On the Edge: Around the coast in 80 days: Day 56: Glasgow and Loch Lomond

After experiencing Aberdeen and Stirling I had decided to give Glasgow a miss. After all who wants to spend a day in yet another large city? So Helena my new host, suggested a good alternative: Loch Lomond, Dryman and Balmaha because it’s a nice drive and sounds like it could be somewhere tropical. Good idea.

Then a thought occurred to me. Beloved daughter number two would be ashamed of me bottling Glasgow and would probably accuse me of prejudice and stereotypical conduct. I can almost hear her saying it, so I did a 360 degree turn and went into Glasgow.

Confession: I TOTALLY LOVE GLASGOW.

I parked on the Great Western Road and queued for a bus then changed my mind again and decided to walk. I also managed to crack the drink driving zero tolerance law.

Cook shop sells Mojito ice lollies! Who knew? Then I walked past a deli called I J Mellis and was offered all sorts of other lovely things to eat.

I had only been walking about two minutes and saw a short row of the sorts of shops I love and guaranteed to get me browsing and spending. Roots and Fruits and Flowers is a whole food deli which was recently awarded Best Deli in Glasgow.

Two doors down is their other half of Roots and Fruits - the flower bit – a florist.

Coming between them is Glasgow Vintage.

I wonder how many of us now wish we had kept our 60’s and onwards clothes to sell to emporia just like these?

Then last in the line up Valhalla’s Goat a wonderful place selling intoxication of the liquid variety: craft beers, interesting gins, wine and whiskeys. I didn’t see any Newcastle Brown but perhaps I wasn’t paying attention. The man behind the counter said they stock about 230 different beers.

I have a beer drinking son in law so I bought him this.

It’s from a Drygate, a micro brewery in Glasgow and has only been available for eighteen months. Drygate is not only a brewery, it is also an event space that hosts comedy nights, film screenings and live music.

The ladies in Cookshop had suggested I get the Tube into Glasgow. In the time I had before my parking ticket expired (£3 for max 3 hours) they recommended:

Buchanan Street and George Square
The Wellington Statue, usually sporting a traffic cone
The Glasgow Museum of Modern Art

The tube station was only two minutes away, next to this fabulous mural.

I paint the odd mural or two so I am always looking at other artist’s work. Here’s another one – looks like it’s on the wall of a diamond merchant but I didn’t have time to look.

The tube was a two ring affair – inner or outer. For £3 return I could do a journey to anywhere on a particular ring and back again. I thought for a minute that the Dutch or Easyjet had the contract.

The tube and everything around and about it is orange. Quick and easy but unbelievably noisy as it came into the station.

Buchanan Street turned out to be a bit like Oxford Street – a main shopping street but pedestrianised giving space for people and cafes as well as a terrific variety of shops. The street entertainers were many and varied: balloon sculpture artists, ‘living statues’, break dancers and musicians.

One musician was very young, she was about eight years old and not only played the guitar and harmonica but also sang.

She attracted a large crowd.

Then I heard the repeated drum beats. I have had a Scottish Soldier theme running on this trip from the moment I went to Flodden Battlefield four miles away from Coldstream just over the Scottish border (also connected with soldiers of course as in Coldstream Guards). I had thought the link with soldiers was done. I was wrong.

Today is Scottish Armed Forces Day and yes that is Nicola Sturgeon.

The lady with her is Sadie Docherty, the Right Honourable Lord Provost of Glasgow, Lord Lieutenant of Glasgow and Commissioner of Northen Lighthouses. In Eastbourne she would be called the Mayor.

All the forces were represented today – the cadet forces,

the veterans,

the Territorial Reserve Forces including the medical corps. Ali my host in Dundee had served in the Territorial Medical corps for ten years.

There was also the slightly odd...

They all marched to the drum or the pipes and gathered in George Square to be addressed by The Lord Provost and Nicola Sturgeon. Crowds were watching the march past, carrying red white and blue balloons and union jacks and applauding.

No-one has ever mentioned to me that Glasgow is architecturally beautiful But it is’

But you have to look up and many tourists are sleep walking along the roads tweeting, texting, hash-tagging or face-booking and they would miss it all. The locals were surprised I commented and said they were so used to it they took it for granted.

The Museum of Modern Art was in a very old building and again a beautiful one. I liked two exhibitions in particular; one about the Exploitation of our Seas

And another small photographic exhibition with a film about the plight of refugees in France and Greece.

There are over 20 free museums and galleries in Glasgow so spoilt for choice. Another time.

My Markinch hostess Lorna who uses her Airbnb earnings to travel to help is already in Greece working with the refugees. She has just posted on Facebook that some Syrians have offered their tent on AirBnB promising scorpions, dehydration and broken promises!!

I did find the iconic Duke of Wellington Statue with the iconic Traffic Cone on his head. I also found his mate...a living statue.

Got back to my car with just minutes on the clock and decide to do the Loch Lomond trip. Amazing that only 25 minutes outside Glasgow and you are back in mountains and lochs and oak wood forests.