Glasgow Gallivanting: April 2022

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Wester Dun Cottage

It has been a relatively quiet month here on the blog because, guess what? It has been busy with gallivanting! We’ve been away twice, including a week spent in this sweet little cottage in Dun, near Montrose on the Angus coast. This leaves a huge backlog of posts to prepare, so for the moment I’ll stick to some brief observations of Glasgow in the Spring. It’s a colourful time!

The Botanic Gardens is looking bonny, and its yarn-bombed bench has appeared for the season. This is decorated in crochet-work every year by the daughter of Rita McGurn, an artist who lived nearby, in honour of her late mother. The current version looks particularly fine with its twiddly corners. I’m sure there is a technical term for that, so apologies to any crochet experts out there!

Glasgow Botanic Gardens
Rita McGurn’s bench
Rita McGurn’s bench
Rita McGurn’s bench

We found some more of Louise McVey’s graffiti ceramics in Dowanhill.

Graffiti ceramic by Louise McVey
Graffiti ceramic by Louise McVey
Graffiti ceramic by Louise McVey

And a couple of new (to me) murals – the one on the shutter is in Argyle Street in the city centre, and is by Frodik; the one on the wall is by Mark Worst and can be found on West Princes Street in Woodlands.

Argyle Street street art by Frodrik
W Princes St art by Mark Worst

These things just made me smile. I like the marketing ploy of this bagel shop on Dumbarton Road – and is this the longest (and most precarious looking) entrance to a cat-flap ever? Seen by the Forth and Clyde Canal at Ruchill.

Shop sign, Dumbarton Rd
Canal cat-flap
Canal cat-flap

On a beautiful sunny morning I ventured across the Clyde to the Southside to meet a friend for coffee. Last year, I did a post with various clock towers spotted around Glasgow and these two would be worthy additions.

Former church, Shields Rd
Pollokshields Church of Scotland

We went to our first really big gig since Covid – Blondie at the SEC Hydro. Just us and a few thousand others. It was FABULOUS and I can’t believe Debbie Harry is 76 – boy, has she still got it. Normally, we would go for dinner in a restaurant beforehand, but for various reasons we couldn’t do that so grabbed a pizza at the venue. Not the best picture of John ever: eating pizza from a box balanced on a bin, hmm! Classy.

Pizza at the Hydro
Blondie at the Hydro

Hooray, my “career” as a women’s history guide has taken off again – I even have a booking as far away as January. This month, I have led two walks and given a talk, all for different organisations. The  Glasgow Women’s Library Necropolis walk made it onto a podcast. We’re famous! The link is in the tweet below. The whole thing is just under half an hour, but if you want to hear me tell a story of witch trials go to around the 7 minute mark. After over 35 years in Glasgow, I imagine I have a Scottish accent, so I’m always amazed when I hear myself recorded – I still sound like a Geordie lass.

As we hurtle into a new month, can you believe that’s a third of the year gone already? I hope your May is a good one.

Scotland, UK , , ,

58 Comments »

  1. Love the yarn bombed bench, and having recently had a try at crochet ( it looked easy-ish. It wasn’t) I’m impressed with the amount of time and effort that must have taken! Hats off to Blondie too, I love her music. It just doesn’t date.

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  3. I can’t believe how fast time is flying! A third of this year gone already? Wow. Love the yarn-dressed bench and your new discoveries in Glasgow. Fun to hunt for new ceramics or street art. And, good eye about the “cat walk”. That made me smile!

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    • That’s not too far from us. We’re further up, the other side of the Botanics. We’ve been in Glasgow since 1986 so maybe we have passed each other on GWR or Byres Rd without knowing it! I see you are in Wellington now, so quite a long way to make a visit, and 2 of those 4 years would obviously have been impossible. NZ is somewhere I wanted to visit, but at the moment I’m happy getting around Scotland again and haven’t re-acquired my mojo for foreign travel.

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      • We may well have passed each other! I’m a bit like you regarding foreign travel. I may go to Canada to see my brother who doesn’t have good health, but it would strictly for that reason.
        Lovely to see pictures of Glasgow!

