Serendipity

Call it serendipity. We did something we never do: have lunch in a posh Thai restaurant, Chaophraya in Glasgow, all for £13.95p for a two-course meal though M thought it expensive.

“Nonsense “ I said, “ you are not used to city prices. Believe me this is cheap.”

But there was nothing cheap about the Chaophraya, the biggest Thai restaurant in Europe and shortlisted for the years best Asian restaurant.
It housed in a grand Victorian building former home of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Plaques to composers decorate the walls.

The food and service was first class though they did fall short with the green tea which came not as pure green tea but flavoured with jasmine. No matter. My vegan dish strips of soya with coconut rice and vegetables were delicious and M.’s sea bass lived up to expectations.

How we came to be dining there is another bit of serendipity where the answer to both would be found in a trip to Glasgow.

My email went down so a visit to the Genius Bar in Apples Buchanan St branch was urgently called for and my bargain basement car (£700 since you ask) failed its MOT in spectacular fashion, not because of any obvious malfunctioning but because of something called the emission test.

The solution said my garage guru, Martin, was to drive it at 70mph for at least 20 minutes with some special liquid inside the petrol tank in the hope of clearing out the gunge.

“But I never drive above 6o mph” I said “on account of the car’s great age (11 years).”
“That’s the problem,” said Martin. “Cars are designed these days to be driven much faster.”


So we end up this morning driving at 100 mph (well 75 mph to be exact) with a computer into Glasgow.

After a mammoth session with an Apple technician where the problem was finally identified as something to do with the Icloud software, which means a telephone appointment on Monday morning with some whizz-kid in the States, I felt in need of cheering up.

Suggestions we went into the nearby Starbucks got the thumbs down.

By chance we stumbled across this Thai restaurant.