In a Dear Green Place

Expectations are a tricky thing. It’s fun to look forward to things but it’s also dangerous to let expectations get away from you. I’m a planner (as I said before) so some expectations are bound to arise but I try to avoid holding on to them too much or disappointment must occur. This week, however, my little internal optimist has not been squashed.

I think I’m in love. I have found my cheese monger. Perhaps you think this is too strong but I’m addicted to cheese and a good cheese shop is a necessity. I heard about IJ Mellis months ago and I was really looking forward to checking it out. Here in Glasgow it’s up on Great Western Road and I finally made my way over earlier this week. I could tell it was going to be good when I walked up. You can always tell a good cheese shop by the very rank odor emanating from within. They have cheeses from all over and they specialize in farm cheeses from the UK. I went the French route for my first purchase because I saw a Pyrenees chevre I just couldn’t pass up. They offer plenty of samples (very important if you want to be adventurous) and they are very knowledgeable. I love being in a place with people who love their cheese and I could tell that this was it. I’m looking forward to a regular and tasty relationship with this place.

Second expectation: Queuing. You always here about the queues here and on Tuesday I got to experience a truly long one firsthand. I was in the queue for registration for over two hours. To truly ice the cake of this experience, the wait was made extra long by a computer crash that halted proceedings for awhile. Ahhhh, bureaucracy. I was prepared with a nice long book but I got to spend that two hours chatting with a very nice girl who grew up in the Shetland Islands. It was great fun in spite of the fact that once I got to the actual registration desk there was a problem with my record and I had to go back a couple of days later so I waited in that queue for no reason. Queuing: check.

I mentioned last week that I was looking for a good secondhand bookshop. Well, I have found a great place. Not the easiest place in which to find things but chock full of atmosphere. It’s called Voltaire and Rousseau and it fulfills all of my criteria. It is a little hard to find on a tiny cobblestone back street called Otago Lane. It is crammed full of books, floor to ceiling, of all sizes, many of which are quite old. It has a nice older man who sits behind a pile of books with his cup of tea. He doesn’t have a register, just the money in his pocket. He buys and sells all kinds of books. I’ve never seen such an amazing, eclectic collection. The smell in the shop is perfect and being there and finding one book to buy (Terry Prachett by the way) made my day.

All my little expectations are being fulfilled. It’s enough to make you giddy. I’m not getting cocky though. I’ve got a year to go and I can’t blow any good karma I may have acquired in the first few weeks. As Bastian said once, “Not too much. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Glasgow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.