December, eh? A dark, dreary month for the most part, only enlivened by watching the Christmas lights appear in houses and gardens on our after-work walks. Like most people, we had a Plan B Christmas. Months ago, when things still seemed to be improving, I booked a cottage in the Scottish Borders for Mum, John and me. Of course in the end we weren’t allowed to travel, but we’ve postponed our booking rather than cancel it – fingers crossed for Easter! Tonight, we will also have a Plan B Hogmanay because we can’t celebrate with the friends we usually go out with.
When we visited Scotstoun’s Living Advent Calendar last year, I knew immediately that I wanted to use the photographs on my blog this December. The first lockdown gave me the time to prepare most of them and I’m now looking at a bare drafts folder for the first time in months! Thanks to everyone who followed daily. A couple of you, I think Carol (The Eternal Traveller) and Jude (Travel Words), suggested a gallery of all 24 windows, so here they are. Best viewed by clicking on the first one and scrolling through as a slideshow if you have the time or the inclination. Scotstoun has some very artistic and ingenious residents as I’m sure you’ll agree.
Scotstoun Living Advent Day 6
Many of my blogging friends have been busy with the 10 Days / 10 Travel Photos challenge in the last few weeks. Thanks to Su (Zimmerbitch) and Andrew (Have Bag, Will Travel) who both nominated me, though I declined at the time because my Advent Calendar was ongoing, and to Geoff (TanGental) who nominated me a couple of days later. Instead of a day to day version, and because I really don’t have much else to say about December, I thought I’d include a gallery here of 10 photos, fairly randomly selected, which featured in the first couple of years of my blog when I knew very few people, though some images are obviously much older than that. Arranged in date order (with links to the relevant posts) you can see:
Florence 1992, the only Christmas we have spent abroad. We loved it: much more understated and tasteful than the homegrown version. I also loved that tartan coat: I bought it for £10 in a second hand shop and spent another £10 replacing the torn lining.
Havana, 1999. We were sitting on a café balcony from which this man saw us watching him as he delivered oranges and tossed one up to us. John caught him at just the right moment.
Mount Teide, 2006. We spent our Silver Wedding anniversary in Tenerife. There’s a lost luggage story attached to this.
Berlin, 2012, and Dublin, 2013. Both involving large beers, and both destinations planned for the same purpose: a concert by the late, lamented Leonard Cohen.
All happy memories!
Florence 1992
Havana 1999
Mount Teide 2006
Grand Canyon 2009
Bryce Canyon 2010
North Carolina 2011
Peggy’s Cove 2012
Wannsee, Berlin, 2012
Dublin 2013
Acadia NP 2013
One positive thing about December to report – I have another article published about Jessie Stephen, the Suffragette I have been studying for the last few years, this time in the journal Scottish Labour History. Woohoo!
Scottish Labour History cover 2020
My article
In December I take a peek at my stats, and I note that my page views have more than doubled this year. I don’t take from this that I am any more popular, just that I’ve posted an awful lot more, sometimes daily – my Advent Calendar, for example, and some of the lovely Becky’s quarterly Square Challenges. (Follow the link to discover what she is up to in January.) As I said earlier, my drafts folder is now empty, so I’m expecting those stats to plummet any time now! It doesn’t matter, I appreciate every visit, especially this year when I think we have all valued our online friends more than ever. So thank you to everyone who has read, Liked, or commented, and may our friendships continue into 2021 and beyond. Happy New Year!
November was a dark month in many ways: the nights were drawing in rapidly, the weather was often miserable, and virus restrictions got tighter and tighter. You could say that GlasGLOW, the annual light show in the Botanic Gardens, was a chink in that darkness and it was to some extent. As an outdoor event it was something to go to when everything else was closed, but it wasn’t a patch on previous years. Social distancing meant you were, quite rightly, moved on all the time and there weren’t many spectacles to stand and watch anyway. We were round in half an hour and didn’t feel that was worth £14. I actually prefer some of the pictures taken as we passed through the gardens in daytime.
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
GlasGLOW 2020
What else? Glasgow University Tower on an unusually sunny day. Remembrance poppies at Kelvinside Academy, which was also lit up red at night. A package addressed to Super-cool Anabel Marsh, which I declare shall henceforth be my name. “The Monstrosity”, complete with skeletal riders, as spotted on Dumbarton Road. 13 Newton Terrace, formerly Belgravia College, the school for young ladies I wrote about after finding the grave of its Principal in the Western Necropolis. You can tell November has not been a very exciting month by the paucity of pictures!
Glasgow University Tower
Remembrance poppies, Kelvinside Academy
Remembrance lighting, Kelvinside Academy
Super-cool Anabel Marsh
Monstrosity on Dumbarton Rd
Monstrosity on Dumbarton Rd
Former Belgravia College
Former Belgravia College
However, having written the above in advance, the past weekend redeemed itself with a better day on Saturday. Time for a nice reflective walk along the canal: Extinction Rebellion protests, a fake crowd at Partick Thistle football ground, and a great view of Glasgow University.
Murano Street bridge with Extinction Rebellion banner
Extinction Rebellion poster
Forth and Clyde Canal reflections
Glasgow University from Forth and Clyde Canal
Forth and Clyde Canal reflections
Forth and Clyde Canal reflections
Partick Thistle “crowd”
Forth and Clyde Canal reflections
Forth and Clyde Canal reflections
Before turning for home we walked up to the flagpole at Ruchill Park for even better views of the University and Maryhill – it was only about 1530 and already sunset.
