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Anabel 1996

Anabel Marsh is the Glasgow Gallivanter. Let’s deconstruct the name back to front!

Gallivant: to go around from one place to another in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment. I think I can tick those boxes! I love wandering both in my home country, Scotland, and (less frequently these days) abroad. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I was little, I always said “an author”. I filled notebooks with stories and poems which I was sometimes asked to read to the class in primary school. Writing essays in secondary school and university seemed to knock that creativity out of me and I modified my bookish ambitions to becoming a librarian. Now, in the wonderful era of the world-wide web, anyone can be an author and here I am writing again in my retirement. I want to create a record, current and retrospective, of my gallivanting before I get too old and forget it all! If other people enjoy reading my posts then that’s a bonus.

Anabel 2015 – spot the difference!

Glasgow: Scotland’s largest city. I’m not a native Glaswegian, but I’ve been here since 1986 and can’t imagine living anywhere else now – it’s a great city with lots going on. Edinburgh might have the biggest festival but we seem to have one every month or so, my favourites being Celtic Connections (music) and Aye, write! (books). Eating out is excellent, especially if you like curries as I do (although I admit my first Glasgow curry brought tears to my eyes and I couldn’t speak for some time). Another feature of Glasgow is that it’s a very green place with a high number of parks which we enjoy visiting, and we’re also really well placed for getting into the Scottish countryside, whether up to the Highlands or down to the Borders.

And who is “we”? My companion is nearly always John, my husband of almost 45 years. When we gallivant together, I do most of the planning before we go, but he’s much more practical once we get there, finding his way around with ease while I trail in his wake without a clue how to get to where I want to be (no sense of direction). He also takes many of the photographs for the blog – and all of the ones that are any good. We make a great team. So please – come along and join us on our journey and, if you want to get in touch without going through the comments, use the form below.

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84 Comments »

  2. Hello Anabel, It’s wonderful to finally meet you. I’ve read your lovely comments on several blogs I follow, and realized we actually have quite a bit in common – in a six-degrees-of-separation sort of way. My husband, James and I come from a small town named Glasgow in Kentucky USA. We must have had similar inspiration on the titles of our blogs. And we were just in your Glasgow last autumn – falling head-over-heels in love with it. Although we’d lived in London 30 years ago, we never made it to Glasgow. Our loss for sure. I’m looking forward to perusing your beautiful blog. All the best, Terri

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  5. Hi Annabel,
    Nice to meet you here.
    Gallivanting was a word my late irish mother (Donegal/Fermanagh border) often used in reference to me. I think I could write a chapter on that topic Anabel.
    I look forward to reading more of your posts.
    Please accept my apologies for my ‘all over the place’ blog. I lost my About section and it reappeared in the middle of my blog. Gallivanting again I suppose you could say. 🙂

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  6. (I came here from Yeah Another Blogger.) You have a nice-looking blog. I’m American, but our daughter and son-in-law moved to Milngavie last year. I’ll be visiting in a few weeks, for the first time. I plan to backpack part of the West Highland Way. Any tips on good pubs in Glasgow, maybe with live music? Also, how should I dress when I walk the trail? Thanks!

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    • Fabulous! I hope they are enjoying life in Milngavie. We live in the West End of Glasgow and so usually go to the pubs there (Byres Road). We like Oran Mor, the Curlers and the Ubiquitous Chip – all do bar food and the Chip and Oran Mor also have very good restaurants. Oran Mor does live music, but ticketed gigs in the venue downstairs. City centre pubs tend to be very busy! If you like whisky, the Pot Still on Hope Street has an amazing selection. Other traditional pubs are Sloans, the Horse Shoe and the Scotia Bar. The last named sometimes has music (free) and 13th Note on King Street is another pub / music venue. It serves veggie food. The Clutha Bar has live music – not ticketed – check the Facebook page for details (https://www.facebook.com/Cluthabar/), it also does bar food including pizza. (NB be aware of sensitivities at the Clutha – a helicopter crashed on the roof a few years ago with multiple fatalities.) These are all places I have been and can vouch for – there are many more!

      What to wear hiking, hmmm. People joke that in Scotland you can have all four seasons in one day. Except it’s not actually a joke. My best advice is to wear lots of layers that you can take off and on regularly, including a good waterproof layer. Even in a dry spell, parts of the path will be wet and boggy so have sturdy footwear. Finally, an essential is to have copious supplies of bug spray because peak midge season is coming up, though I’m not sure anything is 100% effective against them. The fashion used to be Avon’s Skin So Soft, the smell of which they apparently hate – I didn’t find that worked for me. Better is the latest go-to product, Smidge (https://www.smidgeup.com/). You can buy both in outdoor shops such as Tiso on Buchanan Street.

