Canal Wildlife: Damsel Flies

Along the bank of the canal was so much wildlife that I would have taken for granted but for my years of wandering with CJ. There were mayflies galore and I managed to photograph this couple. Unfortunately they were a couple of metres away and over the water and I had to rely on the camera's telephoto capabilities with some loss of sharp detail. However I was not too displeased. More wildlife will follow when I can next blog.

A Canal Walk

Today has been a very hot - by Glasgow standards - day with temperatures just below 30 deg C (86 deg F) and very high humidity. I love the heat but not when it's humid and not when I'm not dressed appropriately. Anyway this morning Anna and I went for a walk along the Forth and Clyde Canal not far from Bishopbriggs. We started at The Stables, a pub, on the A803 Kirkintilloch Road where it crosses the Canal, where we had coffee. The weather was very bright and quite sunny although the photos don't seem to reflect that:

The Future's Not Ours To See

As so often happens this posting is inspired by a posting by someone else. In this case L'Archiduchesse again in her posting Confessions in which appears the following intriguing paragraph:

"If somewhat presumptuously, I took the liberty to wonder what would have happened had I not, in a moment I both deeply regret and cherish beyond measure, made a choice last August twenty-fourth and penned a missive that ought not to have been yet had a thousand reasons to be so."

I remembered that when I was at Prep School (US translation: Junior School?) the Headmistress (in the days before Head Teachers) wrote the following in my autograph book:

We cannot foresee what is going to happen.
How then can we plan what we're going to do
Most of us would, I think, act very differently if only tomorrow's screen we could peer through.
But life's vision is short
And we can't see its answer.
And things come our way
Which we're eager to take.
And so we snatch hungrily at its brief pleasures,
And worthwhile and lasting things sadly forsake.

J Twomey Ryebank 1954

I have no idea whether that was original or a quotation and have never bothered to find out. To me it has, for the last 55 years, been a concept ingrained in my consciousness.

I have more recently found it quite strange that I have held this up as the essence of wisdom whilst ever since I was 5 I have thought that Miss Twomey was logically challenged after she stressed in one lesson that pride was one of the seven deadly sins and then in the next told us that we should have pride in our work. When I queried this (which, as a five year old, seemed to me to be completely incomprehensible) I was told off for being insolent (or whatever it was I was supposed to have been).

In the meantime all I can say to L'Archiduchesse is 'You'll just never know!' and if you have achieved happiness, however brief, before 21 you are doing well above average.

(I wonder how many challenges that will provoke).

Street Theatre

Most cities, in the UK at least, these days seem to have their fair share of artists, musicians, sellers of Big Issue and beggars with the inevitable sad looking dog. In York I have seen a troupe of fire jugglers and eaters. Glasgow is no exception although I have to say that I have seen very few beggars especially compared with Edinburgh where, when I was last there, Princes Street had a beggar every few metres. It was one of the most distressing things about the City. My conscience says that I, with relatively plenty, should help those with little or nothing. But the cynic in me says that fueling a drug habit (and a simple look at the eyes tells one that many of them were stoned out of their minds) is not a good use of my money (or theirs for that matter). But, as usual, I digress. Glasgow has lots of musicians and plenty of street theatre. I have seen many human statues but this one in Buchanan Street was, I though, particularly good.