Glasgow University from Ruchill Park
Maryhill from Ruchill Park
Finally, to a feature that I have neglected for a while: Scottish Word of the Month. Its return was prompted by noticing flit as Wird o the Week (sic) on the Scots Language Centre Twitter feed. Flit, in this sense, means to move house, which I thought was appropriate because after this month’s election there should be a very big flitting in Washington in the New Year. A certain someone has been given his jotters (sacked), to use another Scottish turn of phrase – will he be dragged out kicking and screaming or will he go quietly? Time will tell …
I won’t be writing any more new posts until December’s Gallivanting – but in true Blue Peter spirit, I have some I prepared earlier. See you tomorrow for Day 1 of my Advent Calendar.
October was another month of increasing restrictions as the number of virus cases continued to rise again. Because we had a short break coming up we had a moment of panic when those of us living in Scotland’s Central Belt were advised not to travel out of our local areas, but relief set in when it was clarified that pre-booked breaks could go ahead. We therefore had a lovely week of coastal walking with a cosy apartment in Cellardyke, Fife, to return to in the evening. More to follow soon.
Other than that, our walks have continued to be fairly local. One of our favourites is the Forth and Clyde Canal where big changes are taking place on the sections near us. One part opened in October: the new bridge and boardwalk at Claypits. In August it looked like this:
In October, we were able to cross the bridge and walk along the previously inaccessible side of the canal. This boardwalk took us towards Firhill, home of Partick Thistle Football Club. Matches are being played without spectators these days, but an intrepid few had gathered on the towpath where they could get a reasonable view. The unkind might say that it wasn’t a bad crowd for the team often known as Partick Thistle Nil, but I wouldn’t be so cruel …
New bridge at Claypits
New bridge at Claypits
New bridge at Claypits
Partick Thistle from canal
New boardwalk at Firhill
New boardwalk at Firhill
Another section of canal is about to be closed off to us. At Stockingfield Junction, a spur breaks off the main canal and continues to Glasgow city centre. At present, the only way to cross between routes is to take this horrible tunnel under the canal. It’s narrow, so not good for a mix of vehicles and pedestrians, and often floods.
Lochburn Road tunnel
Lochburn Road tunnel
We’ve been watching construction here since August: unfortunately, the towpath is now closing for a considerable time, but the end result will be a fabulous new bridge and park!
August 2020
September 2020
Early October 2020
Late October 2020
New Stockingfield Bridge
Another favourite is the River Kelvin. I took my car for repairs to a garage near Cluny Park in Bearsden, and walked back home along the river.
Welcoming bear
I love Bearsden bench
Autumn colours
River Kelvin in autumn
Science Park sculpture
River Kelvin weir
River Kelvin weir
The v-shaped weir is quite close to home. On this walk, I could see the pipes the water was coming through – compare to the photographs below which were taken in September when the river was much fuller. I don’t remember it being that wet!
River Kelvin weir
River Kelvin weir
Once again, we did a few short walks from the start of the West Highland Way in Milngavie: round the reservoirs and Kilmardinny Loch and up to the doocot (dovecot).
Cloberfield
Scholars Rocks by Rachel Mimiec
Home by Alex Allan
Campsies from Milngavie
Milngavie reservoirs
Milngavie reservoirs
Milngavie reservoirs
Milngavie reservoirs
Glasgow from Milngavie reservoirs
Milngavie Doocot
Milngavie Doocot
Kilmardinny Loch
Milngavie roofscape
It’s been a good month for spotting new street art, or at least, decoration, some of it pandemic related. At the start of term, many students were quarantined in their halls – “Save us! Send beer” was the message from the residence nearest us. The other sign is from the Ubiquitous Chip – many other bars and restaurants had similar pleas to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon after she imposed stricter regulations on hospitality venues.
Save us! Send beer.
Ubiquitous Chip plea to Nicola
Round the corner from the Chip in Ashton Lane, this splendid orangutan has appeared. It’s one of two in the city (the other is at Park Lane Market off Pollokshaws Road in Shawlands) by London-based artist Louis Masai. They are part of a project to highlight the plight of orangutans in the wild, which also includes murals in Birmingham and Manchester. Here, a baby orangutan clutches a pencil alongside “Stop eating palm oil” written in Gaelic.
About 15 years ago we visited an orangutan reserve at Sepilok in Borneo which rescued animals whose homes had been devastated by deforestation for palm plantations. Since then, I have always had an “adopted” orangutan baby, most of whom have been successfully returned to the wild. Of course, that “wild” continues to decrease as palm plantations encroach on the rainforest, so I have also learned to read the labels carefully before I buy anything which might contain palm oil, and to put it back unless I also see the word “sustainable”.
On a walk through Woodlands we spotted these flags with hopeful messages and a colourful sunset scene.
Woodlands flags
Woodlands flags
Street art, Woodlands Road
October has been Black History Month. As part of this, four Royal Mail post-boxes – in London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast – have been painted to honour black Britons. Footballer Walter Tull, who became the first black player to sign for Glasgow Rangers (before he was killed in 1918), appears on the Glasgow post-box in Byres Road. He was the first black Army officer to command troops in a regular unit, and featured in a set of stamps released in 2018 to mark the centenary of the end of World War One.
