Home Again (Again)

I arrived home late on Sunday evening after a good journey up the road and a remarkably calm ferry crossing given the huge storm on Saturday. 

Sailing out of Ullapool and down Loch Broom to The Minch

It had been a Good Week. The scans were clear and I'm continuing on the drugs trial. I've spent a couple of days getting back into my daily 'routine' (a silly term because I have few actual routines). I'm up at crack of dawn in the morning to take Gaz to the airport and his return to Italy.

Settling back in wasn't helped by the fact that the internet had, once again, disappeared in my absence. This time it was because the box on the telegraph pole had been destroyed in Saturday's storm. I was reinstated yesterday.

An Engineer up a telegraph pole. He's spent a lot of time mending my phoneline one way and another

My last day in Glasgow included a visit to one of my favourite (and much blogged about) places: Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. A visit is never complete without seeing the Glasgow Boys exhibition.

Old Willie - The Village Worthy -  Sir James Guthrie 1886

The Last of the Clan -  Thomas Faed 1865

A Highland Funeral  Sir James Guthrie 1882 
The cottage in the picture still stands but is in a derelict state.
It can be found alongside the Black Water river just up the lane from The Byre Inn public house in the village of Brig O'Turk,
As can be seen women did not generally attend funerals at that time

Faces

Yesterday we went to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. I love going there and have blogged about it many times. Today I looked, as I always do, at some of my favourite paintings by The Glasgow Boys and then, whilst listening to the afternoon organ concert, wandered around the gallery on the first floor looking at familiar sculptures and, in particular, at the faces. I have probably blogged about these statues before but when I concentrated on the faces I could just concentrate on the emotions captured in the materials.

This face is from a statue entitled The Sunflower carved in Portland Stone by Gilbert Ledward in about 1932.

I don't think that I've ever shown this one before. It's entitled Paul and Virginia  and was carved in about 1841 by William Calder Marshall. It depicts a scene from a French poem with Paul carrying his devoted playmate over a raging river. She later dies at sea and Paul dies of a broken heart.

 

The next is a bronze cast for a gravestone. It is entitled Memorial to a Marriage by Patricia Cronin. The explanation follows the picture.

Syrinx (the beauty who attracted the unwanted advances of Pan in Greek mythology) by William Macmillan was awarded the accolade of Best Sculpture of The Year in 1925 by the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

The Spring Tide of Life by Robert Colton in 1903 depicts the children gazing from the crest of  wave as if into a wonderful future.

Of course anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows of my love for the sculpture entitled Motherless by George Anderson Lawson (1832 - 1904).  Few sculptures show more emotion than this.

Lastly is the face of the Rt Hon the Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden KT who was chairman of the Kelvingrove Refurbishment Committee amongst many other things.  I just thought that it was an 'interesting' face. When we had finished wandering we went down to the restaurant for coffee. I showed Anna the photo and asked her if she know who it was. "Of course" she replied "I was sitting near him at (her granddaughter's) school production recently." That was not an answer I had expected but it reminded me of the six degrees of separation which states that everyone in the world can, supposedly, be linked with everyone else in not more than six steps.

Back in Blogland

It's been a rather odd week since I returned to the Island.  Little or no Internet access has caused me more than a little irritation and wasted time communicating with India.  I shall not go on about it too much, I promise, but after being, in effect, called a liar by a lady who, in all probability, has better degrees than I have but, unfortunately, could neither easily understand me nor make herself easily understood to me, I got the bit between my teeth.  After many days and being told that an engineer would come on the afternoon of 12 January, I eventually gave notice that I was going to institute the formal complaints procedure against BT.  I'm sure that it was sheer coincidence that within an hour my broadband had returned to what is normal here.  Given that BT tell me that they are only contracted to provide a download speed of 0.2 Mbps (which is just about adequate to get emails but not really to blog) I'm doing pretty well.

Whilst I was away we went for lunch with friends and on the way back Anna and I went into the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery which we visit frequently.  This view looking over to the University tower on the way out struck me:

I've been experiencing weather during the last month that I haven't experienced for 9 years and whilst a lot of the time it has just been dark and grey and wet and windy some of the skies have been quite spectacular:

I've also had a frosty morning (which is unusual for my house which is so near the sea) when the pond froze over.  That's the first time I've ever experienced that.

Obviously coming up to Christmas most of us are very busy with one thing and another but now that I'm back in Blogland I'll hopefully do my usual catch-up with everyone.