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  5. I love the yarn bombed bench! We used to have a few “bombs” go off around here but they probably stopped because of the pandemic (I’m not sure why the pandemic would have anything to do with it but just about everything gets blamed on it, so why not the absence of yarn bombing?). I also love the graffiti ceramics… that’s my favorite kind of graffiti.

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    • I’m trying to remember – the bench was definitely decorated last year,because I have a picture, but whether it was in the first year of the pandemic, I’m not sure. The ceramics are lovely – we’ve found them in several places now, and last night we discovered another set, but clearly by another artist.

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  6. The crochet adorned bench is gorgeous – so many hours of work in that. What a lovely way to honour a much loved person. I’m glad you’re out and about again. We are too, away on our first trip this year.

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  7. So nice to know life is good again, Anabel. I know what you mean about the posts because I have a huge collection of photos from my couple of weeks up north, and of course, life doesn’t stop so I keep accumulating more locally. Definitely not something to complain about and I have a busy May ahead. Have a great month!

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  8. Another great post. I just wrangled the guinea pigs through the A to Z Challenge! But they had grass time, too, and I got reading done.
    My favorutie place in the world, Treshnish Farm on Mull, has some vacancies that are cropping up at short notice at present. If you fany a trip up there, you should check their website out…

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  9. I’m slowing catching up in The Reader with favourite bloggers. Nice to know you are gallivanting with a vengeance these days and I look forward to reading your posts down the line.

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  11. Lovely. You are always doing such lovely gallivanting…
    We have also been away in March-April; a trip to Guadeloupe. We have just started posting our pictures. We are a bit slow processing our pictures. (Suzanne)

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  12. Lots of fun things to see (and hear) on this gallivant! I enjoyed the cat ramp – someone put a lot of effort and material into that. The bench is awesome. So fantastic the Debbie Harry is going strong at that age.

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  13. Great to see the street art! Love a good Frodrik, and the ceramics are very surprising. We always know spring has arrived when the bench in the Botanics is woolly again.

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  14. Once a Geordie… loved the bench. Now that is real skill. And glad you’re back gigging though these days I realise tinnitus is more of a threat so tend to filter the dB through earplugs…

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  15. Hi, Anabel – I’m delighted that you and John have resumed your gallivanting. Being away twice in one month, including a full week away, is awesome. Richard and I have our first big trip (read here two weeks away in a different Canadian province) coming up soon. We can’t wait!
    The yarn bench is amazing – what a wonderful tribute to the artist’s mother. And Debbie Harry still performing?! I agree with the comment that perhaps healthy lifestyles have been overrated. Sigh! 😀

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  16. Like the cat flap. Surprised Blondie and D. H. are still touring. Ex heroin users and former racy lifestyles at 75. The Rolling Stones still going. Chain smoking Winston Churchill and June Brown past 90 before they popped off . Maybe this healthy living thing is overrated!

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  17. That bench is really something and I love the graffiti ceramics. Woh, Blondie. I went to see them in Blackpool , 2007ish. Debbie Harry is such an icon. X

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    • They certainly are! Only three original members still in the band, and Chris Stein wasn’t well enough to travel, so just Debbie and Clem Burke and three younger guys on stage, plus a guest on bass – Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols! I really felt I’d travelled back in time.

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  19. I can’t believe Debbie Harry is so old – really?? My favourite in the late 70s was Heart Of Glass, I loved that song. I love the look of the sweet little cottage so I look forward to your forthcoming posts about your stay there. The yarn bombed bench is certainly ‘in your face’ and I love the long cat flap ramp, it’s a great idea for an upstairs flat. The street art is great, I love the dog but my favourite is the other one 🙂

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    • She really is, and still singing and dancing. They did Heart of Glass, in fact most of the show was older stuff. I could have added another couple of murals to the street art, but as I’d already scheduled the post I couldn’t be bothered changing it. I’ll just pretend I took them in May, so don’t tell anyone 😉.

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  20. That yarn-bombed bench is wonderful and I love the Mark Worst mural and that almost absurd cat flap 😁 Glad you got to the gig – it sounds a great one!

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  23. Hi Anabel – funny how time flies … and boy does it. So glad you were able to get to see Blondie – while all the other things you’re both doing keep you entertained. Just enjoy – I hope it warms up a little soon! Cheers Hilary

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