Pollok Park

Hi, reader

Happy Halloween. 

Yesterday the rain finally stopped, although there are still lots of flood warnings and river levels are high. This is how the River Allander looked in Milngavie in the morning.

So rather than risk travelling out of Glasgow, I decided to take advantage of the brief sunshine and return to Pollok Country Park.

The park is the largest within the city of Glasgow. It was originally part of the Old Pollok Estate, which was home to the Maxwell family for over 700 years. In 1966, Mrs Anne Maxwell Macdonald gifted the estate, including Pollok House, to Glasgow Corporation with the condition that it remained a public park.

This is Pollok House, nicely lit up by the afternoon sun. The house wasn't open today, but I was able to wander around the gardens.

Here it is from another angle.

The White Cart Water flows through the park towards Paisley.

Let's take a look from the bridge.

Pollok Country Park covers 361 acres of land, and is home to an  award-winning fold of Highland cattle. I saw a few of the Highland cows, but they were in the distance and too small to get a decent photo.

In 2007, Pollok Country Park was named Britain's Best Park, and in 2008 it was named the Best Park in Europe, beating competition from parks in Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden. Despite this, by 2019 it was considered that the park was 'underused' with plans drawn up to encourage more visitors.

There are lots of little paths and archways in the gardens of Pollok House and you can get lost exploring them.

A brief, light shower produced this lovely rainbow as the sun returned.

I really enjoyed seeing all the trees with their autumnal colours. I've always enjoyed the autumn, but having been in Thailand since 2001, this is the first time I've experienced a British autumn in 20 years. I usually visit the UK in April and May.

I'd bet that Pollok Country Park looks amazing whatever the season.

It felt good to be back in nature after spending the last week or so looking around Edinburgh and Glasgow. I rested on this bench for a while along my walk. It looks like it's been carved out of one single piece of wood.

A boat in the middle of a lawn for some reason.

I also came across this little Hobbit village, which I'm sure delights kids who come to the park.

This was a really relaxing afternoon and I'm grateful to my friend, Jimmy, for recommending the park. If you're in Glasgow, it's really worth checking out.

And finally back to my van as the evening started turning chilly. More rain soon followed.

Right now, I'm to the north of Glasgow, near a lovely town called Callander. I hope to have interesting pictures to show you in my next post. 

Thanks for reading.

Brian

You'll ... float ... too ...

Oh dear, reader. It seems I wasn't alone as I walked around Pollok Country Park this Halloween season. Pennywise the clown has appeared in five of the photos in today's post. Look again. Look closely. Take care and ... 

... SWEET SCREAMS!

Street Art

Hi there, reader

In this post I'll share pictures I've collected of Scottish street art. These vary greatly in size and some of them are huge murals covering one side of a building, while others are graffiti on the side of an electricity generator.

I love the creativity; the talent of these artists is mind-blowing and I feel many of these paintings would be at home in an art gallery.

Hope you enjoy them.

This one is so big, I couldn't fit it into one photograph, so I made a video.

Thanks for reading,

Brian

Glasgow City Centre

Hi, reader

The heavy rain continues here in Glasgow as well as other parts of the UK. I've seen news reports of bridges being swept away, schools temporarily closing and people being warned they may need to evacuate their homes. I think my best plan is to stay where I am for a few more days and monitor the situation.

Today I caught a bus into Glasgow city centre. My favourite seat on a double decker is always upstairs at the front.

I started by wandering around randomly, taking pictures of anything that caught my interest, but it wasn't long before I felt hungry. 

Like every other big city I've visited recently, Glasgow has a big selection of vegan restaurants and cafes. I opted for The 13th Note, recommended by a friend.

This place is really a bar with a vegan menu. It has live music some days of the week and there's a pleasant vibe.

Can't say I enjoyed my food much. I ordered the puy lentil and potato burger, which comes with salad and chips.

The burger was bland, the salad was limp and I think the chips were reheated. Everything was pretty oily and left the roof of my mouth coated in a layer of grease. I asked the waiter for brown sauce to liven up my burger, but he told me brown sauce isn't vegan because it contains anchovies. Not according to this article.

I messaged my friend to tell him I found the food in his recommended bar to be sub-par. He messaged me back "What am I? The manager?" He went on to tell me I should be grateful for whatever food I get. That's true. And it was an okay meal, but I can see why 13th Note isn't included on this list.

After my meal, I took a walk to Glasgow Cathedral, about fifteen minutes away.

This is the oldest building in Glasgow, and the oldest cathedral in mainland Scotland. The cathedral is dedicated to Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, whose tomb lies at the centre of the building's Lower Church. Unfortunately, by the time I got there the building had closed for the day, so I contented myself by walking around the outside of it to see the architecture.

Just over the road from the cathedral is the Glasgow Necropolis (city of the dead), a Victorian cemetery on a prominent hill. It was originally an early 19th century arboretum and park, later earmarked to become a cemetery in the 1830s. Popular with walkers, tourists and those interested in the city's history, the Necropolis is the final resting place of over 50,000 people, including some of the area's most successful sons and daughters.

I've pinched this picture from Google, since my own photos were all quite dark in the gloomy late afternoon light. 

Here we have the 'Bridge of Sighs'. It connects the Cathedral to the cemetery and the name most likely refers to the sadness of the many funeral processions that crossed it. The Bridge of Sighs was designed by D&J Hamilton and has been described as the separation between time and eternity.

Here's the view from the Necropolis side.