Black History Month postbox
Black History Month postbox
Black History Month postbox
And, of course, October ends with Halloween, which was very different for most children this year with none of the usual guising round houses. Instead, many houses, gardens, and windows were decorated. Some areas had official window trails to follow, but it was such a wet weekend that I’m not sure how many people would have braved the elements to do so. We certainly didn’t, but here are a few decorations that I happened to pass and which caught my eye.
Kirklee
Kirklee
Kirklee
North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside
Claythorn
Claythorn
And that’s a wrap for October! More restrictions, poorer weather, darker evenings – and more of the same to look forward to in November. At least nature can still put on a show.
Craigmaddie Muir, Auld Wives’ Lifts and the Campsies
We’ve had some lovely, bright weekends in September which have been great for getting out and about. The walk to the Auld Wives’ Lifts on Craigmaddie Muir was one we’d wanted to do for a while – the Lifts being the rocks you can see middle right in the image above, with the Campsie fells and the prominent knob of Dumgoyne visible in the background.
The Lifts consist of three extremely large pieces of grey sandstone, one propped on top of the other two with a space between them. Couples who were considering marriage used to try to squeeze through the gap in an anticlockwise direction; if they weren’t successful, the marriage was doomed! The stones might be connected with worship of some sort and have been a place of pilgrimage for centuries.
Craigmaddie Muir
Auld Wives’ Lifts
The gap
Legend has it that three witches from Baldernock, Strathblane and Campsie carried the stones to prove their strength. They are covered in Victorian graffiti as well as about eight carved heads or faces, which look ancient but seem not to have been noticed, or at least written about, until the 1970s.
Victorian graffiti
Face
The walk itself was not particularly pleasant, being over muddy, rutted fields and boggy ground, but the views, one way back towards Glasgow and the other to the Campsies and Ben Lomond, were beautiful.
View of Glasgow
View of Campsies and Ben Lomond
A walk above the Ayrshire coastal town of Largs to Greeto Bridge also afforded good views and a welcome glimpse of the sea. The islands of Great Cumbrae and Arran can be seen beyond the town.
Greeto Bridge
Greeto Water
Greeto Water
View to Cumbrae and Arran
Largs from above
Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, is the start of the West Highland Way. We used the beginning of the trail to branch off onto a couple of other walks.
West Highland Way, Milngavie
West Highland Way, Milngavie
War Memorial, Milngavie
We saw more pretty countryside.
Countryside near Milngavie
Countryside near Milngavie
We came across several more sets of Scholars Rocks by Rachel Mimiec, previously encountered elsewhere in East Dunbartonshire in July, and parts of a new (to us) artwork, Home by Alex Allan, naming women workers in industries previously located in Milngavie.
Scholars Rocks by Rachel Mimiec
Home by Alex Allan
And we skirted the edge of Mugdock and Craigmaddie Reservoirs. It’s a long time since we’ve walked all the way round these two – maybe next month!
Mugdock Reservoir
Mugdock Reservoir
Craigmaddie Reservoir
September has also been a month for women’s history. Students returned to university and the usual Fresher’s Fairs were all conducted online. As part of this, Glasgow Women’s Library was invited to set out its wares in a programme for Subcity Radio and I did a slot on a couple of the women from our heritage tours. If you wish, you can listen here – I am on second, just after the two minute mark, and I speak for about six minutes.
I have also done another of my Twitter Walks, this time on the East End, which you can follow below.
Hi, I'm @AnabelMarsh, one of GWL's Women's History tour guides. We can't take you on any walks at the moment, so I've created a virtual East End tour for you. This is a circular walk which we usually start at Glasgow Cross, but today I’m starting at the library. Why? 1/25 pic.twitter.com/Sat3rQe2TD
While taking the photographs for the above walk we spotted a new mural in process on Abercromby Street. The third photograph shows the completed mural a few days later.
St Thenue by Mark Worst
St Thenue by Mark Worst
St Thenue by Mark Worst
St Thenue (also known as St Enoch) is pictured wearing a shawl featuring 29 motifs in honour of the victims of the 1889 Templeton’s carpet factory disaster when 29 women were killed by a collapsing wall. Legend has it that Thenue’s father, a pagan king, ordered her to be hurled from a hill in East Lothian when she became pregnant out of wedlock. When she miraculously survived she was put into a small boat and cast adrift in the Firth of Forth to perish. She was guided to shore by a shoal of fish and given shelter at the community of St Serf in Culross where she gave birth to her son, St Mungo, the Patron Saint of Glasgow.
Annie Lennox, Calvin Harris, Emili Sandé and Lewis Capaldi on the wall of Embargo
Another new mural this month is on the side wall of Embargo, a pub on Byres Road in the West End, and portrays Scottish music stars Annie Lennox, Calvin Harris, Emili Sandé and Lewis Capaldi. The mural is the work of local artist Rogue-One and is intended, according to the bar’s manager, as “a visual celebration of Scottish musical talent during a difficult time for the creative and hospitality industries alike.”
Finally, we encountered the highland cattle of Dawsholm Park again this month, so here are two of the most photogenic especially for Jessica!