An Unexpected Afternoon

We walked back to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow from lunch in a Rioja a tapas bar that had been recommended to us and which lived up to the recommendation.  As we were passing the bowling greens which had been used for the Commonwealth Games and which used to be the home of the Glasgow Croquet Club I saw one of the members whom I know playing but with no opponent.  I went over for a chat and discovered that there was a likelihood that the Club would return to these lawns.  I ended up playing for a few hours.  I discovered that I can still play!  The backdrop for the lawns is the spectacular Kelvingrove building. 

Kelvingrove Revisited

On my way home from New Zealand nearly a month ago I stopped off in Glasgow for a few days with Anna.  One of the things I love doing in Glasgow is visiting the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.  So, not for the first time, I shall post a few of my favourite things which some of you will have seen before.

4 June: A Reflection

I woke to a text from Gaz wishing me a happy birthday - a wish which was followed by a surprising - and very warming - number of others and a wish which was to prove very effective in coming true.

The day was cool but sunny so I decided that my first call would be to Kelvingrove Park next to Glasgow’s main University buildings. It is a magnificent park in the true tradition of British cities and their Victorian era Councils and benefactors. (Kelvingrove Park was established by the City Council in the mid 1850s.)

The reason for the call was to visit the tree planted in memory of our son Andrew - who preferred to be called Andy - who died on this day in 2006. The tree is doing really well. The setting is really fitting overlooked as it is by the splendid main building of the University - in the background of the first photo below.

The tree in the foreground was planted to commemorate the life of Andy 

I was taking the photos at the same time in the morning that Andy died so it was an opportunity for some quiet reflection.

After that I went to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery to meet Friend Who Knows Too Much and her daughter who had, a few hours previously, had confirmation of her BA degree. So the lunch to which I was treated was a most enjoyable occasion. FWKTM and I then spent the afternoon at the Art Gallery and Park chatting and catching up.

Back to Anna’s we had a quiet evening with dinner and a DVD of a modern take on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. 

Thank you one and all. It really was a wonderfully happy, if sometimes reflective, birthday.

A Day in Glasgow

Written: Tuesday 14th June

The Nighthawk went into the Car Hospital today at 0800 so I was left with no transport.  I caught a bus (one of those big things which hold lots of people, stops a lot and swarm all over the City) from the Hospital into the City Centre and then caught another one out to The Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.  Anna came there for lunch and then took me to collect the Nighthawk.

When I got into the City Centre first thing this morning (ie around 9am) I decided to have some breakfast.  On Sauchiehall Street I found Bradford's Tea Room (it's also a bakery) with a very enticing menu.  Like so many of these places in the UK it promised much more than it delivered.  Its bacon roll might have been delicious but as they had no Earl Grey tea and the coffee came in a paper cup I declined their offer and went elsewhere.

I was once a member of the former Scottish Royal Automobile Club (an old-fashioned Residential  Club in Blytheswood Square in the centre of Glasgow).  As it had closed some years ago I wondered what had become of it.  Well it is now The Blytheswood Hotel and a very exclusive place it is too.

 

The SRAC Arms are still on the wall

'Motherless' about which I have blogged before.

Portrait Head by David Gauld about 1895.  Out of the thousands of pictures this one always captures my heart

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From the sublime to the ridiculous!

At 1pm most days there is an organ recital.

What?

When Anna and I went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery to see the Glasgow Boys Exhibition - about which I have not yet blogged much to my shame - we also had coffee in the Gallery's restaurant.  On the table was a curious thing:

What, I wondered, was it?  Well the answer was a

Not the best piece of photography I'm afraid but I think you'll get the drift.  I would have got something a bit clearer from their website but it's down at the moment.   And actually I did wonder what had happened to good old service where a waiter caught your eye or whatever.  There was a bit of conflict in my brain, however, between the me that is the old and the Mr Gadget representing the new.  However it was all a bit academic on the day because I didn't get whatever it was that I'd ordered until after we'd finished our coffee and were just getting ready to leave.  By then I didn't want it and didn't have it.  So perhaps all the gadgets in the world don't necessarily provide good service after all.

A Study in Red

Froanna, the Artist’s Wife, 1937.

Wyndham Lewis painted this picture almost entirely in the colour red.  Red can make us think of warmth and he used tones – variations of the same colour – to create a feeling of intimacy and relaxation.

Still Life

Despite having a few still life pictures on my walls I’ve not really been a lover of the genre nor, to be hones, ever taken much interest in it or bothered to find out much about it.  However Katherine’s blog has had a number of postings on the subject which have made me more aware.  Consequently when I was in the Kelvingrove M & A G I looked  more closely at some of the very many on display.  I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed comparing them and the various techniques and thought behind the composition.  I never cease to be amazed at the changes blogging is making to my life.