Glasgow Gallivanting: September 2022
So – we lost half of September to Covid! We both had 13 days between first symptoms and a negative test, but because our infections were staggered (I got ill first) it took almost two and a half weeks out of our lives. Fortunately, we both had it fairly mildly and have no after-effects, apart from being more tired than usual, but it has made for a quieter month where small events mattered. It was very reminiscent of lockdown, with John working at home (when he could) and, when we started to feel better, getting out for local walks on the canal at times when we knew we could avoid people. All our favourite swan families are still about!
We were less happy to note when we walked along the canal to Lambhill Stables that Aurelius, the giant Roman Soldier who has featured on these pages before, in May 2021’s Gallivanting, has been vandalised. Someone has tried to chip away at his helmet, and a fire has been lit under his nose leaving the impression of a black beard. Why are people like this, it’s mindless? For comparison, a picture from last autumn shows him in his pomp (with added Anabel to give an idea of scale).
It seems to have been a month when the universe was sending me messages! Another reminder of lockdown – the last remaining window teddy bear (that I know of) is now messaging about a new era. I assume he means the transition from Queen Elizabeth to King Charles.
Elephant Park has also featured before, in May 2017’s Gallivanting. At the time I was concerned that these two concrete elephants near my home were under threat because of redevelopment of an adjacent building. Well, they disappeared for years, but this month they have come back. The former Shakespeare Street School has been converted to flats / apartments and new blocks built around it, but there is still space for a nice little landscaped area with elephants.
The messages they are sending me are a bit doom-laden though!
I found far more uplifting messages in the grounds of Gartnavel Hospital. Let There be Light is a permanent feature, but when I walked through the grounds recently three of the benches had painted stones sitting on them. Such stones have become quite common since lockdown, but the Gartnavel examples take the artwork to a whole new level. I looked at each one, turned it over, and put it back exactly as I found it. Sad to say, on my next visit they had all disappeared.
The final set of messages is amongst these murals decorating an ugly barrier on a building site at Glasgow University. I shall do my best to take the advice of the last one!
Post-Covid, I manged a couple of museums, one with John and one with my friend Anna. The former was St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art which finally reopened in September. Glasgow Life, the organisation which runs cultural and sporting venues on behalf of the City Council, has been very slow to open some of them after the pandemic. This worries me a lot, though I have some sympathy because they lost a lot of money in lockdown, and also a lot of staff – I was told by a library staff member that 1/3 left during lockdown (not sure if this just applies to libraries, or all Glasgow Life venues). I’m very glad to see things starting to get back to normal, and as soon as we heard St Mungo’s had opened we wanted to revisit.
There is so much to see, but I was most moved by these depictions of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. The first three images are by Robert McNeil (b. 1947) who worked as a forensic technician in Kosova and Bosnia. After retiring, he started painting some of the sights he had witnessed. He also helped provide evidence for the prosecution of Ratko Mladić. His paintings are:
- Witness (2012). Over 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred by the Bosnian Serb Army and Serbian paramilitaries near Srebrenica in July 1995. At first the forensic team thought blindfolding victims was an act of mercy, but they later discovered from eyewitnesses that the killers didn’t want to look them in the eyes.
- Subjugation (2017). This cardigan was found in a mass grave in Kosovso in 1999. Each piece of clothing found was washed, dried and hung out so that families could identify their missing loved ones.
- Srebrenica Woman (2010). A Bosnian Muslim woman weeps as she recognises her husband’s remains from such pieces of clothing.
The final image is Massacre of Srebrenica (2019) by Peter Howson (b. 1958). Howson was an official war artist in Bosnia, an experience which made him very ill and caused the break-up of his family. His memories are still too painful to talk about, but he says that painting them helps him to try to understand why humans do such evil things to each other. This truly is a scene from hell.
On a lighter and happier note, Anna and I visited Maryhill Burgh Halls for 50 Pots, the 50th anniversary show of the Scottish Pottery Society. The exhibition (on till end October) includes information panels and examples from historic Glasgow potteries (I had no idea there had been so many, from the first opening in 1748 to the last closing in the 1980s) as well as contemporary responses by students of Craft and Design at City of Glasgow College. It was good to see the concentration on women’s work.
