18

Glasgow again this weekend to catch up with Toots and cramp her uni style!

First up (after seeing her room and flat, not waking up her flatmates who were all still in bed at noon, and letting her love on Tom who she did miss even if she said she didn't) was a walk down to the university:

I have to say, I do look forward to exploring the West End of Glasgow more in the coming few years - there looked to be some gorgeous little shops along Byers Road that I've got my eye on to go into (when I'm not trailing the rest of the family and pet dog), and even just wandering around the canal, the River Kelvin, the Botanic Garden, and Kelvingrove Museum looks like fun.

But after a long enough and hilly enough walk, we returned to Toots's flat to celebrate.  Sadly no lighter and the fear of setting off the fire alarm even if we did have one meant we didn't actually light the 18 candles I'd beautifully brought :( but we did manage to sing to her (the uni flatmates were up and out by then!) and tuck in to the ... eh... interesting cake.

At her request I made a grasshopper cake (so basically mint chocolate cake with mint infused sponge and mint and white chocolate custard made from scratch - I was well impressed with myself - with added chocolate chips and topped with oreo cookies) which was supposed to look like this:

Actually, on reflection mine didn't look far off, maybe just my custard wasn't quite thick enough.  Anyway, it wasn't bad at all, and Toots's two male flatmates certainly said it tasted very good at 2am - though I think any growing boy will eat anything at 2am!

We didn't end up taking her out for dinner as the uni schedule of breakfast at 11am and lunch/cake at 3pm doesn't really tie in with an early dinner which we'd need to make it home before midnight, but it was nice to catch up with her and her school friend, meet her uni flatmates and see and hear a bit more about student life nowadays. In some ways it's so different and in other ways no different at all!

No visits planned now till Reading Week at the end of October...will we all cope?!?