Little She Bear (LSB) and I set off (left & middle in the photo above) from beside our wee sea loch to drive to the train station at the end of our proposed walk in order to leave the car there for coming home. We discovered that trains travelling west out of Glasgow were “off” for the weekend. We decided to drive right to where we had arranged to meet Lanarkshire Gran (LG). Finding a car park that wasn’t already full or cordoned off was the next challenge. We got to the open space beside the SEC Armadillo and Hydro where we were meeting LG, who was travelling from south of the city, and realised that Something was happening. Crowds of people, many dressed up in all sorts of fancy dress costumes were queueing. Here is a photo of a small section of the queue ranging in front of the SEC Hydro building.
Along the River Kelvin we saw the Glasgow motto “Let Glasgow flourish” on bridges, along with one saying “Je maintiendrai” which, Wiki tells me, is the motto of the royal family of The Netherlands. Not sure what that’s doing on a Scottish bridge but, as the saying goes… whatever! And, after all, one does want a bridge to ‘maintain’ whatever’s on it.
Along the way we found a well-loaded apple tree. LSB picked three and we ate them as we walked along. They were good.
Still beside the river, we came across the site of an old flint mill.
At Maryhill Locks on the canal we found three volunteers sprucing up the lock gate bars with new paint. One of them took the photo of we three. LB told us that as a child she had sometimes sat astride the lock gate bars while the gates were being opened or closed! A little way along the canal LB recognised the place where her grandma used to live and went to take a couple of photos for old time’s sake.
At Clydebank we caught a “rail replacement bus” back to Partick and walked the short distance back to SEC. And so passed another pleasant Three Grans Day.
Monkeyflower leaves (right) are appearing in quite a few new places in the Boggy Brae garden. Here are some near Hart’s-tongue fern. The two liverworts to the left of the monkeyflower leaves are Crescent-cup Liverwort (Lunularia cruciata) and Endive Pellia (Pellia endiviifolia). All these are growing on a damp retaining wall.
Waiting for a bus this morning, I noticed how the green stem of this rosebay willowherb caught the light. It seemed more than usual. Then I found out why. It was flat and quite wide compared with the usual round stems.
We had some sunshine today so I got my scythe out and swished at long grass around this spiraea bush and part of the yarrow patch. It was a wrist test as well as a grass cutting exercise. There was none of the jarring that I expected, which was a nice surprise, and now, several hours later, my wrist is still fine. Phew! I won’t overdo the scything though.
I also spotted an apple—an actual apple—on the old apple tree. It was all of about one and a half inches in diameter and very zingy to taste. I shared it with Toad 🍏 It had fallen from its growing place and lodged itself in a convenient forky bit.
Last year the old apple tree produced two apples. This year one, at least one that I saw. Jays do come and investigate the tree each year and eat any they find. Our visiting sheep chomped some of the lower branches this year too, which is fine. I’ll need to do some pruning myself.
At first light this morning I noticed that the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) was flowering. Between showers of rain, often heavy, I dashed out to get a recording shot.
