Hail Caledonia

We're off to Scotland next week. We'll stay in Glasgow for a few days with my family and then travel to Northumberland for my father in law's 91st birthday. I love to visit Glasgow as I grew up here and it's just such a vibrant, happening city.

Here are a few places I plan to visit:

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum - not to be missed - lots of paintings and sculptures from many periods of history plus natural history exhibits, arms and armour etc., there really is something for everyone here and the building is fantastic.

This is George Square right in the center of Glasgow, it's the main civic square. The photo below shows the City Chambers which is the HQ for Glasgow City Council. We'll definitely be going to George Square as "Jamie's Italian", a Jamie Oliver restaurant has opened in the Old General Post Office built in the square in 1878.

We'll take a walk up to Garnethill to admire the Glasgow School of Art designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh. It's a wonderful building and you can take a tour. My aunt and uncle lived just around the corner from here when I was growing up.

My sister and I will spend some time at Princes Square. It's a very upmarket shopping center and a little out of my normal budget. I may not buy much but it's fun to have a look around. However, I do crave some new perfume so a trip to Jo Malone is a necessity and so is a visit to Cath Kidston for a browse around.



Pollock House is a Georgian Country House right in Glasgow's south side, close to my sister's house. It's quite an understated place and never really busy but very interesting.


I don't think that we'll make it up to the Highlands on this trip but I just had to include this haunting photo of the Isle of Skye which was featured in a National Geographic article last year. A few days in Scotland then off to Northumberland which I have to say is a stunningly beautiful place. I can't wait....

Photo credits

Flag - bigmanhattaninfidel.com

Kelvingrove - Joe Deacon

George Square - concierge.com

Art School - Steve McAdams
Princes Square - edwud.com

Pollock House - igougo.com

Skye - John Richardson

Happy New Year from 1936

I found this card about 20 years ago and have been using it as a bookmark ever since. It's written in French and I just love the writing script. It was written 75 years ago. I wonder if the writer was aware of the world events which would result in war in three years time. I wonder about the writer's life and hope that it was a good, happy, meaningful life.

I thought of my parents this morning, who are long gone from me, and surmised what they would have been doing in 1936, in Scotland. My father would have been a young man in a Highland fishing village running "the shop" a busy, general merchandise store. And my mother, whose first langauge was Gaelic, would have been a student in Edinburgh not long arrived to that beautiful city from the Hedbridean Island of South Uist.

Here's what I wish for all of us in 2011 - Peace - Joy - Hope - Prosperity - and most of all -Happiness

Edwin Morgan's Trio A Christmas Poem

This black and white photo of Buchanan Street, Glasgow was taken on December 3rd this year by Andrew Kelly. I love this life affirming poem set in Buchanan Street, written by Edwin Morgan who died this year. When I read this poem it always takes me back to being a teenager in Glasgow. Bittersweet memories.

Coming up Buchanan Street, quickly, on a sharp winter evening

a young man and two girls, under the Christmas lights -

The young man carries a new guitar in his arms,

the girl on the inside carries a very young baby,

and the girl on the outside carries a chihuahua.

And the three of them are laughing, their breathe rises

in a cloud of happiness, and as they pass

the boy says, "Wait till he sees this but!"

The chihuahua has a tiny Royal Stewart tartan coat like a teapot-

holder,

the baby in its white shawl is all bright eyes and mouth like

favours in a fresh sweet cake,

the guitar swells out under its milky plastic cover, tied at the neck

with silver tinsel tape and a brisk sprig of mistletoe.

Orphean sprig! Melting Baby! Warm chihuahua!

The vale of tears is powerless before you.

Whether Christ is born, or is not born, you

put paid to fate, it abdicates

under the Christmas lights.

Monsters of the year

go blank, are scattered back,

can't bear this march of three.

And the three have passed, vanished in the crowd

(yet not vanished, for in their arms they wind

the life of men and beasts, and music,

laughter ringing them round like a guard)

at the end of this winter's day