Highland cattle
Highland cattle
So that’s it for September and what turns out to be my 700th post. Restrictions are closing in again, but let’s not focus on the bad stuff. Wishing you all a happy October.
August was a month of activity on three levels. From the top – we went on holiday! Admittedly, this was our Easter Holiday postponed, but it still felt good to be out of the city for a while. The view above was ours for a week – more to follow in due course.
Level two – at weekends, we continued to walk in areas on the edge of or just outside Glasgow. Sometimes, this meant pretty countryside as below.
Mealybrae
Mealybrae
Bar Hill
Bar Hill
Bar Hill
Bar Hill
Campsie Glen
Dumgoyne
Ben Lomond
Dumgoyach
Linn Park
Linn Park
At other times we went to places that are not maybe obvious ones to visit, such as Bishopbriggs just over the Glasgow border in East Dunbartonshire. However, this town has some interesting historical sites we wanted to visit. Mavis Valley, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal, existed as a mining village from 1851 to 1955. You can see the rows of houses on the information board below. Today trees have reclaimed the site, but if you look carefully you can still see the remains of a wall here and there.
Tragedy struck Mavis Valley in 1913 when six of the 22 men who died in the Cadder Pit disaster were residents. There’s a memorial to them outside Bishopbriggs Library. (There’s another memorial at Lambhill Stables which I’ve posted about before).
Cadder Pit Disaster Memorial
Cadder Pit Disaster Memorial
In between Mavis Valley and the library, we came across some quirky critters!
Bishopbriggs giraffe
Three little pigs
Dragon bench
Tree house
Tree house
We then walked out the other side of Bishopbriggs to Huntershill, home of 18th century radical Thomas Muir. Here we found a memorial cairn and the Martyr’s Gate commemorating Muir and four other men who were transported to Australia for sedition in 1793-4.
Huntershill memorial
Huntershill sign
Thomas Muir cairn
Martyr’s Gate
Martyr’s Gate
Martyr’s Gate
Muir’s family home, Huntershill House, is just across the road, and what a sorry state it is in! For a while, it was owned by the local council who sold it on a few years ago. It’s now on the Buildings at Risk Register – see what it should look like here.
Huntershill House
Huntershill House
Huntershill House
Finally, on weekdays we continued with our lockdown routes after John finished work. We don’t take as many photographs now, but I still have a large backlog of themes that piqued our interest. Today, I’ve collected together some of the many messages that people have sent out during the various stages of lockdown. This bench in Partickhill, for example, has a message which changes daily. On both occasions that we stopped to photograph it we met the woman who created it. She seemed delighted by our interest.
Partickhill bench
Partickhill bench
In deepest, darkest lockdown people were sending messages to loved ones they could not meet, and a school gate held a poignant tribute to a teacher who had died.
Happy birthday, Grandma
Happy birthday, Brendon
Mrs Salt
Some messages expressed thanks, encouragement, or hope.
We will get through this
Thank you
Stay safe
Children created lending libraries on tables and art galleries on fences.
Table library
Art on fence
Even canal boats had something to say.
Canal boat
Canal boat message
I wasn’t sure what this was all about until I looked up Conversations From Calais which aims to re-humanise those affected by the refugee crisis by using public space to share conversations volunteers have had with migrants met in Calais.
Conversations from Calais
Conversations from Calais
There were many other political messages in evidence.
Black lives matter
Black lives matter
Black lives matter
Black lives matter
Racism is small
75 years of nuclear horror
Virus tyranny
Independence Road
No Fascists
Climate change will kill your children
And finally, there was the plain odd!
Empire doesn’t care
Staring contest
So that was my August – a month of widening horizons. Unfortunately, this week things took a backward step with Glasgow being put into “local measures” because of increasing infection levels. It’s not lockdown, but we’re no longer allowed to visit other people’s homes. Here’s hoping that will have changed for the better by the end of the month. Happy September everyone!
In early July, John took a week off work. This coincided with the time when restrictions on how far you could travel for leisure in Scotland eased slightly, and we ventured into the countryside for the first time since lockdown. Not too far, just over the city boundary to East Dunbartonshire where we discovered a network of trails on and around the old Strathkelvin railway path, several of which we followed. I’ve written a post about that week which will follow shortly, but since then we’ve covered another couple of the trails. The first started in Milton of Campsie where we came across this cute display in the old station.
Billy the Train
Painted stone
The second took us to Lennox Castle. I always thought this had originated as a Victorian “lunatic asylum” but, although the house was built between 1837 and 1841, it didn’t become a hospital until 1936 as a “mental deficiency institution” – such terrible terms to modern ears. The castle itself became the nurses’ home, and patients’ accommodation was built in the grounds: this was demolished after the last parts of the hospital finally closed in 2002, but the castle itself remains as a sad ruin and a reminder of all the suffering souls who lived there.
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
Lennox Castle
I did another Twitter walk for the Women’s Library this month, this time in Garnethill, and my fellow volunteer Melody has made a trailer for the same walk. Both are below for anyone interested. On the trailer, my voice is the one that starts by telling you the walk is available to download. It has been great fun doing these, and we hope to do more.