This image of the Pressing and Jolly Shop at Bell’s Pottery (lots of women!) forms the backdrop to the pottery timeline, partially shown here. The opening of each pottery is juxtaposed against other significant events, including the births of some historic women. My second-favourite, Isabella Elder, is there. Pressing is a process for making flat or shallow pottery, while jollying is a process of making hollow pottery (for example vases, bowls or tankards) inside a revolving mould.
One decoration process is described in the panel below (click to enlarge) and you can see the same porcelain vase in the case of items from Possil Pottery. It’s so ugly it’s almost beautiful! But I wouldn’t have it in my home.
And finally, the work of two of the students, both referencing women.
After the exhibition, Anna and I walked up to the new Stockingfield Bridge over the canal. It’s not fully open yet, but one of the soon-to-be-11 artworks is now accessible. River of Words by Anoushka Havinden is a series of inscribed paving stones. A poem flows down the centre, surrounded by words and names that identify the important ideas, places, folk and history of the area. I was overjoyed to find that many of the women mentioned in my Maryhill Women’s History Walk are there, including my number one favourite, Jessie Stephen. I absolutely love it and will need to reroute my walk to take it in.
Two lovely buildings to end with – Websters, built as Lansdowne Church in 1863, is named in its current incarnation as a theatre-café-bar for Alf Webster who designed its stained-glass windows in 1913. We had pre-booked tickets for a concert which fortunately took place after we were both healthy. And Glasgow Women’s Library needs no introduction. I hadn’t got a picture of it with its 30th anniversary flag so took one this week before it disappears (the library is now 31). I had the pleasure of taking along a friend who had never been before and finding that she loved it as much as I do.
Well, that went on a bit! Perhaps it wasn’t such a quiet month after all. Happy October!
The Glasgow Gallivanter 
That was a good month considering Covid took a bite out of it! I love the River of Words, what a beautiful idea.
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Sad to see the damage to the Roman. We are not too bad here but Adelaide is having a lot of problems with youth vandalism and violence. I was also interested in the reluctance to re-open things. Our problem is the lack of staff – all over Adelaide and also up here there are notices outside many businesses “We are hiring”- and that includes McDonalds. One last thing – they are now talking ( in Australia) about a fifth injection for a new Covid Strain.
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It’s always a shame to see vandalism. It’s staff here too, I think – so many library / museum staff left during lockdown they’ve had to do big recruitment rounds. We’re about to get our fourth vaccination, but I think those in more vulnerable groups might be on to number 5.
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Sorry to hear you were both struck down with Covid, but glad you’re feeling better now! I’ve been meaning to visit St. Mungo’s for a while, and will have to try to do it the next time I’m up visiting my friend – whether he wants to or not!
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It’s worth going – more to it than I remembered!
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Glad to hear you are feeling better. Cross fingers we have yet to catch COVID and we certainly hope we won’t in the coming weeks as we are preparing for a big trip and we will have to show a negative test…
Another nice month of activities though closer to home… (Suzanne)
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Oh, I hope you avoid it too! We are now fine, thanks – it wasn’t pleasant, but we weren’t seriously ill. Left us very tired for about a week though.
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I hope you’re both feeling better now. We had covid back in August and it really took it out of me.
Wonderful photos, as always, and I especially love those inscribed paving stones.
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Thanks! We are fully recovered, but it exhausted us too. I’ve been back to the paving stones a couple of times and found something different each time.
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Doesn’t look like COVID slowed you down much. You certainly did see a lot. Poor Aurelius. He looks so different now. You’re right about mindless people, they seem to be everywhere. So I too follow the messages in the stones. And the River of Words is beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks for visiting!
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My pleasure.
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So nice to see your Swan families. 🙂 Hugo and I were buzzed by four low flying swans yesterday by the river, don’t often see them down there , they were quite a spectacle! Such a shame about Aurelius the Emperor, what idiots do things like that! The poetry walk looks interesting. X
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Ooh, scary! I’ve occasionally seen individual swans take off from the canal, but haven’t been buzzed. I never go too near then, scary things.
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Yes it was a bit scary but also quite magical, they seemed to come out of nowhere. X
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Like the fun, colourful stones and statues, it’s uplifting when simple inspiration words hit the right spot.
