidity on display here. The rest of you, let me put it this way. If you were to eat out at a different Glaswegian eatery every day of the week, even limiting yourself to the city centre, you could probably make it six months before you had to go to the same place for a second time.


Update:

I have been informed that I got the wrong end of the stick: Sandy wasn't particularly bothered about visiting Glasgow; she just wanted to go on a plane. Which she did. She still didn't much enjoy her day out, though.

I'm honestly not sure whether this makes the story worse or even better.