From the keyboard of Dr Jan

Gosh, I haven’t posted anything here for a while, so theres a bit of catching up to do

Let me start with the week before Christmas. Sunday 19th December was my 40th birthday. I booked the following Monday off work and had a completely fabulous weekend with Ruth in Scotland (again!). Looking at recent posts here and you might think I’m obsessed with Scotland. You’re probably not too far wrong

Friday afternoon was the departmental Christmas lunch at work, from 15 to 17 o’clock. That was very pleasant and rather jolly

Friday evening I went with Ruth to her Christmas ‘do’ at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Heathrow. We had a superb time. The nosh was good and the company was great.

We sneaked out early so we could drive to Stansted airport, where we were staying overnight, at the Hilton. As we were zooming around the M25, when we passed the Essex border, Ruth asked me, jokingly, if I had my passport (to get into Essex . Of course it was at that point that I realised that I didn’t have my passport and I needed it for the following morning to get on the plane to Glasgow. Doh! Donkey of the Day Award, right there. So, we turned around to get my passport (and Ruth’s phone charger). We eventually got to the Hilton at about 01:30 on Saturday morning.

We stayed at the Hilton because you get free car parking for up to 15 days included in the price. Bargain

So, we had to get up at 04:30 to get the 05:30 bus to the airport, so we could get the 06:30 flight to Prestwick. We had tickets on Ryanair (my favourite airline!), for 69p each, plus taxes. Next time I’ll splash out for the 20 quid tickets and have a lie in

We got out of Prestwick just after 8 and called Arnold Clark to arrange for their courtesy bus to pick us up. A few moments later we were driving away in our shiney rented Renault Scenic diesel. Although we had booked a group 1 car, we were lucky enough to be upgraded to a group 4 vehicle.

So, we drove in to Glasgow and had a fun day at the Glasgow Science Centre. A brilliant place with an Imax cinema and lots of interactive stuff to do. Check out the very funky clock upstairs (I think it’s on the second floor). It features lots of coloured plastic balls. As well as all that, there’s a tall tower you can ascend (if the weather is not too awful). The entire tower has the profile of an aerofoil and is mounted on a large bearing so it rotates to face the direction of the wind. The advantage of this high-tech approach is that the tower can be much slimmer than would otherwise be necessary, because it doesn’t need to resist high winds – it swivels automatically to present a small surface to the wind. Here’s what they say about it on their own website:

Glasgow Tower offers an unbeatable view of Glasgow from the 105m high cabin. Designed by Richard Horden Associates, Glasgow Tower is the only building in the world capable of turning 360 degrees from the ground up. The aerodynamic structure allows the entire building to be turned to face the wind, thus reducing wind resistance and enabling its slender design.

As well as all that, there’s a planetarium which has (and they’re very proud of this) twinkling stars

Saturday afternoon we drove back down to Turnberry and checked in for another fabulous visit. It seems to me that every time I visit Turnberry it gets better. They’re really going to have to pull the stops out next time!

There was champagne (Bollinger, darling!) and flowers in the room when we arrived, which was fabulous. I think Ruth had a hand in that though

We were booked into the posh restaurant downstairs for 19:30. We had a fantastic meal, as usual

Just when I was wondering when the dessert menus would appear, a whole posse of staff appeared and the chap who had been playing the piano all evening struck up with ‘Happy Birthday’. It turned out that the staff posse were accompanying a special birthday cake! It was fantastic! The cake had a message, something like ‘Happy 40th Birthday Jan’. There was a huge Hara-Kiri knife I had to use for the ceremonial cutting of the cake I ended up with the bit which said ‘Jan’ on it. We had so much cake that we decided to share it out amongst everyone else in the restaurant. That was a fine idea – lots of the other diners came over to say thanks and have a little chat, which was excellent

The next day we had a leisurely swim. Ruth had a massage and afterwards we had tea looking out to Ailsa Craig.

We packed up, checked out and zoomed back to Glasgow, to the Hilton. Having a Hilton HHonors Gold Card enabled us to zoom straight up to the executive floor check in desk, which just makes things a bit more pleasant.

We were upgraded to a super executive room, which had an angular bay-window arrangement, which meant you could see a huge amount of the city out of the window. There was complimentary champagne in the room, and just after we arrived a chap arrived with a complimentary bottle of wine too!

So, we got dressed up ready for the UB Chip and zoomed down to the lobby. There was a big charity do organised by Radios Clyde (1 and 2) which seemed to feature a choir of cute children singing in the foyer of the hotel.

Across the lobby I saw a chap in a grey suit and a peaked cap, which I thought was nice. Then I realised, as Ruth started chatting to him, that he was Alistair, our chauffeur for the evening

We stepped outside and I was expecting to see a huge white Lincoln Town Car derivative, but what we actually had was an extremely elegant dark maroon Daimler. Here’s a picture of someone else’s in white, just so you get the idea. As used by the Formerly Known As Queen Mum, allegedly. It was just fantastic!

The UB Chip was excellent and we splashed out on a bottle of Chateau de Gay Pomerol, which was fabulous. I even had a baby birthday cake for my dessert

On the way back to the Hilton, Alistair took us for a mini guided tour of Glasgow, which was very interesting and gave us the opportunity to pose again

Monday we checked out of the Hilton and drove down to Gourock. We got the ferry to Dunoon (where we went shopping) and then drove back round the main road to Glasgow and then down to Prestwick for the flight home.

It seems unlikely to me that I could have had a more fabulous birthday – everything fitted together perfectly. So, if this is what being 40 is like, bring it on!