Glasgow Gallivanting: November 2018

We didn’t intend to visit GlasGLOW, a Halloween event that ran in the Botanic Gardens for almost two weeks, but after passing by one night and seeing what we could from the road, we changed our minds. About the only tickets left were for 9 o’clock on a Monday night so, after dinner, we wrapped up warmly and strolled through the lights for an hour or so.

Kintyre and Dundee

We had two weekends away in November! Firstly, a couple of nights near Tarbert on the Kintyre peninsula, then three nights in Dundee, mainly to visit the new V&A Museum. Country life and city life: couldn’t have been more different. More on both to come in due course.

Blogger shout-outs

I met another blogger in real life, which I think brings my total to seven – I’ll be losing count soon. Jessica of Diverting Journeys and her partner, Marcus, visited Glasgow for a long weekend and we met up on the Sunday afternoon. We visited the viewing platform at the Lighthouse which, unusually, contained a piano and a mural which read We should have it all. We certainly should!

Then we went in search of Billy Connolly murals before repairing to the Scotia, one of Glasgow’s oldest pubs. It was great to meet them!

There’s been much discussion lately amongst bloggers about comments, and how difficult it can be to make them sometimes. I’d been having terrible trouble – even clicking Like was problematic.  I don’t think WordPress is blameless but, because weird things happened with Blogger too, my chief suspect was a recent update to Apple’s Safari browser. I had no idea how to fix it though, and I’m therefore hugely grateful to Jemima Pett for publishing When Privacy stops you Blogging – Safari and Comments. I’ve made one simple change in my settings and everything is now (almost) hunky-dory. Whoopee! Thanks, Jemima.

A musical month

We found time for three gigs this month. Two big ones: King Crimson, because John likes them, and Seasick Steve because we both do. He was great! The support band, Prinz Grizzley and his Beargaroos, was awesome too.

But my favourite was maybe the small pub gig where my friend Lesley was part of both support (the Carlton Three) and main act (the Carlton Jug Band). Previously, I’d only heard her sing her own music in her own band, Kittlin, which is very Scottish, so I was surprised when this turned out to be another dose of Americana. I’m not complaining – and we got to eat pizza at the same time so it was a great night.

The last bit

I’ve been to two women’s history events this month, but Glasgow’s biggest women’s history event of the year (ha, ha) is still to come. Me! Gulp! On Tuesday 4th December there’s an afternoon of Suffrage talks at the Mitchell – and I’m one of the speakers. This explains the lack of posts recently – any writing time I’ve managed to find has been dedicated to my talk which is still, by the way, five minutes too long. I’m working on it – wish me luck!

Maybe after Tuesday I’ll get back to regular blogging, and finish off my Hebridean Hop. December should be a quiet month – shouldn’t it?

69 Comments »

  1. Goodness you’re never still! Tarbert looks really pretty and I’d love to see those lights in the Botanic Gardens, well I’d like to see the gardens anytime. The Green Man is my favourite.
    I saw King Crimson here in 1972, that makes me feel old.

    I think you’ve visited Ngozi, that’s really sweet of you, I hope it was a success 🙂

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  2. Good luck with today’s speech! I’m sure it will go really well. I’ll think of you while I’m walking 🙂 🙂 Been to Tarbert and loved it, and envy you the V & A. Sounds like another great month. Here’s to many more, Anabel!

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  3. I haven’t had issues with my ability to comment or hit “like” but I have noticed a dip in my stats, so it’s possible that is an issue with my readers. I use Firefox for my internet now, and maybe that helps? I hope you get it sorted soon, and meanwhile, I always enjoy your blog! (Although WordPress says they are making changes to our “editor” feature, which may mean I can’t figure out how to write a new post soon….. Why they can’t leave well enough alone, don’t ask me!)

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    • Yes, I have no problem on my PC with MS Edge, so I think it was just Safari. Thank goodness Jemima found the problem! I have been steadfastly ignoring all the warnings about the new Editor on the grounds that I’ll worry about it when it comes. I’m still using WP Admin rather than the current Editor because I think it’s better, but I bet they take that option away now too 😟

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  4. Thought you might like to know that your Glasgow Women’s library has just had a mention on Ame Lame’s show on Radio 6 ! By the artist and feminist Linder Sterling (who’s originally from Wigan)

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  5. You’ve had a busy month! The best part is that it all looked like fun!

    Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing Jemima Pett’s post about privacy settings affecting our ability to like and comment on blogs. The past month or so has been incredibly frustrating. I followed her instructions and so far it appears to be working! Much appreciated!

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