Glasgow Gallivanting: May 2019

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Islay, May 2019

We gallivanted off on two trips in May. We had a glorious week on the Hebridean island of Islay with lots of walking and whisky tasting (there are nine distilleries at the last count). We also spent a long weekend with friends in the beautiful Northumberland countryside near Allendale.

Walking near Allendale, May 2019

More on those two trips will follow in due course, which means this will be quite a short gallivanting post because we didn’t do much else to write about. We went to the annual Orchid Fair in the Botanic Gardens, though it seemed to me much smaller than normal and didn’t detain us long.

Glasgow Orchid Fair
Glasgow Orchid Fair
Glasgow Orchid Fair

John bought a new car! I find the unveiling thing hilarious, I didn’t get that last year when I bought my humble little Clio. As you can see, he’s very pleased with it – even if its first outing was wet.

John’s new car
John’s new car

Forgive the terrible image below (scanned from an actual newspaper cutting, I couldn’t find it in The Herald‘s digital copy). Strictly speaking, this belongs to April when the event happened, but the photograph wasn’t published till May so here it is. I attended the Women of Scotland Lunch with my friends Sheana and Ann – they are the women with whom I’ve been promoting suffragette Jessie Stephen, Sheana being Jessie’s great-niece. I’m not sure I count as a prominent woman, as the cutting describes us – Sheana invited me, so I went! It was very enjoyable and raised a large amount of money for Mental Health Foundation Scotland.

Speaking of Jessie, I loved cataloguing this new book at Glasgow Women’s Library. Where are the women? by Sara Sheridan is a guide to an imagined Scotland where women are commemorated as prominently as men. Jessie’s in there!

By Sara Sheridan
Jessie’s page

Finally, many of my Scottish words of late have referred to Brexit and the political difficulties it has created. How about fankle for another one? It’s a muddle or tangle, and can also be used as a verb. It seems appropriate to me – but who’s going to unfankle it all? I wish I knew!

Happy June to you all.

Scotland, UK , ,

92 Comments »

  1. I love orchids, but I don’t seem to have the knack of getting them to survive and bloom. Presently I’m nursing along a tiny orchid plant that I inherited from my Mom. It is surviving but not thriving.

    Jude

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  2. 😍 John is looking quite sporty in his new ride. And you’ve got it all going on in that picture in the Herald. Looking forward to a day when Sara Sheridan’s vision becomes a reality.

    PS. #fankle #loveit

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  3. congrats on the new car and I hope it lives up to John’s expectations:) Pretty cool to be in the company of some wonderful women and that you raised a lot of money. Love the beauty of the orchids

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  8. I love the car unveiling! I remember when we bought a car in Scotland, it had balloons on it when we picked it up. It made me laugh at the time. If only they made such a big deal when you bought groceries too 🙂

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    • Isn’t it! I have never seen this before either. I didn’t go with him to collect the car – I wish I had done now, to see him unveiling it in person and to take daft photos. I enjoyed the trip out to a country pub afterwards where I was able to drink wine and be chauffeured.

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  10. Thought of a word for you to ‘explore’ Tate or Tait not sure. As in, I know you only have only a little left but ah jist want a wee tate

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  11. I am liking “fankle” sounds more involved than a muddle. The issue of women being recognised as prominently as men has again been highlighted here during the Queens Service medals. One of our more prominent sportswomen received a QSM just weeks before her death, and more than one person has pointed out that she should have had that recognition at the time of her achievement.

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    • It’s a problem that doesn’t get much better over the years, certainly not quickly enough. The assumption sometimes seems to be that equality and diversity might lower standards by shoehorning in women and minorities as tokens (this view was actually expressed here this week, perhaps not so bluntly, over the closure of a literary magazine). The truth is they sometimes have to perform twice as well to get noticed!

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  12. Yup! A right old fankle we find ourselves in. Thankfully I have the French Open to keep me happy and away from the news! What a lovely month you have had, you are almost as busy a bee as our Jo!