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Thanks Suzanne – yes it is. Very cheering and brightens the place up.
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Some lovely artwork there. I particularly liked “Let there be light” with the autumn leaves falling across it.
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Thanks – that’s a good one.
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The ONLY good thing about Covid is that it made us appreciate normal life so much more. Glad you were able to do extra travel after you both recovered!
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Oh I agree! Including the small things that we might have ignored before.
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Well that’s a shame about the vandalism and people taking the painted stones (but sadly, not surprising).
When we went to Croatia in 2019, we visited the war museum on the ridge above Dubrovnik. Sobering, indeed. Shameful what humans will do to one another, and still it doesn’t end.
Glad you have recovered and did get out to see some fine things last month.
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That must have been very distressing. We’ve visited museums in Berlin that have a similar effect.
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Glad you’ve recovered Anabel, it takes the stuffing out of you I found. The photos of the swans are perfect, so clear. Harrowing photos of the Bosnian war.
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It really does floor you, even if the symptoms are mild. We were exhausted for about a week afterwards.
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Yes my poor hubby had it twice in six weeks! It affected his health severely and gave him all sorts of problems
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Oh no! Will have to stay vigilant then. I was assuming we could be done with it for a while.
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That Bosnian piece moved me to tears. Thanks for finishing with lighter things.
Glad to hear you are both getting better. A reminder to us all we still need to be careful.
xxx
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It was very distressing, like so many things at the moment. Plenty of things to be cheerful about – though covid isn’t one of them!
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You managed to fill in the remaining weeks of September with lots of lovely outings. I do like the painted stones. Here there is a trend for stones painted like this to be picked up by travellers and placed in a new spot for someone else to find. A bit of fun in a sometimes depressing world.
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Here, I’ve mainly seen them build up in “rivers” of stones, but that was more a lockdown thing, so maybe these ones have moved on to a new spot as you say. Or, as part of the Gartnavel site is a psychiatric hospital, perhaps their messages are comforting a patient.
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I do love the idea of a patient finding a heart-warming message on a stone.
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I’m glad you are feeling better and have no lingering symptoms. You are lucky to have such a beautiful area to wander around in while you were recovering.
So sad about the vandalism. I just don’t get that type of behavior. I can only speculate that in comes from deep anger inside. I hope the sculpture can be fixed.
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I hope it can be fixed too, and the surface is not too badly damaged. We are very lucky to be close to the city centre, and yet minutes from the canal and the River Kelvin where, with only a little imagination, you could be in the countryside. During school hours it’s very quiet and we could walk without fear of endangering anyone.
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We might lose a lot more than two weeks if Putin goes nuclear or Liz Truss collapses the economy and pensions.
At least that Roman head is still there, albeit damaged. I remember going to see a sculpture called ‘swans in flight’ only to find two bare iron rods where the flying swans once flew, ten feet above the ground, and the poor wee Govan bear had its nose and paws cut off last time I spotted it, chained to a lamp post and trembling nervously in a shady corner of that burgh. Not condoning it but these days young and old people have a great deal to be angry about.
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Yes, it’s all very grim, isn’t it? I find the news very hard to bear these days.
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I’m glad your experience of the lurgy wasn’t too bad abd thatyou recovered fairly quickly and that you’re both out and about properly again.
I guess we’ve all let our guard down, even those of us who’ve been cautious. (That goes for me too). But the damn thing hasn’t gone away, despite what the powers that be would like us to believe. Had my booster last Tuesday. Just old enough to qualify for the first group.
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We have ours in a couple of weeks. It should add to the antibodies we’ve just built up! I think we’ll be living with this for a long time.
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Hi, Anabel – I’m sorry to read that COVID took a couple of weeks out of your September. Richard and I both contracted COVID while we were in the US this past September. In truth, it kicked the stuffing out of both of us (I really wasn’t expecting that for me). Although we have each tested negative for over a week, and are on Day 19+ since our first symptoms, we are both still much more tired than usual, with a couple of other small but lingering symptoms.
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Sounds similar! We were flat on our backs after trying to do “normal” things when we became negative but are much better now. Hope you are too!
