Monday 15 November 2010

Sunday 14th. November

Left early to get to Millport in time for the Remembrance Day church service.  As we arrived in Largs with time for a coffee, a bus drew up and an entire pipe band emerged in full dress, and beat us to the cafe.  They then came with us onto the ferry, joined by a group of uniformed Air Cadets.   Two sat near us - neat and precise, grey uniforms, short red hair, incredibly young. Just like the younsters dying in Afganistan - brings it home. We made it to church in time, even after climbing the near-vertical (or that's how it feels) Churchill Street.  A lovely, crisp, cold, sunny Scottish day.  The trees leafless after the storm, gaunt arms against the brilliant sky reflected in a mirror sea.  The church was full, hubub of chatter and movement, silenced as the flags appeared. A lone piper as the two minutes silence started, loud at first, then fading and finally dissolving into the cries of the gulls. 

Got back to Glasgow in the dark.  Bincy had a drink with us and talked excitedly about India and all the things she has planned for us while we are there.  She graduates on 3rd. December, having got excellent results.  Sadly, because of flight times, we will have to fly to the US that morning, so won't be there.  I suppose you can't acheive everything you want to, but I feel sad about this one.

Saturday 13 November 2010

Saturday 13th. The Housewarming (Lennoxtown, Scotland)

Catriona's house warming party.  A lovely, busy day, full of delicious food, fun, family, friends, neighbours.  Lots of laughs.  So satisfying to see Catriona, Calum and Molly happy in their warm, cosy home.  It's a pretty little cottage, over a hundred years old, rich with character and history.  The Campsie Fells tower just to the north of it, massive crags and slopes which change colour with the seasons and the weather.  Green and yellow grass, rust red bracken, purple heather. Mists that drift, making them mysterious; golden sunsets softening them into great gentle pillows.  It's a secure and welcoming nest, and as a parent, just the place I want to see my daughter and her family flourish.

Friday 12 November 2010

Tuesday to Friday - back to life in the slow lane -??



Tuesday is Molly's day.  Shining red curls, striding purposefully about in her little purple shoes.  The current phase is 'hiding'.  If someone is not withing sight, then they must be hiding.  'Grandpa hiding?', 'Mummy hiding?', Daddy hiding?' 'Dolly hiding!' - this last usually because she has crammed beloved little rag dolly into any space she can find.  The favourite today was under the high chair. 

Tuesday evening was unusual.  I'd been asked to speak at a conference in Alloa - something I haven't done for a while - and they booked a B&B.  I arrived at about 10pm, after getting hopelessly lost in the vast unknown wastes of Alloa.  At last I came to a large metal gate, which silently opened when I pressed a button.  The owner then led me into the most fantastic house I have ever seen - beautiful elegant stairs, with even a suit of armour on the landing, a huge bedroom with a chandelier, immense soft bed, period furniture glowing with polish, and a massive bay window looking out right over the valley towards Stirling.

Wednesday - Breakfast was served at a huge oak(?) table, with carved wooden chair, upholstered in red velvet with a coat of arms.  I felt like the Lady of the Manor!!  Then off to the conference.  I enjoy public speaking - always have - but recently I get much less chance to do any, so this was a fun day, and a chance to catch up with old acquaintances.  The back through the darkening landscape to Millport.

Overnight a storm blew up - banging on the windows, hurling rain onto the roof like machine guns bullets.

Thursday - apples everywhere, brought down by the storm, which had temporarily subsided.  A wrecked rowing boat, seaweed on the beaches almost knee deep.  A leak in our roof and both of our shop windows. And then 'The Hairy Bikers Cook Off' - broadcast of the cookery competition we (Donald, Catriona and I) entered on BBC2 - what a laugh, what an experience, and amazing to see yourself on TV for 45 minutes!


Then the storm returned with renewed ferocity as it got dark, almost blowing us away as we went up the church path to the Fun Club.

Friday -  a day to wrestle with the Income Tax - oh what a joy.

Monday 8 November 2010

Monday November 8th. 2010 Buns and short lives

Goodbye to our very comfortable B&B, packed and ready, off down the road and into town.  Wandering past tiny bow fronted shop windows – a sweetie shop, brilliant poster paint coloured sweets round as marbles; a petite jewellers, crammed with silver brooches, necklaces, rings, all looking as if elegant Georgian ladies had worn them only yesterday.  

A trip to the museum at Sally Lunns, where the 500+ year old kitchen is still to be seen, dark musty stone and ancient wooden implements – even stalactites and stalagmites.  Then to the Abbey again, this time to study the marble epitaphs, surprisingly lengthy and detailed.  Suddenly I am acquainted with the young wife, whose ‘early demise is deplored by her affectionate husband and child’ and the ‘apothecary, laid here after a long and wearisome illness, borne with the utmost Christian patience, whose virtue and diligence was known to all’.  Then back to Sally Lunns for lunch, this time up a set of creaking cramped stairs past ancient black beams, to the Jane Austen Room, where a floor and window tilted and twisted by the centuries fascinate us as we eat.  And then it’s home, via trains that come on time, and rush now through the blackness spiked with occasional orange lights.  And at last up the stairs to Curle Street, to laugh and chat with Bincy and Fiona.