Hi, I’m @AnabelMarsh, one of GWL’s Women’s History tour guides. We can’t take you on any walks at the moment, so I’ve created a virtual Garnethill tour for you. We begin on Sauchiehall Street at the corner with Rose Street. Look at the white building behind my head. 1/19 pic.twitter.com/QfJKrFc6Ah
— Glasgow Women’s Library (@womenslibrary) July 21, 2020
As lockdown eases, the growth of my collection of photographs of rainbows and teddy bears is diminishing. Indeed, many of the old displays have been taken down. We’ve seen more painted stones this month though, mostly in the small towns in East Dunbartonshire that we visited. People have been very artistic in lockdown!
Torrance bench
Lennoxtown rocks
Lennoxtown rocks
Milton of Campsie stones
Milton of Campsie stones
Milton of Campsie stones
Milton of Campsie stone
Milton of Campsie stone
Milton of Campsie stones
Milton of Campsie rainbow
Glasgow window triptych
Glasgow Harbour bears
Knitted NHS and rainbow
So it’s been a month of easing restrictions with two major events: I’ve had a haircut and a birthday! Unfortunately not in that order. My birthday was the day after restaurants were allowed to re-open, so we had dinner out for the first time in four months. It felt strange and rather lacking in atmosphere, but it’s progress. What will next month bring?
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve lived in Glasgow for 35 years and there is one Charles Rennie Mackintosh building that I have never seen before, so one sunny Sunday in June we made the Martyrs’ Public School, in Parson Street in Townhead, the goal of our daily walk. It’s one of the earlier buildings Mackintosh worked on, and hasn’t been a school for many years, though unlike others it hasn’t been coverted to housing but is part of the city’s social work department.
Commissioned by the School Board of Glasgow and built between 1895 and 1898, the architects were Honeyman and Keppie, the practice in which Mackintosh was a senior assistant: his strong influence can be seen clearly in the building’s style. At the time it was set in the middle of a densely populated area of tenement buildings which have long since vanished to be replaced by more modern homes (as seen in the first picture below) and a busy dual carriageway. Mackintosh himself was born at 70 Parson Street and a plaque next to the school commemorates this. The black sculpture has an inscription by Mackintosh: Without you, everything has a flatness. I feel as if I’m waiting for something all the time. I guess, but don’t know, that this was addressed to his wife, Margaret Macdonald.
Mackintosh sculpture, Townhead
Martyrs’ School
Martyrs’ School
Martyrs’ School
Martyrs’ School
Martyrs’ School
Mackintosh birthplace plaque
Across the road two other buildings complete this island of tradition amongst modernity. St Mungo’s Church, designed by George Goldie in an Italian Gothic style, was built in 1841, with later work in 1877. Next to the church, to the east, is St Mungo’s Retreat.
St Mungo’s
St Mungo’s
St Mungo’s
On the way to Townhead, we stopped to look at the Orient Buildings in Cowcaddens. Originally a boarding house, then a warehouse, this iron-framed construction was designed by William James Anderson in an Italianate style and completed in 1895. We couldn’t help but notice that we were being spied upon from one of the windows …
Orient Buildings
Orient Buildings and cat
Orient Buildings
Another place we have long known about, but never visited, is the memorial garden on the site of the Stockline Plastics Factory explosion in 2004 in which nine people died. One of our walks took us past it by chance and we spent a few minutes paying our respects. It’s beautifully maintained. The red building in the background of the first shot is the current Stockline Factory.
Stockline Memorial Garden
Stockline Memorial Garden
Stockline Memorial Garden
Stockline Memorial Garden
Stockline Memorial Garden
This next section is not something that happened this month: I’m including it specially for Geoff LePard who has, amongst many other things, been writing about his undergraduate adventures as a law student in Bristol. In one post he included a passage about his grapplings with the law of tort and the case of the snail in the ginger beer. I knew all about this – and I probably first heard about it around the same time as Geoff, because we both went to university in 1975 and my boyfriend in my undergraduate years was a law student. Anyway, enough said about him, he’s history, which coincidentally is what I was studying. Back to the snail …
The case in question originated in Paisley, the town my mum lives in, where a sculpture of May Donoghue, who drank the contaminated ginger beer in 1928, was erected in 2018. The plaque below explains it better than I ever could – and not till I was preparing this post did I notice that the artist is Mandy McIntosh, whom I have met a few times through a project she led at the women’s library.
Dear Duty sculpture
Dear Duty sculpture
Across the road is even more information, at the site of the Wellmeadow Café where Mrs Donoghue’s friend bought the ginger beer. Possibly only Geoff will want to read it, but I include it for him to peruse if he wishes!
I know I said I’d give up photographing the rainbows and teddies which decorated Glasgow during lockdown, but I haven’t – although I have cut down. This month, the Black Lives Matter message has been included in, or replaced, many of them.
And finally, last month I wrote about the virtual Twitter walk that I’d done for the Women’s Library. One of the other guides has done a short video trailer for the same walk, embedded below. Can you guess which voice is mine in the audio description? I’ll leave you with that puzzle – happy July!
And another month in lockdown has passed. We are still tramping the streets round home on our daily walk, in between John finishing work and dinner time, but at the weekends we go a bit further. This is Ruchill Park. It’s less fashionable, and therefore quieter, than the Botanic Gardens, our closest park, but it’s very rewarding, especially if you climb the little mound with the flagpole. Glasgow is spread out before you.
