Hassle

I'm in Glasgow. It's cold, wet and windy. Sometimes I just yearn for some sun.

I was supposed to leave the Island on Monday with hospital appointments on Wednesday in Glasgow for a bone scan and cancer trial review and my operation to change my uretic stent tomorrow (Friday) in Ayr. I always plan to leave early just in case of ferry delays.

Because of the weather the ferry was seriously disrupted and I eventually got away at lunchtime on Tuesday and drove the 270 miles to Glasgow that afternoon/evening. So I got to my appointments yesterday.... just.  The only delay being a half hour extra to get through roadworks in Glasgow which I need to go through every time I leave Anna's for just about anywhere. Not to mention that it took me over 30 minutes to find a parking place within walking distance of the the appointment. So I was late. Anyone who knows me knows that one thing I cannot cope with is lateness. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been late in my life. Either that or I have a selective memory! 

For various reasons I have flown down to hospital for my previous two visits to the Mainland. However, I have developed a serious dislike of air travel. Not planes which I quite enjoy but airports. In fact not airports per se but security queues, boarding pass queues, queues, queues and more queues. And waiting. Lots of waiting.

I'm seriously thinking of becoming an Island recluse. Of course that's not practical if I want the NHS to keep me alive (which, thank heaven, they seem keen to do) or do a myriad of other things. 

But as I write this sitting waiting for my car parking camera to be sorted by the dealer and have time to think, I just want to be back in The Woodlands with friends having coffee and saying how fortunate we are.

A Walk in the Rain

As is so often the case these days my blog posts are not exactly frequent: I'm not a YP, a Cro or a Rachel. I've actually had a strange month so far. When it started I had a single day in Glasgow booked at The Beatson and a few days  arranged down with Anna to enjoy some Glasgow life. I had three blog posts on what I consider interesting topics to be worked upon. Then everything altered. I've damaged my shoulder and that resulted in doc, physio and x-rays appointments.  Then there came calls arranging for me to have my uretic stent replaced in Ayr.  So I am now in Glasgow and, having had my pre-op, I am isolating until I go in for my op tomorrow. 

Today it has rained constantly: mostly very heavy drizzle that soaks you through without you noticing. Yesterday we walked 3 miles along the local canal. It was a very boring stretch in indifferent weather. Today we decided to walk round Hogganfield Loch. It's in a splendid 48 hectare park in the North-East of Glasgow. It was raining that fine drenching rain that soaks you before you've realised it. We were well prepared.

Mute and Whooper Swans

The rain eased off at the end

Not At Home

I'm away from home. I came down to Glasgow and The Beatson for a review of the drugs trial from which I am benefitting. It's also been a very good opportunity to catch up with some of my friends down in this neck of the woods. I've been staying with Anna (whom I first met in New Zealand in 2006). 

I passed my 'service' and the car has had its service too and new rear tyres.

Tomorrow I shall drive to Penrith and meet my brother and sister-in-law. My sister-in-law will then hand over her husband into my care and I will return with him to Anna's. 

Monday should be a good day for visiting a couple of Glasgow's museums and art galleries.

On Tuesday we will return to Lewis.

The most fascinating thing this week has been a trip to the opera. Scottish Opera were doing an 'outdoor' and socially distanced performance of Verdi's Falstaff. Why, in heaven's name they chose the one opera which Verdi wrote that he definitely should have left unwritten, no-one knew. My speculation is that it was guaranteed an audience simply because everyone was grateful for the opportunity to get out to see and hear a performance again.

Escape?

It wasn't easy. Saturday morning at 6am and the ferry was very busy with people and their cars leaving the Island. I sat in my usual part of the ferry by the now-closed-for-the-time-being Coffee Cabin. There were half a dozen other small family groups in the area all very well socially distanced and, initially until they started having breakfast and coffee, fully masked as is required by law on public transport in Scotland. It was a beautiful morning for a sail and I spent some time on deck enjoying the fresh air and the views.

It was my first time off the Island since early January. It was the first time I had been amongst people since early March. Because everyone was well spaced apart I didn't feel particularly apprehensive. The journey itself is 2½ hours and I was on my way down the road to Bishopbriggs by 0930.

I'm down for my drugs trial review. I can't think of anything else that would have got me off the Island at the moment.

A loo-stop in Kingussie and soup and another coffee from my flasks and I was in Bishopbriggs by mid afternoon. I was heartily glad I was not going North. The traffic around Perth must have seen delays measured in hours rather than minutes. Traffic in both directions was very heavy.  Presumably it was largely due to staycationers.