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  13. Lovely post and photographs. Liked the lunch photograph, but newspapers don’t ever come out too well. Also liked John’s new car. As for your present fankle – fear not, Donald and Boris will sort it out together.

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  14. You get such a lot of gadding about done! Maybe I’ll start to tick a few more places off my list this summer, though.
    Another great fankle we’ve got ourselves into!

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  15. Busy month again and I’m looking forward to reading about your Northumberland trip as we’re off there next week. You nearly spoilt it all with the final paragraph mention of the ‘B’ word unfortunately. Think you may have gotten away with it this time.

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  18. Love the newspaper clipping! And, they spelled your name right. 🙂 A couple of worthy highlights in May, Anabel, and quite enjoyable at that by the looks of the photos and the people in it. Happy June to you too!

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  21. I think I’ll be able to use fankle in my day-to-day vocabulary (unfortunately). I’ve never had a new car unveiled like that… must not be an American thing… or maybe it’s just because I have never purchased a Mercedes. Seems a bit silly, but what the heck.

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  23. I am looking forward to your Islay post and Northumberland too. Our next proper trip away is near Ludlow in Shropshire ~ a part of the UK never ventured too before. X

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  25. Love the new car and John must be happy as he looks pleased as punch! It looks like you had a very nice walk. the Orchids are so pretty and so many are unique from the colours to the style. I saw the monkey-faced orchids on the internet.

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  27. Trying to decide on the perfect Xmas pressie for the son and heir and we came up with s four day distillery trip to Islay. He and his partner are off in July. I’ll point him st your post(s) when they emerge. And thank you for fankle… I will treasure its use.

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  28. Looking forward to the post on the isle of Islay… always wanted to go there as we are big fan of whisky from that region and I am certain it is also beautiful. Good gallivanting for June!

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  29. Busy month and I look forward to reading about the two trips. Well done on the fundraising. In May I went to Valencia and Berlin and bought a new car – a silver Volkswagen.

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  31. I’m glad you got some nice gallivanting in during May, Anabel. How nice to see you featured in the newspaper. And congrats on the new car and its unveiling. And I do wonder who will ever unfankle the Brexit mess, as well as the mess we are in here in the U.S. 🙂

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  32. Hi Anabel – you certainly had great weather in Islay .. looks amazing. Looking forward to more from Northumberland too … wonderful orchids … and yes John – does look chuffed with his new four wheeler.

    Wonderful pictures of you at the Women of Scotland lunch … glad to see Sarah Brown there. Must be fascinating to be ‘in the know’ … Sara Sheridan’s book being given due prominence makes sense … good to see suffragette Jessie featured, while meeting her niece Sheana …

    Fun post – cheers Hilary

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  33. Islay and Northumbria are great places to visit, especially in fine weather. Although it’s shocking that Glasgow council females have had to wait 60 plus years to get equal pay for doing the same job as men it is slowly changing in some areas. Three inspirational TV progs I watched recently highlighted the Woman’s Scottish football team- who stand a much better chance of winning the world cup than any Scottish men’s team- and they have better players….Born to be wild- the staff at the Scottish SPCA National Wildlife Centre- mainly female staff, apart from the vets and incredibly dedicated….. and the young UK vet helping to change an entire countries attitude towards stray dogs in Sri Lanka. Three modern inspirational icons.

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    • They are both great places, though we didn’t get very good weather in Northumberland unfortunately. The Glasgow equal pay dispute was outrageous. I’m not really interested in football, but I will definitely be following the progress of the women’s team and cheering them on.

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  34. Lucky you getting to visit nice places in sunny weather!
    As for Brexit, I can think of another word beginning with f to describe the mess. And with the orange overgrown baby visiting this week and sticking is oar in too. We’re living in depressing times.

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    • We hit it really lucky in Islay. As we left it was pouring down so I felt sorry for the people getting off the ferry to start their holidays. I suspect the word you are thinking off is Anglo-Saxon and wouldn’t fit my Scottish theme, however appropriate 😉. Even Trump still astonishes with his crassness, interfering in another country’s politics. It is totally depressing.

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