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I had a similar experience with Covid in that I was asymptomatic but it took me over two weeks to have a negative test. I am glad that you and John only had mild symptoms and that you were able to keep your minds and bodies active during your personal lockdown periods.
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Thanks, Laura. We seemed to be exhausted for about a week afterwards, but feel much more like ourselves this weekend.
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Your months are never quiet, Anabel! Sorry to read you both suffered from Covid in September. I think Mark and I are two of a few who have not “succumbed” to the virus yet. As far as we know.
Vandalism and all the brutalities humans are capable of boggle my mind. It’s easy to think and go down the path that most of us are evil. But then, you see signs of the kindness, creativity, and care of others and you know you have to give the human race (some of its members anyway) credit and respect.
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I hope you don’t succumb! I was starting to believe I had a magic immune system, but it seems I didn’t.
I meet so many kind and caring people too, it’s hard to understand in daily life where all the conflict comes from. But come it does, and it terrifies me.
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Same here…
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I’m glad that you and John had mild cases and are fully recovered. Covid has no intention of going away, does it? Today my wife and I scheduled appointments for our third booster shots. Despite having had Covid, you did more in September than most people!
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It certainly does not – cases are going up again here. We have our boosters coming up soon too, very happy about that.
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Well you certainly did a lot more than me! I think I have lost the ability to go out much, everything seems too much effort. Hate the vandalism, it makes me so cross to see things damaged like that. Love the painted stones – may be they have just been moved to another location, I thought that was the idea behind them? The River of Words is fabulous. Thanks for taking me gallivanting with you xx
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The vandalism is depressing. What I did sounds a lot, but much of it was small – a hangover from lockdown which made me more observant and ready to be pleased by little details. Not sure about the stones – I did look at all the benches on my second visit in case they had just moved on. Gartnavel is partly a psychiatric hospital so I’d like to think a patient was benefitting from the uplifting messages.
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I’m happy to hear that both of you are over Covid now. Mary and I lost – I’d say – two years to Covid because gave up nearly all our social activities. But now, hopefully being fairly immune – for a while – and with new Boosters available, we’re planning to get out more and enjoy the cultural event here.
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Yes, I suppose 2020/2021 were write-offs here too. We also have our boosters and flu vaccines coming up soon. Every little helps!
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👍
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For someone who lost pretty much half of the month you certainly packed a lot into the remaining half! I love the River of Words too, while those works by Robert McNeil are incredibly moving.
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They are very moving. I don’t remember them from pre-pandemic but I tended to go in for specific exhibitions rather than the main collection, so maybe I missed them arriving. River of Words will repay many visits, there is so much to take in.
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Love the River of Words, Anabel, and those happy stones. There’s more than enough doom and gloom in the world but it must have been hell being a war artist. How do you live with those memories? And I can’t help but wonder what’s really going on in Ukraine now. Will we ever know or understand? Wishing you a happy October 🤗💗
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I’m enchanted with the River of Words and can’t wait to see what the other artworks are like. There is a giant serpent under construction, I know that! I find the news from Ukraine unbearable and remember feeling the same about the Balkans. I don’t know how people survive at all never mind live with the memories. The human spirit can be very resilient. I’m glad mine has never had to be tested.
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Same here 😕💟
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Hi Anabel – yes well you made up for those covid days of lock down – just glad your symptoms weren’t so awful.
Sad about the emperor … I can’t understand vandals … so stupid. I’m so glad to see you went around quite a few places with family and friends … I love the Let There Be Light sculpture … very pretty and appropriate – lots to do in Glasgow. Cheers Hilary
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I think I did make up for the two missing weeks! And another busy period coming up too. The vandalism is very stupid, I don’t understand the pleasure in spoiling things for everyone else. Glasgow never ceases to surprise me with its quirky little corners.
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I’m just now getting back properly into blogging after being computer-less for a while -intermittent problems finally killed my last one 😦
In spite of being laid low with Covid you still packed a lot into the month. Such a shame that Aurelias has been vandalised – I have to wonder what goes on in the minds of the cretins who do things like this.
I like the colourful painted stones and the murals, the cat one is my favourite 🙂
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Oh no, computers are the worst when they go wrong! So much depends on them these days. I don’t get the mindless vandalism either. A few people can spoil nice things for everyone.
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