Ruchill Park
Ruchill Park
Ruchill Park
Maryhill from Ruchill Park
Spiers Wharf from Ruchill Park
Park District from Ruchill Park
Victoria Park
This is another park slightly further away, though it’s also very busy so I’m not sure I would go back here despite its pretty pond with ducks and swans.
Jubilee gates
Swan
Duck
Clock
War Memorial
War Memorial
Western Necropolis and Lambhill Cemetery
Possil Loch
We walked out to the Western Necropolis via Maryhill, and back via Possil Loch and the canal. I always find graveyards interesting in a sad sort of way. Here, we found lots of Commonwealth War Graves, including soldiers from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The only famous person I spotted was Will Fyffe (1885-1947), a music hall star from well before my time, but whom my mum remembers fondly. His grave is marked “I belong to Glasgow”, the title of a song he wrote.
Cenotaph
Commonwealth graves
Commonwealth graves
Commonwealth graves
Will Fyffe
The Necropolis runs seamlessly into two other cemeteries, St Kentigern’s, which we didn’t visit on this occasion, and Lambhill. Here, I was looking for the monument to the architect, James Sellars (1843-1888), seen in the gallery below.
James Sellars memorial
Gate
War memorial
Many of Sellars’ buildings still exist in Glasgow including one which, coincidentally, we photographed earlier in the month – Anderson’s College Medical School on Dumbarton Road. Sellars died during its construction and the building was completed by his head draughtsman, John Keppie who, as part of Honeyman and Keppie, went on to employ Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Anderson’s College Medical School
Anderson’s College Medical School
Anderson’s College Medical School
Anderson’s College Medical School
After this visit, we found cemetery maps online and printed them out (might have been an idea to do that first) and noticed all the things we’d missed. More about a subsequent visit next month!
Floral attraction
Our more local routes have provided some stunning colour, especially the Botanic Gardens and Glasgow University’s grounds:
Kelvingrove and University tulips
University tulips
Botanic gardens
Botanic Gardens tulips
Hot pinks
Rainbows and teddies
Every time I go out I declare that I’m not going to photograph any more windows with rainbows and teddies. Then this happens:
Bobble rainbow
Window rainbows
Rainbow bench
Teddies and rainbow
Processed with MOLDIV
Window teddy
Window rainbow
Rainbow door
Rainbow bee
School rainbows
Window rainbows
Rainbow and cat
Rainbow shield
Window critters
We love NHS
Superheroes
NHS heart
Rainbow with Paddington
Maybe in June I’ll give up!
Street art
In April, I shared a coronavirus mural by street artist Rebel Bear. A new one, depicting a health worker, has appeared on the wall of the Ubiquitous Chip bar and restaurant in Ashton Lane off Byres Road. There is another in the series, depicting a man with a coronavirus round his ankle like a ball and chain, but it’s in the city centre where I no longer go. You can, however, see all three in this BBC article.
Coronavirus art by Rebel Bear
Ubiquitous Chip – Auchentoshan
The same wall used to be decorated with the advert for Auchentoshan whisky shown above. This is one of nearly 200 photos in a file on my phone marked Street Art, so I thought the current circumstances would be a good excuse to get rid of a few. Those below, a mix of official and unofficial decoration, were all taken in and around Byres Road, though some no longer exist.
Cresswell Lane
Old Western Infirmary
Old Western Infirmary
Embargo, Byres Rd
Bar Gallus, Church Street
Church Street
Church Street
Tartan paint is on the wall of De Courcy’s Arcade in Cresswell Lane. The two pieces of graffiti art on crumbling old buildings were added to the Western Infirmary as it was being demolished last year and have long since gone. Embargo (the wings) on Byres Road and Bar Gallus both still have their murals, but the final two images of the building opposite Gallus on Church Street have been painted over. No great loss!
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Normally when we visit Kelvingrove we’re there for an exhibition. Now that we can’t go inside we pay far more attention to the outside of the building. The rather grand entrance above presided over by St Mungo, Glasgow’s patron saint, is just the back door! The front entrance is shown in the gallery below, along with various exterior adornments including the four elements of Glasgow’s coat of arms: the tree, the bird, the fish, and the bell.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Roof detail
Detail above St Mungo
Coat of Arms
Coat of Arms
Coat of Arms
Coat of Arms
The last bit
As we head into our third full month of lockdown, things have eased a little here in Scotland. We’re allowed to meet members of another household in an outdoor space, so we celebrated this on Saturday by visiting friends who have a very large garden. We took our own bottle and glasses, keeping the required 2m / 6ft apart at all times, and had a lovely time. The length of such visits is determined by the strength of one’s bladder as going indoors is still not allowed!
Another concession is that we can drive somewhere to exercise, roughly within five miles. This doesn’t really help much in our urban situation, and given reports over the weekend from beauty spots a little further afield, I think I’ll stick to what I can do from my front door at the moment. Even those routes make me nervous because of the increase in crowds. I don’t think our infection rate is anywhere near low enough to take risks.
And finally to my Scottish word of the month. Sleekit can just mean sleek, as in smooth and shiny, but to describe a person as sleekit is usually pejorative, meaning sly, crafty, or sneaky. I have seen this word used more than a few times recently in relation to a certain government advisor. My choice of words for him was a little stronger!
I hope you are all keeping safe, well and happy. Enjoy June as best you can!
