Glasgow Gallivanting: February 2022

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Snowdrops at Dawyck

February has been a very busy and sociable month. I’m totally ignoring world affairs, because I just can’t go there, so let’s say the only fly in the ointment has been the extremely stormy weather. Nevertheless, we found a couple of days which were good enough to get out of the city, most recently last Friday when we went to Dawyck Botanic Garden, near Peebles in the Scottish Borders. We have visited before, but only in summer so we thought we’d like to see it in snowdrop season. We’d had snow in Glasgow on Thursday which had all cleared, but as we journeyed into the countryside I began to worry that there might be so much snow left at Dawyck that the snowdrops would be impossible to distinguish. However, this proved not to be the case and we had a lovely visit, despite some areas being closed off because the aforementioned storms had brought some of the trees down.

The statue in the gallery below is of David Douglas (1799-1834), one of Scotland’s greatest plant hunters who brought back many of the species in the garden from his explorations in North America (the Douglas fir was named after him). He came to a sad end in Hawaii when he fell into a bull pit already occupied by a frenzied wild bullock. His mangled body was found the following day.

On a happier note, Dawyck also has a good café – I can say this with some authority because we used it three times. We had morning coffee when we arrived, went for a walk, had lunch, went for another walk, then finished off with more coffee and some delicious orange and pistachio cake. The perfect day!

Dawyck House
Sculpture
Snowdrops
Urn
Sculpture
Snowdrops by the Scrape Burn
Dawyck Botanic Garden
Sculpture
Scrape Burn
Early blooms
Early blooms
Dawyck Chapel
Prunus serrula
David Douglas sculpture
View from Shaw Brae
Storm damaged area
Dawyck House
Orange and pistachio cake – yum!

Our other outing was to Lochwinnoch, where we visited Castle Semple Country Park and the RSPB Nature Reserve (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). We enjoyed watching the antics of the swans and geese, but felt others, especially those with small children, were getting too close, even feeding them by hand. Just no!

Birds on Castle Semple Loch
Castle Semple goose
Castle Semple geese
Birds in flight, Castle Semple
Castle Semple swan
Castle Semple goose
Castle Semple swans
Castle Semple goose

The gallery below shows other parts of Castle Semple and Lochwinnoch Nature Reserve which we passed on our walk. The old church dates from 1504 and was founded by John, Lord Sempill. He was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and the church was extended to house his tomb. Tod’s Seat, at the end of the gallery, with its flight of birds rising from the back, was donated to RSPB Lochwinnoch by the family of David Tod (1956-1990). I always feel particularly saddened to see memorials to relatively young people

Parkhill Viewpoint
View from Parkhill
Castle Semple collegiate Church
Castle Semple collegiate Church
Monument to John, Lord Sempill
Castle Semple collegiate Church
Lochwinnoch Nature Reserve
Aird Meadow Loch
Tod’s seat
Tod’s Seat

Tramping around the city I found street art that was either new, or that I had previously missed. The bird below, on Ruchill Street, is fairly recent I think. The white wall is the side of the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant on Ashton Lane, and has featured several times before because the mural changes quite regularly.

Ruchill Street art
Ashton Lane street art

This tribute to Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, and his novel Lanark, is in an entrance to a back yard off Maryhill Road. Judging by the peeling paint it has been there a long time, so I can’t understand how I’ve managed to miss it.

Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill
Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill
Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill

Finally, this is definitely new – a legacy of COP26, the big climate conference which took place in Glasgow in November. Beacon of Hope by Steuart Padwick is in Central Station, and is one of three hope sculptures across the city (I haven’t seen the other two). To me, the figure looks rather rough and unfinished, but I enjoyed reading the inscriptions on all four sides of the base as I waited for my train. The one I’ve displayed is by Jackie Kay who, until recently, was our Makar (National Poet for Scotland).