What had not been anticipated was family turning up at Anna's unaware that I was coming and that was a bit traumatic and I left to make a delivery I'd brought from the Island for another friend. Once I returned and had settled down with a sizeable g'n't in the garden the 6 months of isolation started to become a memory rather than a problem for me.

On Sunday we decided on a walk around Hogganfield Loch in Glasgow. It was a beautiful morning and with my recently re-awakened desire to know the name of every flower we passed was a very pleasant way to spend a morning. We had arrived fairly early ie around 9am but it was quite clear that that was late for many of the walkers, cyclists, runners and the rest. 

There are many types of waterbirds on the loch

I didn't envisage ice being a problem

I don't think it was personal

Too enthusiastic for me

It's quite sizeable

I'm Out

No. I've not been behind bars. In fact I've not even been in bars. I've been in hospital for my routine kidney stent change. Mind you that was only a small part of my two weeks away. During those two weeks I stayed with a dear friend (with whom I usually stay when in the Glasgow and whom I originally met in New Zealand in 2006 because our two families were friends). As always we did lots of things including seeing Mozart's Requiem at The City Halls, a cinema simultaneous live performance of Mozart's opera Don Giovani from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and we also went to a Scottish Opera  Mozart and The Bard (Burns) workshop.

Glasgow is a wonderful city and very reminiscent of the city of my birth, Liverpool. Both were built on shipbuilding and trade and were, 'in their day', cities of great wealth and centres of culture and homes to a large and varied immigrant population largely used in its building and construction industries. Both have had a renaissance.

One day we went to the West End for coffee in Byers Road. Byers Road is in the centre of 'studentland' being near the University and a large student population. It's always been a great place to explore and eat and I've been very familiar with it since the late 80's when our elder child started University there. I go there often. We had coffee in Café Françoise

It was NOT a day for sitting outside

We'd missed the breakfast rush

Studentland encourages a slightly more 'alternative' approach

A Canal Walk

What could be better on a cold, dreich Scottish morning than a coffee? Well Anna likes cappuccino so had the decorative skills of the barista. I am boring and just had an Americano. It was a good reward for our brisk walk along the canal bank from Bishopbriggs to Kirkintilloch.

On the way back and despite the weather I managed some decent autumnal photos:

Glasgow Necropolis

In March 2018 I was in the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow. I blogged about, amongst other things, the view from my room of the Glasgow Necropolis. It included a winter photo of the Necropolis.

I have, for many years, been meaning to visit this last resting place of the great and the good of Scotland in general and Glasgow in particular. 

The Necropolis is next to Glasgow Cathedral and a bridge joins the two:

The cemetery, like most early Victorian cemeteries, is laid out as an informal park rather than the formal layout of later cemeteries. The Glasgow Necropolis has been described as a "city of the dead". Glasgow native Billy Connolly has said: "Glasgow's a bit like Nashville, Tennessee: it doesn't care much for the living, but it really looks after the dead." Having said that it is a beautiful place to walk: an oasis in the hustle and bustle of a large city.

 

An avenue of Whitebeam

John Knox stands atop his monument staring down on the world below including, in the foreground, the tomb of the chemist (he discovered bleaching powder) Charles Tennant who founded an industrial dynasty.

The summit memorial to John Knox

One of the most spectacular mausoleums is the burial place of  Major Archibald Douglas Monteath who served in the East India Company before returning to Glasgow the Mausoleum has become an established part of the Glasgow skyline. Monteath made his fortune when an elephant carrying precious gems belonging to a Maharajah was captured and ‘relieved’ of its load by him. 

The following is the view of my bedroom in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary from which I took the original picture on this post (please don't ask me which one is my bedroom window!).

A Little Bit of Culture

One of the advantages of being in Glasgow for a while is the opportunity to go to live concerts.

Today we are going to see the concert pianist Stephen Hough play at the Glasgow City Halls - one of several splendid concert venues in the city. 

Last night, however, was an opportunity to see Verdi's opera, La Traviata. It was being streamed live from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to one of the cinemas at Glasgow's Cineworld (together with cinemas around the world).

I was brought up in the era when cinemas were huge, cramped, crowded and smoke-filled and, as a youngster, trying to see round the head of the person in front could be a real challenge. The luxury of the modern cinema with its big, comfy seats, plenty of room and no heads to be looked round or over never ceases to amaze me. 

Of course there is nothing like  the atmosphere of being in the audience of a live performance but the detail that one sees on the big screen as well as the wonderful sound makes up for the lack of atmosphere. 