I cut short my last Gallivanting post at the point when lockdown began on the grounds that there wouldn’t be anything further to report. Not strictly true! On our one approved daily walk, we look about us even more than usual and notice a lot of things in our own area that are worth documenting.
Rainbows and teddies
In common with other cities in the world, many of Glasgow’s windows have been decorated with rainbows and teddy bears. The rainbows, usually thanking NHS and other key workers, have also strayed onto fences and pavements. Although often created by children for children, I can’t help myself snapping away and now have a huge collection on my phone. Here are some of my favourites. Can you spot Elvis? And the one person who seems not to have got the right memo!
Fence NHS tributes
Multiple bearsMultiple rainbows
Printed NHS tribute
Balloon rainbow
Wrong memo?
Hyndland Paddington (this bear is famous)
Elvis
Glasgow Academy rainbow
Rainbows and flowers
Rocket rainbow
Teddies
Garage rainbow
Tissue rainbow
Hello neighbour. Smile!
Ribbon rainbow
Star rainbow
Rainbow and teddy
Good afternoon!
Multiple rainbows
Chalk rainbow
Teddy with clouds
Fence rainbow
Peppa Pig
Partickhill Bowling Club
NHS Yes Trident No
Rosie the Riveter
Gate thank you
NHS porch tribute
Chalking has also been used for things other than rainbows. We often see messages between those who can’t meet in person, and children seem to have rediscovered hopscotch.
Hopscotch
Happy birthday
Yoga
Gartnavel
One of the quietest places to walk is Gartnavel, our local hospital. 1051 GWR is a restaurant on Great Western Road, just before you turn into the hospital grounds. Since it closed to the public it has been raising funds to provide free food to those in need, including NHS staff. So many businesses have transformed themselves during this crisis to provide what is needed, whether food, hand-sanitiser, PPE or hospital scrubs.
The hospital itself is in two parts, Gartnavel General, which comprises undistinguished buildings dating from the 1970s onwards, and Gartnavel Royal, an inpatient psychiatric unit which originated as a 19th century “lunatic asylum”. The Victorian buildings still exist as offices, though some parts are derelict, but patients today are housed in more modern comfort.
Gartnavel Royal
Gartnavel Royal
Gartnavel Royal heads
Gartnavel Royal Community mosaic
Gartnavel grounds
Two Hearts (Jephson Robb 2014)
Painted stone (this had disappeared by the next time we passed)
Gartnavel grounds
Gartnavel grounds
Dunard Street
I didn’t realise how colourful some of our schools are. This one in Dunard Street, Maryhill, has a lovely mural and colourful mosaic planters designed by the children on the street outside.
Spring
And, of course, the signs of Spring were everywhere. Nature continues to do what nature does, even if we don’t get the opportunity to appreciate it as much. Unfortunately, the kingfisher is a sad story: a couple of big thumps on one of our back windows and a dead bird on the conservatory roof below. It’s so beautiful, poor thing.
The last bit
So it seems it’s perfectly possibly to create a gallivanting post in lockdown. As the weeks go by, and we walk the same routes again and again on our daily exercise, the number of photographs will inevitably diminish. However, I still have plenty of themes to explore which should keep the gallivanting going. In the meantime, we just have to thole the current circumstances as best we can – thole being my Scottish word of the month. It means to endure patiently, to slog through tough times. I hope you are staying safe and well, everyone! I’ll be back next week with tales of last summer’s trip to Berwickshire.
Many of you liked the photos I posted of the two Window Wanderlands we attended in February, so I thought I’d start with more of the same – Window Wanderland Part 3! As with the other events, Maryhill’s took place on a wet, cold night, but the colourful displays cheered us up. I think cheering up is what we all need at the moment, with so much closed down because of the coronavirus, COVID-19, so I’m going to show you lots and lots of windows and gardens in this post.
The top image has a musical theme with The Beatle’s Yellow Submarine on one side and Pink Floyd’s The Wall on the other. The Beatles cropped up again with Norwegian Wood, which included the song itself playing, one of two windows we found with sound effects. Round the corner, this seascape was accompanied by the sound of rushing waves.
Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood
Seascape
The Wanderland took place on the eve of International Women’s Day (8th March) so we appreciated that one household had chosen to celebrate this. The nearby Be Kind message is also very relevant today.
International Women’s Day window
Be Kind
Here’s a great big gallery for your delectation!
Friends of Maryhill Park
Finally, one householder had set up a cinema in his back garden, complete with popcorn and – because the film was Whisky Galore – a wee dram.
Whisky Galore
Back garden cinema
Stank Glen
Ben Ledi from Stank Glen
The last weekend before everything started to shut down was amazingly dry, and we got a couple of outings. A circular route took us up the forested Stank Glen, above Loch Lubnaig, and in the shadow of Ben Ledi. Dry it might have been but, after all the rain we have had, some of the paths were like small streams, and crossing the actual streams was tricky because any stepping stones, natural or otherwise, were submerged. Cue wet feet!
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Stank Glen
Snowdrops
That same weekend, we visited a couple of the gardens advertising snowdrops through Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. It was right at the end of the snowdrop season, and not much else was out, but it got us into the fresh air again at a troubling time.