      Hope this helps and you have a wonderful time in Scotland!

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  8. Unfortunately, I have never visited Glasgow. A number of years back, while studying in Liverpool for one semester, I made a journey to Edinburg, which I loved. But if I ever return to Scotland, your home town is definitely on my list of must-see destinations.

    Meanwhile, I look forward to learning more about it from your blog.

    Greetings,
    Tanja

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  9. Ooooh – Glasgow! I imagine then that you are close to the Great Highland Trail and are probably well acquainted with it. It is on my bucket list and have had to postpone a trip there twice.

    Glad to ‘meet’ another adventurous wandering spirit 🙂

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  16. Hi, Anabel! I saw the title of your blog and had to check it out. Being of Scotch-Irish descent, I was naturally curious. I’m making it a priority to visit the land of my ancestors someday.
    I look forward to reading all about your gallivanting!
    Cheers,
    Sam

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  22. Hi Anabel, I wondered if it would be possible to get in touch with you about a film project telling folks about the local bike hire scheme in Glasgow? Not sure if you are a cyclist or not but we’re looking for local opinion formers to get involved. If you would get in touch with me, I have left my email. Many thanks! Roisin

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  23. Hi Anabel, I can see you and I have things in common. My blog is a words by me and (a lot of) photos by him and we’ve been married 30 years and together for 36 years, a lot of which have been devoted to travel. Of course I live in Australia and you in Glasgow – a little difference there. My brother visits Great Britain quite often to visit relatives and Glasgow is one of his favourite places. He stayed in an apartment in the very centre. I’ve often looked at house-sits in the area and I’m sure I’ll get there one day. We visited Glasgow 36 years ago, but I don’t remember much! We lived on a farm in Devon over winter back then and then travelled in our campervan around England Ireland Wales and Scotland. Great memories.

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  24. It’s nice to meet someone from Scotland, and to get to experience the country through the eyes of a writerly librarian! I went to work in a bookstore once for the same reason; I was under the mistaken impression I could read the days away! Ha! Oh well, a librarian job is much more interesting, I would think! 🙂

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  26. Hi Anabel, You mentioned that you’ve created entries for library books without records before. Is your library listed with WorldCat, and if it is, would you consider creating a MARC record for my book if I mailed you a copy for donation to the library? The book is available to buy through Amazon UK, and it’s distributed by Ingram/Lightning Source all over the world, so it wouldn’t be unusual for the book to be in a library in the UK, if you know what I mean.
    If it’s not something you’d like to attempt, that’s fine, of course. My local librarian says it’s a really difficult and complicated thing to do, and she apparently doesn’t want to do it. I don’t have any concept of what’s involved, but if you’re up for it, I’d be happy to send you the book.

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    • I have, but unfortunately we don’t use MARC cataloguing so that wouldn’t work. Our records are standalone and don’t feed in to any collective system. We’re just a small, specialised library and a bit behind in that sense. Maybe it is much more complicated to create a record from scratch in MARC, I don’t know for sure because I was never a cataloguer in my “real” working life. I do know that my cataloguing friends used to do it, but that was in an academic library and it was maybe more normal. Sorry, that’s no help!

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  29. So glad to have found your blog. I’m also Scottish (though a Fifer), have a library degree (midlife crisis degree, not sure if I’ll ever get a job with it), and mostly a vegetarian. I am really enjoying your travel stories and photos. Will get over to your other blogs soon. Cheers, Su

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  31. I am a vegetarian (who should become a vegan – dairy allergies) who also loves Indian food and travel. I can not believe how busy you are with social media.. that many blogs etc. You are one multi-tasker but librarians are organized and gifted so that may go without saying… that you can manage. I haven’t been to Scotland but am jealous of your location vis a vis travel opportunities. I look forward to reading more. Happy travels, reading and blogging, Cheryl

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  32. Hi Anabel, I really enjoy your blog and had nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. Not sure how but I messed up on linking your site, the correct link is up. Thanks for all the great articles.

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  37. Anabel, the food in Nepal is much the same as in India I guess. Here in Kathmandu we have the same meal every day. Do you remember dalbhat? It’s lentil soup poured over boiled rice with curried vegetables of the day. I love it Anabel and we eat this twice a day year round.

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  38. So you love curry, Anabel. We eat curried something every day here in Kathmandu. But my real home is down in Bournemouth and I’m in Nepal right now because my wife is Nepalese. Come on over to Nepal for lots of vegetarian food. I’m 95% vegetarian and wouldn’t care if I never ate any meat again.

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    • I do love curry, and Glasgow is a great place for it! I can’t remember now what I ate when we visited Nepal, but I don’t remember there being any problem. In contrast, I don’t know Bournemouth at all!

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