Weekend walk and delicious food

'Hurrah!' I hear you exclaim. 'She's not banging on about the bloody gym for once.' Oh no. For I and my intrepid friends ventured into the Great Outdoors, followed by the Great Indoors, this weekend.

First, a drive to Ben A'an in the Trossachs, where Hils and I successfully rendezvoused with dog-owning friends and promptly hiked up the hill in the snow. Well, the snow was on the ground, while what was coming out of the sky was decidedly cold rain, but it looked pretty. There was an extremely steep start up through some woods, followed by a flatter section where oodles of mud was hidden under treacherous snow. Before long my boots, which I'd waterproofed the night before, were wet through anyway. We emerged from the trees for our first view of the hill, described by one website as 'unfeasibly pointy'. It really was. And the last section was unfeasibly steep, with huge stone steps turning into a scramble up the last bit, meaning gloves got as soggy as boots! I was very impressed with the dogs - especially Bridie - who found doggy ways up the rocks, clinging to patches of snow and tussocks of grass. Very nimble.

There were some drifts of snow at the top, so that I sunk up to my groin more than once, while we all emitted amusing squeaks and squawks as the ground gave way beneath us. Fab view across Loch Katrine where, two blokes at the top told us, you can get a steam ferry in the summer. We resolved to come back and ferry to one end and bike and run back. We'd had the only clear spell of weather at the top, lucky us, and hot-footed it down again as the rain came back. The return journey was slippy and slidey, but we saved time spent painstakingly crossing streams on the way out by simply walking through them, since we were soaked anyway.

There followed an exciting drive along a twisty, snowy road to Glasgow - luckily I was following the landrover so, I comforted myself, if I did end up in a ditch I'd have someone to pull me out. Actually, it wasn't bad because it wasn't icy, just wet.

Thence to the divine Hotel du Vin - blog readers yet to experience this joy, start drooling in anticipation now! A row of five Georgian houses knocked together, we were greeted by staff in tartan trews with drams of whisky. A swim in the bath later and we enjoyed, devoured, digested and discussed a truly amazing meal. It was the first time Fi and Ailsa had eaten there since discovering the place and they were worried that it had all been a delicious dream...but no, it was really something else. What I really liked was that all courses and everyone's choices (we all had something different) were of similar quality. There was no chance of the desserts letting down the rest, or of them producing only one or two good dishes and some mediocre ones. It was all superb. I had a boiled egg with caviar toast, a main course of potted duck shepard's pie (actually a fairy-light potato foam rather than mash, and with a velvety soft kidney hidden in the middle) and almond macaroon with pistachio ice cream. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

On Sunday we had a delightful wander round the Kelvingrove. This reminded me of a Bill Bryson book in which he laments the segmentation of the Smithsonian so that everything is given its own museum - so that if you want to see a plane, for example, you got to the Air and Space Museum. He felt it had lost the air of discovery it had when he was a child. Well, he should try the Kelvingrove, which is a happy rag bag of bits and pieces. There was a taste of everything: expressionist paintings, Italian and Dutch art, Egyptian mummies, dinosaur bones and fossils and shiny armour and swords and Glasgow-style furniture. All mixed up with random stuffed animals everywhere. It was everything you'd expect; almost a parody of a museum.

Plus! They had the Kylie exhibition, with all of her amazingly teeny sparky outfits and an exhibition of Quentin Blake illustrations. I love Quentin Blake, who illustrated many of my favourite childhood books - Roald Dahl and Michael Rosen - and here were familiar pictures from The Twits and Matilda and the utterly devastating Michael Rosen's Sad Book. I would love one day to own an original Quentin Blake drawing.

So, back to work. My last week at work - eek! And back to boring gym blogs, until the weekend, I fear.

PS - Hilary has started her own musings at Tea and Verbosity. Enjoy!