Halloween Crackers!

I always knew about Christmas crackers, and loved pulling them apart and wearing the little paper crowns, and reading the silly jokes. This year, I found that they were selling Halloween Crackers! What a thought. So I opened mine tonight. Mine contained some darling Halloween stickers, a silly joke, and yes, a paper crown!
(the joke: Why is Dracula so unpopular? . . . Because he's a pain in the neck.)

Autumn in University Gardens

There is something romantic about University Gardens. It is a small road of Victorian (?) row houses which are used now for departments and classes. A fellow Gaelic student told me that in the Scottish Literature buildings Sir Walter Scott (I think it was Scott) wrote one of his novels! I have my Gaelic class in one of them, and my other two classes are not in the Gardens, but are very close by. Here are some things I see every day:

This could be a crow or a magpie nest. The nests are very similar

A maple tree, I believe

Halloween Party

This is in Winnie & Asuman's room.

There was a Halloween party tonight at the church - I went with Winnie. She was dressed sort-of as a flapper, with pink hair! I dressed up as a witch.

Winnie with the 1st pumpkin she has ever carved!

At the party:

This is me from behind, in my great glow-in-the-dark skeleton hoodie!

I need to smile more in pictures! This is with Denise, a recent convert.  She is studying Scottish literature, and LOVES Scotland, and wishes she could stay (she's only here for the semester).

With my friend Rachel, who is also new to Glasgow (she's from Thurso - WAY up North).

The highlight of the evening, however, was Elder Snee - Dylan's first missionary companion! He was there! I was so, so, so excited to meet him. There were three nicknames he had for Dylan - I only remember two: Hufflepuff and D.W. So we talked about Dylan the whole time, although the first question he asked me was about Dylan's great-grandfather and his ghost stories. As that's on his Huff side of the family, I wasn't able to fill him in much. He said a lot of good things about Dylan, and said he was a great missionary: "You can be proud of him!" he said. And he thinks we should both try to get Dylan to come to Scotland after his mission - what a good idea!!!

Scott Snee and myself. He was holding up his dog tags for Dylan to see - I'll definitely have to email this picture to Dylan!

Danse Macabre

Halloween would never be complete without Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre. When I was in grade school, our music teacher Mrs. Dunn would bring this piece in every Halloween, and play it for the class. Before she did so, she told us a tale of all the witches, skeletons, goblins and so on dancing in the night then running and hiding when the morning came. She would have us choose a group to be in and when the music started we would dance around. (I'm pretty sure I was always a skeleton).

I found the song on Youtube, so you may all listen. It has some interesting information about the music, and a French poem that inspired it! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM

Outside the Cathedral

It was a lovely day, so I wandered around a bit and took some photos.

Autumn trees in the graveyard beside the cathedral

After this, I meandered my way back to Buchanan St. subway station, and went home.

Chapel and Tomb of St Mungo

St Mungo's well, in lower chapel

Perhaps, with all this talk of St Mungo, something should be said about him. From what I have read, he seems like he was quite an interesting fellow, and was born in the 6th century (his death date is given as 613 AD).

He is best known for his four miracles (and these figure in Glasgow's coat of arms). These are:
The Bird that Never Flew
The Tree that Never Grew
The Bell that Never Rang
The Fish that Never Swam

The story of what each one means is nicely told in the Glasgow Cathedral website. Please read it:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sstewart1873/Index/webpages/Legend.htm

Tomb of St Mungo

This is detail of the above tomb

I'll get you when the moon turns pale

I still haven't finished with the cathedral, but I thought I needed to put another Halloween video up. Dylan introduced me to this one. A lot of the sounds & music from our favorite "Spooky Jazz" Halloween album are on this charming cartoon. Please watch and enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_JxVj_29Q0

Wish List

Beccah requested that, for the benefit of the family, who might be out & about and wanting to get me a little something, I should write up a list. So, here are a few things I've thought of:

• a brown cardigan
• a long-sleeved white T-shirt
• Ensign subscription (including conference issue)

That's all I can think of for now. I'll put up new lists as things come to me.
Thanks!

Wait! I haven't finished with the Glasgow Cathedral!

Before I get further distracted by Halloween things, I thought I'd finish up my meanderings around the cathedral first.

This was from the 16th century

see below:

I think I might see a hint of color on the closest figure.

Domestic Halloween

One of the greatest joys of Halloween (as I was growing up) was eating chilli on Halloween night. It was a special meal for the occasion. In New York we were more liberal with our chilli eating and had it quite often in the colder months. I was able to find most of the ingredients I needed - even jalapenos (at Tesco's no less!) and tonight I made a big pot of chilli. I even took a picture of it, for everyone's benefit:

I also took a picture of a box of cereal I bought here. Not quite Count Chocula (my favorite Halloween 

cereal) but this is quite tasty:

One more thing: mother sent me some great Halloween paper plates: here they are (with digestive biscuits!):

Inside the Cathedral

It's hard to tell in my pic, but the timber roof is 14th century

A WW1 Memorial. There were many - one for policemen, even!

Glasgow Cathedral

Just down the road from St. Mungo museum is the Glasgow Cathedral. A brief history of it can be found on the following website:http://www.glasgow-cathedral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=33&Itemid=32

The original stone cathedral was built in the 1100's. Most of the additions were built in the 14th and 15th centuries.

St. Mungo's: Digging up Glasgow

The museum had a great exhibit about archaeology in Glasgow. These were some of the interesting things they had there:

Roman era shoes! See below:

St Mungo: More stained glass

This stained glass window was designed and made by Burne-Jones and William Morris (they are amazingly bright & colorful).

St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art

This museum is situated in the city centre, in the old part of the city, and very near the Glasgow Cathedral. There were some marvellous things in this museum. They had a find collection of 14th Century stained glass windows. Here is an example:

A close-up of the middle figure: John the Baptist

Back Outside

I confess, I preferred just wandering around the paths and among the trees to the plants inside the greenhouses.

A Monkey Puzzle Tree!!! (for those of you who have seen "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir" you will understand the significance of such a tree.)

Mise (me in Gaelic)

Winnie and Me

Some Plants and things

There were various huge and exotic plants in the greenhouse. Here are some of them:

Giant palms and ferns

This statue was done by a Welsh fellow - notice the Celtic designs on the base. Read about the statue, it is quite interesting:

This was in a second greenhouse and almost hidden from view. I thought it very intriguing - a spiral staircase among the warm tropical plants.