Kilbryde Castle has been home to the Campbell family since 1659. The current owners, Sir James and Lady (Carola) Campbell were out gardening when we arrived and greeted us from a safe distance. We had a rather slithery, muddy walk round the property.
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
Kilbryde Castle
We dropped into nearby Dunblane for lunch. The restaurant we chose, Allanview, had just opened the week before. What an unfortunate time to start a new venture: I feel so sorry for the owners. The food was excellent, but now they will have had to close like every restaurant in the country.
Things we noticed in Dunblane: I’ve posted Andy Murray’s gold post-box before (all home-grown 2012 Olympic gold medallists got one in their home town), but not since it had a plaque celebrating his special stamps, and I don’t remember his Wimbledon bench either.
Andy Murray postbox
Andy Murray postbox
Andy Murray bench
We loved this quirky signpost.
Quirky signpost
Quirky signpost
And we also loved the mosaics decorating the bridge over the Allan Water.
Allan Water
Mosaic on bridge over Allan Water
Finally, on our way back to the car we spotted a ghost sign. This house is called The Old Bakery, and the ghost sign tells us why – Tea Room.
The Old Bakery
Ghost sign on The Old Bakery
From Dunblane, we drove to our second garden of the day, Braco Castle. The oldest part of this house dates from before 1600, a rectangular tower built by the 3rd Earl of Montrose for his son, William Graham. It has been owned and adapted by several families since – judging by the surname, the current owners might be Dutch.
Braco Castle
The gardens were more elaborate here than at Kilbryde – still not much out, but there was more colour than just snowdrops.
Crest over doorway
Sculptures in grass park
Ornamental pond
Ornamental parapet
John in 19C garden
View to the hills
Blooming marvellous
Blooming marvellous
Burn
Anabel on old tennis court
Blooming marvellous
Blooming marvellous
Sundial on old tennis court
The last bit
Drymen Lunch Club
Gallus article
I gave my talk, Jessie Stephen: Scottish Suffragette, to the Drymen Lunch Club – the last talk for some time, and the first one to actually have my name on a ticket! I quite liked that. I also saw my talk in print for the first time in Gallus, the journal of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society, who hosted me back in September. They have made a clever acronym out of Gallus – Glasgow Ancestry Links the Life of Us. I’ve explained gallus before: in fact five years ago I did a whole A to Z Challenge on Gallus Glasgow – here’s the explanation if you don’t know what it means.
The week before Glasgow Women’s Library closed down (though we didn’t know that at the time) we had a tea party to say goodbye to one of my fellow volunteers, Eleanor, who is moving to Berkshire to live nearer her son. We’ll miss her – that’s Eleanor in the middle with me and Anna. The three of us comprised the Thursday morning cataloguing team.
As you might expect, all of these events took place in the first part of March before life changed utterly. I don’t expect anything worth writing about to happen between now and the end of the month so I’m clearing the decks and publishing early. We can still walk outside, and we’re lucky to live near a river and a canal – however, the banks are quite narrow and it’s hard to keep the recommended 2m distance from passers by. At least the weather is now dry. To illustrate the difference, here are two pictures taken across the Kelvin in February and March. In the first, the little seating area is completely flooded. In the second, the river has retreated to its natural level.
River Kelvin Feb 2020
River Kelvin Mar 2020
COVID-19 is already spawning its own art. Street artist Rebel Bear, who has featured here several times before, has contributed this mural on Bank Street.
And Twitter, which can be an absolute cesspit sometimes, has the lovely hashtag #COVIDCeilidh in which traditional musicians post videos of themselves performing to create an online ceilidh (a social event with Scottish or Irish folk music and singing, traditional dancing, and storytelling). You don’t have to be on Twitter to see it, just clink my link above. Here’s one of my favourites so far, Anna Massie of Blazin’ Fiddles, a band we’ve seen a few times, accompanied by her mum on the spoons. Watch for the head movements at the end!
As it’s Mother’s Day, and I’m lucky enough to be hanging out with my mum today, we thought we’d contribute a bonny old Swedish tune to the Sunday Smorgasbord. #COVIDCeilidhpic.twitter.com/KAuoP3hhnY
Will there be another Gallivanting post when I can’t gallivant? At the moment I haven’t a scooby*, but at least I have plenty of backlog to keep up with, and I’m thinking of joining Becky’s latest Squares challenge in April, SquareTops, hopefully with a travel theme. Virtual travel is the best we can do at the moment.
*I’ve already had two Scottish words in this post, but Scooby is my actual Scottish word of the month – I didn’t realise it was Scottish, but it’s in my book 100 favourite Scots words so it must be! It means I haven’t a clue and is rhyming slang for the cartoon character, Scooby Doo. First found in print in the Glasgow Herald in 1993 apparently!
Stay safe everyone. As we practice social distancing, or self-isolate, our online buddies are even more important. Till the next time.
December, eh? A dark, dreary month for the most part, only enlivened by watching the Christmas lights appear in houses and gardens on our after-work walks. Like most people, we had a Plan B Christmas. Months ago, when things still seemed to be improving, I booked a cottage in the Scottish Borders for Mum, John and me. Of course in the end we weren’t allowed to travel, but we’ve postponed our booking rather than cancel it – fingers crossed for Easter! Tonight, we will also have a Plan B Hogmanay because we can’t celebrate with the friends we usually go out with.
