Bussing it around Glasgow – 16 July 2022

We got the bus in to Glasgow and went all cultural.

Like I said, we got the bus in to Glasgow and then another bus out to the West End. We had a walk round the paintings in Kelvingrove Art Galleries. Found some of the Glasgow Boys paintings. Neither of us had realised that there were around twenty Glasgow Boys. Hornel, Peploe and Fergusson were the one’s that I’d heard of, but few others of the twenty were familiar names. Scamp wasn’t all that interested in hearing the organ recital today, so instead we went for lunch in the restaurant at Kelvingrove which was Beer Battered Haddock and Chips with a glass of wine each since neither of us was driving. It was really good, and even better, it was in the conservatory.

After lunch, we walked through the park and up to Kelvinbridge where a toy car became PoD. Over the bridge we walked on to the Botanic Gardens which were really busy. On the way we bumped into Dr Barbara who initially diagnosed Scamp’s malignant mole. Long time since we’ve seen her. I’m not sure she knew exactly who we were, but she knew that she knew us. Ships in the night.

We usually go round the Kibble palace at the Botanic Gardens, but today we walked through the bigger glass houses instead. Each area inside was set out for a different region, from temperate to steamy jungle with desert heat in between. Lots to photograph.

From there we walked down Gt Western Road and caught a bus that took us to the bus station. We waited there in vain for a fast bus to take us to Condorrat. It never came. Instead we got the X3 slow bus that takes 50 minutes to go fifteen or so miles. Worse than that, instead of using my bus pass, I plonked my credit card on the pad and had to pay a fiver or thereabouts for the privilege. I won’t do that again!

Back home, the day that had started cloudy and overcast but had promised a bit of blue skies and sunshine when we were walking round the West End, had returned to the dull clouds we had started out with. A bit of a disappointing end to a good day.

Tonight we watched The Duke. An entertaining film with Jim Broadbent as a socialist trying to get free TV licenses for OAPs. Based on a true story, it was so much better than the rest of the rubbish the BBC were offering. It cost us about a fiver, probably the same as my bus ticket from Glasgow, and probably lasted almost as long as that journey!

No plans for tomorrow. It depends on the weather, as usual.