If you cross the bridge from the cathedral and turn left, it's a short walk to the memorial for Sir William Wallace, Scottish knight and Guardian of Scotland, immortalized in that dreadful Mel Gibson movie.

"I Am Scotland's Guardian

Though My Body Has Been Broken

My Spirit Will Rise Again

To The Sound Of Freedom"

This is Wallace's monument viewed from the other side.

I climbed the hill for a view across Glasgow. There are some huge and impressive monuments in Necropolis. And, yet, of the 50,000 people buried in the Necropolis, less than 5% of them have a memorial erected in their memory. 

One famous occupant of the cemetery is William Miller, the man who wrote the children's nursery rhyme, Wee Willie Winkie. Since the site is 37 acres, I didn't fancy seeking out his tombstone.

Here's the view from the top, looking back at the Cathedral and the sprawling suburbs of Scotland's largest city.

It was early evening by the time I left the Necropolis, so I headed to the train station to get back to my van. This iconic street furniture caught my attention immediately. Who lives here?

Between 1929 and 1938 around 1,000 examples of the Mackenzie Trench Police Box were installed. The majority (over 98%) have been removed, and surviving examples are a rare sight. In fact, my internet research suggests there only 11 remaining. Apparently this one has been bought and during the day it's a small coffee and snack shop.

One more thing to note about central Glasgow is the incredible murals you can see everywhere. This one on High Street shows St. Mungo with a robin and it refers to the story of one of his miracles, when he brought a bird back to life as a child.

The Glasgow coat of arms features a bird, a bell, a fish and a tree, and all of them are attributed to legends associated with St. Mungo. They're brought together in this short poem:

Here’s the tree that never grew,

Here’s the bird that never flew,

Here’s the fish that never swam,

Here’s the bell that never rang.

And if you're interested to know the stories for each of these four symbols, here's a link.

So instead I've decided to sit tight for another few days to see how things develop with the rain and flooding. No hurry. There are some good walks and places to explore in and around Glasgow.

Thanks for checking in and reading my blog.

Brian

Rainy Glasgow

Hi reader,

Day three in Glasgow and I still haven't done any actual sightseeing. If you live in Britain, then you're already aware there's been a huge amount of rainfall in some parts of the country during the last 24 hours.

My day started in Milngavie and I had breakfast in the back of my van (porridge, satsuma, jam sandwich and a cup of tea). Then, since there was a light rain falling, I headed to Milngavie Community Centre to write a blog post. At lunchtime I made a quick stop at Tesco for one of their awesome meal deals: a main choice, a snack and a drink for three quid. What a bargain! And the rain was still falling.

While I was parked in Tesco's car park, I made a video call to my friend, British Council colleague and fellow film enthusiast, Dave Persey. 

Dave was explaining to me that he and his kids were currently watching their way through Alfred Hitchcock's catalogue of movies. They've been having a great time. I made the mistake of mentioning that I've never seen the classic mystery, thriller, Rear Window (1954).

"Whattttt?!?!?!?!" he screamed, unable to contain his fury. "This ... is an outrage!"

Only joking, but he did urge me to see it at my next opportunity. Dave, if you're reading, I've already downloaded it and I'm planning on watching it tonight. 

My main plan for the day was to visit Pollok Country Park, as recommended by my friend, Jimmy. In 2007 it was named Britain's best park and in 2008 it was named the best park in Europe.

When I got to the car park, the rain had worsened, so I decided to wait it out for a while. But half an hour later it had become a heavy downpour that showed no sign of letting up, and I'd started to feel drowsy.

I climbed into the back of the van and stretched out on my bed. I felt chilly so I got under my lamb's wool duvet. Next thing I knew, it was 5:30 pm and I'd been asleep for over two hours. And it was still raining heavily.

I had another dinner appointment in the evening with more past British Council colleagues. So I ventured out into the rush hour traffic and started to make my way across Glasgow. I didn't realize the severity of the situation until I started encountering flooded roads. It reminded me of Bangkok in the rainy season, when the streets often look more like rivers.

Check out this guy fishing!

I got to my friends' house by 6:30 pm without too much bother. It was a stressful drive in an unfamiliar city, with backed up traffic and poor visibility, but nothing too bad.

So here's Ben and Jenny with their daughters (left to right), Nina, Katie and Annie. It was great to catch up with Ben and Jenny. They left Bangkok around 2007, so I haven't seen them for fourteen years. I hadn't realized it was that long ago. What a wonderful family they are.

The kids are lovely. Some kids will clam up and become shy around visitors, but the girls were showing me their schoolwork, poems, songs, toys, pictures and chatting happily right up until bedtime. They were cracking me up and I loved talking to them. 

Annie was explaining her Halloween costume to me: a headless person carrying her own head in a jar of formaldehyde. It's really clever. I found a similar example online; it'll look like this:

Jenny made us this amazing vegan dinner, a delicious feast of chickpeas, tofu, curry, chutney, naan bread, rice, salad. It was so good.  

The rain kept coming down throughout night. My van stayed bone dry, and I once again said a thank you to Lee and Davey at Sandersons Accident Repair for their excellent work fixing my leaky roof all those weeks ago. In fact, I enjoyed being cozy and warm in my sleeping bag with the rain drumming onto the van.

This morning, more rain, more floods and more traffic jams in Glasgow. I had figured on going back to Pollok Country Park, but I think it would've been difficult to get there, and swampy to walk around. So instead I'm heading into Glasgow city centre on the bus for an explore.

News reports say this rain is going to continue and we can expect further flooding. Blimey! I'll keep you posted. 

Thanks for reading,

Brian