Beacon of Hope, Glasgow Central
Words by Jackie Kay

Post script: an update from last month. You might remember that in February we gallivanted to Linlithgow where there was some controversy over the name of a pub. The Black Bitch was called after a local legend about a black female dog, but Greene King, the brewery which owns the pub, wanted to change that to something which sounds less offensive to modern ears. Their first suggestion was The Black Hound which lost the sense of the original story and caused a local outcry. Greene King has now rolled back on that and renamed the pub The Willow Tree, after a nearby tree which was planted to commemorate the 1832 Reform Act. (This introduced major changes to the electoral system, allowing more people – for which read men – to vote). However, the controversy rumbles on because Greene King’s founder, Benjamin Greene, was a slave owner and a fanatical opponent of the reform bill, so some local people think that his name is more offensive than the original pub name. Perhaps next month I will be able to add the next chapter in the saga, who knows? As long as we’re still here of course: given that Faslane, the UK’s nuclear base, is less than 30 miles from Glasgow I wouldn’t fancy our chances if Putin decided to take that out.

Oops, I said I would ignore world affairs, even flippantly, so pretend I didn’t – happy March!

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50 Comments »

  4. You know a cafe is good when you end up there 3 times in one day! 😀

    Such wonderful photos too.

    A pub in my local town was take over by Wetherspoons and they decided to change its name. It did not go down well with the locals. It ended up keeping the name its always had – The Black Boy (the sign on the pub had always been a chimney sweep boy).

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    • To be fair, there was no other cafe anywhere close, but we weren’t forced to go three times! We actually spotted the cake at lunchtime and told ourselves we’d work off the required calories on our second walk. We almost believed it.

      That sounds a remarkably similar pub name story – with opposite results!

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  6. What thick clumps of snowdrops. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many like that before. Mind you, I don’t haunt the woods at this time of year and my own wee snowdrops in the garden are sparse due to my digging them up every year – accidentally. Your gallery was very interesting, as always, and I enjoyed the days out with you.

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  7. Interesting to learn about Douglas, especially as my mother usually has either a Douglas or Fraser fir for a Christmas tree. Shame about his unfortunate end though. Pistachio and orange cake sounds delicious – I love anything with pistachios and make a good pistachio loaf cake myself!

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  8. Lovely photos, looks like you had a some lovely days out. Love the snowy views and the cafe sounds like a success. Like you we are trying to ignore world news and just get on with our lives!

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  10. Oh, it’s all a worry at the moment and so sad to see what’s happening. Dawyck looks like a gorgeous garden and even prettier in the snow. Poor Mr Douglas. What a dreadful way to go. Our friend who hails from Drymen has the surname Douglas.

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  13. I think we might have made it to Dawyck on our one and only, long ago visit to Peebles. We had snow on the ground then too. Nicely atmospheric photos, and ooh, very nice cake!

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  15. Some great places there. I like Dawyck and that surrounding area. In case you have not heard Paisley Abbey has free unboxed light shows on all this week from 7pm til 9pm every night. Might be crowded, though it is outdoors in a wide area around the abbey grounds..

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  16. Hi Anabel – so wonderful to be able to get out … and seeing swathes of snowdrops – gorgeous. What an interesting park to visit – also very appealing with the cafe available. Delightful photos you’ve given us … Douglas Firs… yes fascinating trees … cheers Hilary

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  18. So lovely to get out and about again. We missed out on a visit to Trebah at half price to see snowdrops due to storms and then half term holidays. Should be magnolia time soon, if only the rain could hold off. Love that bench!

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  19. I’m with you about keeping my head down and avoiding world affairs. There’s nothing we can do about them, so I won’t worry. But then, we’ve lived through these scares before. Younger people haven’t. I did have a discussion with my brother (born 1944) about how our parents coped with their equivalents, though.

    Love Jackie Kay’s poem. Something to hold hard to.

    Happy gallivanting. There’s nothing better than snowdrops in snow. 🙂

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  20. Looks like you had some great Gallivanting in February, Anabel & visited some great places 👏 i look forward to hearing how it goes with the pub in Linlithgow, & hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be able to rid Scotland of unwanted nuclear weapons forever 🤞

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  21. oh what fun you have managed to have despite the best efforts of snow, wind and goodness knows what else!
    Always amuses me when we suddenly see something that we have obviously walked past numerous times – I often look to other side of street to see if there is something on that side that usually distracts me

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