Sunday 7 November 2010

Sunday 7th. November - Church and The Assembly Rooms

Sun shone today and my trousers had dried out, so we were off to a good start.  We walked along the path beside the Avon to get into town - ducks, joggers, cyclists, trailing willows, a cosy looking canal boat with smoke drifting up from its chimney, gold and red autumn leaves.  Church was at Bath City Church.  Wow.  A beautiful and immense Art Deco cinema.  About 1,000 plus people there, at a guess.  Celebration of their international members - about 25 countries world wide, carrying flags, and assured by the Pastor, a cheerful and sincere lady of about 40 - that they were so welcome, so loved in that family of believers.  Lively singing, fantastic AV and stories of God's goodness told by lots of them - inspiration to remember.  After that, a Cornish pastie and off to the Assembly Rooms - more chandeliers and Georgian elegance.  Then even more in the Georgian House Museum in Royal Crescent.  Looking out over the crescent from the window, it looked as if Aliens had landed, as a bulbous red dome of colossal proportions appeared over the rooftops, followed by two more.  Hot air balloons, drifting scarily near the trees.  And at last, our Twilight session back at the Thermae Bath Spa.  As we drifted about in the warm steaming waters in the roof top pool, darkness gently fell, stars appeared, the tower of the Abbey floated floodlit in the night sky, and then those bells we had climbed among yesterday began to peal out again and again, and fireworks lit up glittering in the distance.  And tomorrow we go home, this first part of the adventure over.

Saturday 6th. November Roman Baths and Blithe Spirit


It has to be said, being a tourist is extremely hard work.  We started with the Roman Baths - green water, steaming and bubbling mysteriously, fantastic ancient drains and plumbing, still working (would that a Roman had fitted the plumbing in the flat we rent out in Glasgow....), amazing recontructions that made you think a Roman might appear any moment, and then finding a girl, dressed Roman style, who told us she was slave working for her freedom.  And then to the Pump Room.  Bill 'took the waters' but I declined.  Supping sulphur is not to my taste. But we did have soup and a bun in the midst of all the Georgian elegance, which seemed to grit its teeth at the hoi polloi all around with their elbows on the table and talking casually to people to whom they had not been formally introduced.  But we knew fine well that had it been 200 years ago, when Jane Austen was there, we would never have been allowed near the place.  Then on another bus tour - beautiful but very cold.  The Abbey is huge, ancient and impressive, so we climbed the tower to see the bells.  I can see why the Hunchback of Notre Dame went deaf living amongst these immense metal monsters.  A rush off to the Jane Austen museum and then a trip to the little Theatre Royal - two seats in the second back row of the highest circle - to see 'Blithe Spirit' by Noel Coward.  We walked home in the rain, exhausted but much better informed about Bath.

Friday 5 November 2010

4.10.2011 Bath

Thursday 4th. - up early in the wet and glistening dark to catch the first ferry, drive to Glasgow, then a bus crammed with damp Glasgwegians hurrying to work.  Central Station, commuters all scurry and hurry while we have coffee and Danish pastries.  Onto the train, gliding through soaked fields, coffee coloured rivers frothing and boiling over their banks.  Bath at 4, taxi to B&B.  A lovely room, a friendly but somewhat fearsome Polish landlady.  Then into Bath town centre, to get a meal in Sally Lunn's, oldest house in Bath.  Huge buns soaked with garlic butter, juicy chicken and lamb, a cosy atmosphere.

Friday 5th. - off to the Thermae Spa, for the first of two trips - a generous birthday present from Catriona.  An amazing place - shiny modernism housed in Georgian elegance.  The rooftop pool steams beside the spires; the steamrooms, round glass modules scented with lavender, frankinscense, eucalyptus and mint, and a waterfall shower in the middle of the floor; the Minerva pool, where we drifted round the gentle river and chatted amongst the bubbles; then hot chocolate and cake and another trip to the rooftop pool.  Later, round the town in the open top bus, and tea and clotted cream scones and treacle cake in a tiny cafe on Pulteney Bridge, which looks as if it has lost its way and really ought to be in Italy.  Then in the growing dusk, a look in the tiny glittering shops along the bridge and a walk along the river path, past floodlit Bath and trailing willow trees.  And last of all a Nepalese meal in Yak Yeti Yak.

Thursday 4 November 2010

Today it begins!

This is the first page of the story of a year of travel - at least that's the idea.

It begins with the fact that, at last - and sadly - we've given up the role of island shop keepers.  Long summers of brightly coloured buckets and spades grasped by eager, sandy little hands, myriads of greetings cards in shiny wrappers glistening against the wall, multicoloured bouncy balls that always seemed to escape across the floor, all as the sun threw diamonds across the sea and the Waverley beat her elegant path to the pier.  Or winters, when winds so violent caused our plate glass shop window to creak ominously and salt spray coated it with crystals.  Christmas, when the Christmas tree went up across the road on the crazy golf, and tinsel sparkled and our little nativity scene told its story.

Time to move on.  Time to see the world.  So trips are planned to USA, New Zealand, Australia, India and France.  But today is the first trip, and it's to Bath!