The lead role of Violetta was played by the magnificent Albanian soprano Ermanelo Jaho.  She made her Royal Opera debut back in 2008 in this role and is, without a doubt, the most convincing and emotionally challenging interpreter of that role that I have see. I unashamedly shed tears through a lot of the last act.  Alfredo was sung by Charles Castronovo who has played in the role opposite Jaho on many occasions and the chemistry between them showed. Alfredo's father was sung by Plácido Domingo who has now played all the leading male roles in the Opera at the Royal Opera House.

Never Let It Be Said

that I don't use public transport. 

The Isle of Lewis has, for a rural area, a pretty good bus service. Some people may not agree but then they don't they are unlikely to have ever lived in a similarly remote area of, say, rural France or Italy.  

It is strange that so many people equate 'public transport' with bus services. Someone once 'accused' me of never using public transport. I pointed out that, on the contrary, I flew everywhere and often used a train to complete my journeys. On the Island, though, my car is my lifeline. I'm far too busy to wait for buses and, if I'm truthful, I'm not yet willing to change my lifestyle to suit bus timetables. That time may, on the assumption that I am fortunate to get older and that there are still buses, arrive.

However, yesterday, Anna and I (I'm down in Glasgow for three weeks for hospital appointments and some socialising in between) went into the City Centre on a bus. We returned on a bus too. I have to admit that it was quite a painless experience. It was also considerably less expensive (to the extent that it was free using my Scottish Entitlement Card) and I didn't have to pay the usual £8+ parking fee. On the downside we had to put off any 'big' shopping until another time. 

For those who don't know, this is a bus - the bus we came back to Anna's on actually:

I should be in hospital tomorrow for a routine op so it may be a few days before I'm back in Blogland.

Glasgow's Wall Art

Glasgow has a lot of wonderful wall art. This is the wall of my favourite concert venue: the City Halls. It is one of several a wonderful concert venues in Glasgow and Glasgow's oldest purpose built performance space which has been entertaining visitors since 1841. The traditional shoebox style auditorium is renowned throughout the world for having some of the finest acoustics and the elegant and spectacular Hall is also home to the Scottish Music Centre. This exciting music complex houses top class rehearsal, recording, broadcasting and webcasting facilities.

A Wee Jaunt

I've just been away for the weekend in Glasgow. It was lovely to be able to drive down for the weekend without worrying about hospital visits. I stayed with my pal, Anna. We had planned quite a few things including the Glasgow Contemporary Arts Fair where friends were exhibiting. Sunday was an afternoon Rachmaninov Concert at City Halls which is a delightful concert venue. On Monday I drove home via Ullapool and Anna came as far as Dunkeld before getting the train back for a lunch in Glasgow.

I'm finding that the 500 mile rounds trip plus the ferry seems to get shorter every time I do it.

We had an early evening meal out at a favourite Italian restaurant near the City Halls. When we arrived home we decided to go for a walk along the Forth and Clyde canal near Anna's home.

Through the Highlands there were quite a few hold-ups for road repairs after the severe winter. As I was sitting in the car on the moors perhaps 20 miles before Ullapool on the way home I couldn't help thinking that if I had to sit in a traffic hold-up this was as good a place as any to do it.

A Fire and An Allegory

I'm in Glasgow. Tomorrow I go into Ayr Hospital and, hopefully, the Surgeon will sort out the problem that has been contributing to my bouts of sepsis.

Today Anna and I went into Glasgow City Centre. As we were driving in and were still some miles away we could see and smell smoke. It became obvious that there was a pretty serious fire somewhere in the City Centre. As we drove along the street into the car park we could see the flashing lights and the fire engines and the tall water cannons with the firemen mounted high into the sky above the buildings.

In fact the fire had only started or been discovered an hour or so before we left Anna's. It was in Sauchiehall Street - one of Glasgow's main shopping streets (although a shadow of it's former glorious self).

We went to John Lewis for coffee. The main windows in the café look right up Sauchiehall Street and the fire and firefighting were there for all to see.  I put my stuff down on a table and went to get the coffees and cakes. Anna came into the café as I was getting the food and went off to the table. 

As I sat down with the tray Anna announced that she had got the news on her phone and regaled me with what was happening - as I was looking at it. Anna had been so busy going to the table and looking for the information on her phone that she was blissfully unaware of what was unfolding in front of her eyes.

And that, I thought, is the story of so much of our lives these days: it's all happening in front of us but we are too busy looking for it (whatever 'it' happens to be) elsewhere that we miss what is staring us in the face.

From the bottom of Sauchiehall Street just below the window we were looking out of.

Aerial press photo

Aerial press photo